Being Fangirls

From some moment, people started to have a negative stereotype about the fangirls community. Like other stereotypes, stereotypes about fangirls are narrow and connotational. According to Webster Dictionary, a fangirl is defined as “a girl or woman who is an extremely or overly enthusiastic fan of someone or something”. Someone or something can be TV shows, movies and celebrities, and the most common one is boybands. People frequently use words like “desperate, obsessive, and shallow” to describe fangirls, stereotyping them all as crazy women who are willing to do everything for their idols

I think the stereotype of fangirls is sexism. I am a big fan of K-pop, and K-pop fans have been criticized as one of the craziest fan community. If you ask me, do I buy many albums of my idols? Yes, I do. Do I spend money to watch their concerts and scream for them? Yes, I do. However, I don’t feel wrong about the things I have done. We buy albums just like boys buy sneakers, and we go to concerts just like boys go to the sports game, but boy didn’t be viewed negatively by society. The gender belief that women are less able to control their feelings is so unfair, because I have seen many male football fans crying when the teams they support win the games.

Also, fangirls are not all crazy female teenagers who just think about their idols and have bad performances at schools. I knew many girls who are fans of Korean boybands like me, and many of them are top students in their schools. Being fans of Korean boybands actually helps them develop useful skills and hobbies, such as learning dancing and using photoshop. For me, being a fangirl helped me determine my dream. As I mentioned, I have seen many concerts of my idols, and those experiences made me determined that I want to be a tour manager, which can present joyful concerts to fans like me. Being fangirls doesn’t mean that we make our lives all about our idols, instead, being fangirls makes our life more colorful and meaningful.

I always believe that being a fangirl is an amazing experience. When I am stressed out and depressed, I would watch some videos about my idols, and watching them shining on stages makes me energetic again. I really don’t want the negative stereotypes destroyed my joy of being fangirls, and I want to prove that fangirls are more than crazy female teenagers.