The FanGirl Phenomenon

FanGirl: (n) Typically pre-teen but in some cases can be older. Found at pop concerts, loitering around stage doors and clogging up band message boards. Emit high pitched noises such as squeaks, shrieks and cries of “OHMYGODILOVEYOUMARRYMEEEEE!!” Highly annoying.

I am suitably ashamed to admit that when attending certain band’s gigs, I tend to be unrecognizable from the type of person described above. Outside of a gig situation I refrain from posting on message boards and papering my bedroom with the faces of my favourite band members, but if my conduct at pop band McFly’s concert last Saturday (19.03.11) is anything to go by, when in the vicinity of certain celebrities I have a tendency to shriek, squeak and all the rest. However after encountering other (female) members of the audience, I realised that I am nowhere near as bad as I could be.

Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones - Photo Courtesy of Louise

After the show on Saturday (which was amazing by the way) a girl in a plastic tiara was shouting over the barrier to the roadies clearing up the stage, trying to get one of them to throw her one of the plectrums attached to the microphone stand that guitarist and lead singer Danny Jones had used. I should mention at this point, that these were unused plectrums, untouched by anyone but the roadies that put them there at the beginning of the show. One of the roadies threw one out to her, but it sailed over her head and landed in the row in front of me, two rows behind her. Suddenly she was shrieking for her friends to grab it, lest someone else get it before her. In the nicest way possible I looked at her and saw she wasn’t going to be able to easily lean or climb over the chairs to get to it herself, so I leaned over and picked it off the floor for her. I straightened up see a look of sheer desperation in her eyes… she thought that I’d keep it for myself. As it was I handed it to her with a smile, and she gushed that I was “way too nice for a McFly concert”. I don’t know about the McFly boys, but if I was a musician I would be pretty disappointed to discover that my fan base was inherently mean.

Sadly this is not the first time I have witnessed desperation for something a band member has thrown off stage. Lead singer of Scouting for Girls Roy Stride threw a towel offstage at one concert, and fifteen minutes after they had left the stage two girls were still stubbornly gripping onto it, refusing to sacrifice it to the other. I felt pretty sorry for the one of the girl’s boyfriend, stood behind her saying “please let go so we can go home…”. Again I have to confess to getting involved in this kind of thing, only I politely asked a roadie if he could give me the set list taped to the stage. I doubt I’d have fought tooth and nail with some other girl for it; I just wanted a souvenir to stick on my wall.

Set list from Scouting For Girls 2010 Tour

These are the kind of girls that profess to be “[insert band/artist name]’s Biggest Fan”. And I have to question if this level of obsession really counts as fandom. The main attraction for these kinds of FanGirls seems to be predominantly aesthetic, placing much more emphasis on how attractive the band is as opposed to their ability to play a good show. So it was interesting at this gig to meet a different kind of fan. Before my friends and I even took our seats on Saturday (three rows from the front, for anyone who’s interested…), we met up with some of Louise’s friends also attending the concert. One girl did not at first appear to be a rabid fan, especially compared to some of the other girls walking past decked out in McFly’s last tour t-shirt and with “<3 Dougie/Tom/Harry/Danny” scrawled on their faces. But suddenly she mentioned that “the support acts only do about three songs each”. How did she know this? She’d been to see the show in Sheffield the night before. This seemed like dedication, until she said that she would also be seeing the show in Glasgow, Birmingham, London and Nottingham. That’s six tour dates, on one tour. Now I’m a big fan of McFly, but I’m pretty sure I couldn’t handle (much less afford) the exact same show and set list six times over, especially in a short space of time.

Is this a true fan? Or the shrieking, near-sobbing girls fighting over objects the band may or may not have touched?

The Best Years of Your Life(?)

I’ve often heard people refer to your teenage years as “the best years of your life”. What is interesting to notice is that, none of the people claiming this are teenagers themselves. Which is why it was always refreshing when my mother would tell me that these people are blatant liars who clearly do not remember their own adolescence, but not to worry. The best years of my life would arrive shortly after. And I have to say that, as always, she was right.

Why anyone would consider the ages of 12-16 to be the best years of your life is honestly beyond me. While I have no insight into the trials and tribulations that teenage boys go through, I can safely say that the hormonal rollercoaster girls go through over these years are not the best of anything. These are the awkward year, the years when you start to notice boys but they won’t notice you, the years when the rules of friendship change and you forget which way is up. A selection of us gets lucky in some areas, and find themselves in the holy grail of high school cliques, the “popular kids”. I myself moved schools a lot, and found myself drifting from “unpopular newbie” to “barely registered on the social radar”. I found myself without an invite to parties that “everyone” was invited to. At one school it reached the point where my ‘friends’ would acknowledge me when I had a bag of crisps in my hand and run away when I was mid-sentence to talk to some boy. Needless to say that this was the school where I spent most of my lunch hour in the library. I finally landed a small friendship group that was neither popular nor unpopular, though it took until year ten for this to happen. I was only able to bask in its warmth for a year or two, but nevertheless I got there in the end.

Beginning high school, clearly destined for the popular crowd

The college years, ages 16-18, offered me another cosy niche between popular and unpopular, though at college these categories were much less defined. However with some of the beautiful, confident people there was still the sense that I just wasn’t good enough for them. I went two years in the same English class as some people with them only saying a handful of words to me, mostly “is the door unlocked?” when stood outside a classroom waiting to go in. Granted I never really made a huge effort to talk to them, but only because of the leftover high school paranoia that they would look at me like I had just crawled from under a rock. Whilst these years were fun, and I of course had my close bunch of friends who I wouldn’t (and still wouldn’t) change for the world, I still wouldn’t label them as the best years of my life.

No, these years were, unbeknownst to be, just about to start in the form of my university years. I’m not sure what exactly I had been expecting social group wise, but it wasn’t this. I still find it crazy at the range of people I’m friends with, the number of people that are lovely to me without question. If I’m loving university (and I most definitely am) it is largely due to the people here, and the way I feel accepted by pretty much everyone. There’s no such thing as “popular” or “unpopular”, and those who would have belonged to either set a few years ago seem completely unaware now. They don’t have to be, everyone just gets on and judges people by their personality not social group. I’m not sure what the ‘real world’ is going to be like, but whilst I’m living in this university bubble I’m loving the way people are judged on what they should be judged on.

There’s also the amazing sense of freedom that comes with living alone and being old enough to be treated like an adult. I was never comfortable paying “adult” fares for everything from the bus to the zoo whilst still being treated like a child. I’m very aware that I’m lucky to still be young and without too many responsibilities, whilst being old enough to make my own decisions.

Freedom... to choose fish fingers and custard over fruit and vegetables

My second term of my first year of university is ending in a few weeks, and after two terms I already know that these years, after the awkwardness of adolescence and without the restrictions of high school cliques, will be the best and most fun ones of my life.