With packed-out concerts happening across the globe as fans race to see Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Boygenius and more, the emotional connections and parasocial relationships that bind fans and faves are in full view. In 2023, how do young women and nonbinary people devote themselves unconditionally to their chosen icon (or icons) in the making? We know that fans have always shaped pop culture, it's time they got their moment in the spotlight.
There are several ways to describe the outsize, almost alien reaction that stans experience when seeing their idol in person. Way back when it was attached to specific figures, most famously with Beatlemania; nowadays it is concisely memed as "screaming crying throwing up." The physical and …
In the late 1990s, my mother received a phone call from a daytime talk show that wanted to do a segment on teenage girl fans. The theme? Obsession. My 13-year-old sister, who had recently won a magazine competition as Leonardo DiCaprio’s number one fan, was crushed to learn that my mother had …
Earlier this year my inner child was rocked to the core when I found out that RBD — the Mexican band formed out of the telenovela Rebelde — was going back on tour after more than a decade. As I fought the Ticketmaster wars to get seats, all I could think was, What should I wear? Back in 2006, when I …
When I was 16 years old I was lucky enough to see Taylor Swift live for the first time. My sister and I pooled all our resources — birthday card cash, babysitting tips, pocket money — to splurge on Speak Now tour tickets at my closest venue, London’s O2 Arena in the UK. Along with our mom (our …
I grew up in Thousand Oaks, California. The palm trees were tall, Malibu was a 40-minute drive down the 101 freeway, and the population was less than 2% Black. Meanwhile, I was 100% Black. I stifled my Blackness with keratin treatments that straightened my afro, frilly clothing that cloaked my …
"If all of your favorite characters, all the ones you identify with and find comfort in, are men…you should probably question your gender," was a sentiment I heard over and over again on TikTok. It was May 2021, I had just moved to Brooklyn, and the algorithm was making it impossible to ignore my …
