Hiya!

If I said ‘what is a band fangirl?’, you would almost certainly think of someone who has loads of band merch and posters all over their walls, lives for concerts and shows and interviews, always listens to their music, loves the band, always wants to show you a cute photo of them or tell you about something funny they did?

Right?

Yeah. That’s what a band fangirl is. I’m not here to say ‘don’t stereotype’ because a fangirl is a stereotype and it’s not anything to be ashamed of.

What I’m here to say is no one should ever be put down for that – what’s wrong with being a fangirl? What harm is she causing? Or he for that matter? Being a fan doesn’t cause anyone any harm and I don’t understand why there’s such a negative association around it.

People who are that emotionally invested in music or the band as people, often need something to be emotionally invested in that doesn’t hurt – something that helps them escape from their ‘real world’ for just a little bit. Telling them that a band ‘aren’t real’ and will ‘never know who you are’ and that ‘you should live in the real world’ is just going to make them want to escape more.

On many occasions I’ve had people tell me that the music I like is shit (even though I normally have at least one band in common with someone) and I vividly remember at New Years one of my friends listing a bunch of bands I liked and telling me each of them was shit. I had to sadly nod along and tell him every time that it was okay that he didn’t like them but I did and that’s wrong.

Not liking a band and a band actually being untalented are so, so far apart and there’s so many people that will just put someone’s favourite band down just because they don’t like them. It actually hurts peoples feelings – when that band are something a person can rely on and listen to when they don’t feel they can rely on or talk to someone else, being told that ‘they’re shit’ is never going to make that person feel better.

Music is so important to so many people – it’s a constant and whilst a band might evolve and grow, they still have their older music that stays the same.

Never put someone down because they love music or appear ‘obsessed’ with a band. Never tell anyone they like shit bands or have shit taste in music. Never tell them they shouldn’t have this relationship with music, because they might not have that kind of passionate relationship with anyone in ‘real life’.

Thanks for reading, please share because I think this is important,

Sophie xx



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