“Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music - short for popular, right? - have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy?” he asked. A young teenager can get away with obsessing over a boy band, but it’s a little weird when an 18-year-old does it.īut then, in 2017, just prior to the release of his debut solo album, Harry Styles did an interview with Rolling Stone. The only difference was that I didn’t publicly endorse my passion.Īs a full-fledged young adult, I felt like I had to start thinking about “adult” stuff, like The Eagles and taxes. But I didn’t actually become less of a fan. I deleted my Tumblr, changed my Twitter username and took down my Facebook cover photo of the band. And the less-personal decision to like One Direction was crucial in my experimentation.īut as I got older, I started to feel more insecure about my fandom. I was very unconfidently experimenting with stuff like wearing jean shorts instead of my regular MSI recreational soccer shorts and with wearing my hair down instead of in an (objectively ugly) low ponytail. But as I transitioned into teenhood, I was unconsciously starting to reject the internalized misogyny that made me believe I had to be “ not like the other girls. Just a year prior, I had been the kind of girl to hate on stuff seen as “girly” I spent 2010 writing parody lyrics to “Baby” that mocked Justin Bieber and his fans.
But at the time, it was a big deal for me. I’m also aware it sounds kind of silly to call it brave - there are obviously a lot of braver things to do than like a boy band. I’m not going to pretend that’s why I originally became a fan: They were funny, cute boys singing catchy pop songs with a massive backlog of content I could watch and rewatch. In that vein, to be unabashedly a fan of a band so many people hated was kind of brave of me and other young girls. But all these critiques were really just thinly veiled disdain for the opinions of teenage girls. They were called, among other things: a corporate machine manufactured by Simon Cowell inauthentic and artificial successful only because they were attractive. One Direction, the 2013 winner of Worst Band, weathered its fair share of contempt. But in 2016, after hipster guys and music critics decided they were cool, they topped NME’s Albums Of The Year list.
The 1975 won it in 2014, back when their popularity was fueled by teen girls. 5 Seconds of Summer won it three years in a row. ”Īnd though those 14- and 15-year-old girls were responsible for $161 million in record sales, it wasn’t until men like Bob Dylan identified the band’s staying power past “ teeny-boppers ” - and until the band started writing music boys felt they could sit around and talk about - that The Beatles became the cultural institution they are today.Īnd look at New Musical Express’ “Worst Band” awards: Many of the recipients are bands that teenage girls love. Critics called The Beatles “unbelievably horrible,” “appallingly unmusical” and “ repulsive ,” and they called the screaming girls that spearheaded American Beatlemania a “ bottomless chasm of vacuity. Take, for example, The Beatles: When the band came to the U.S., it was young people, especially girls, going crazy for them. It’s a well-documented phenomenon: People don’t really respect stuff that teen girls like. But as we rapidly approach the 10-year anniversary of the band’s formation, I’ve been thinking about how cool it was that 12-year-old me was so open about my love for One Direction, despite the widespread ridicule the band - and its teenage girl fanbase - endured. Admitting that now is kind of embarrassing.
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