The Fangirl Generation

It has been brought to my attention, more often than I care to believe, that there is now a whole new level to "fandom." Fangirls. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, basically it means girls who are overly obsessed with a celebrity figure such as a popstar.


Now call me old fashioned but it really bugs me. When I'm on Twitter, there is not a day goes by where I don't see something trending that is something completely pointless about some singer or boyband. It's actually embarrassing. The main "idols" seem to be Justin Bieber, One Direction and JLS. And Jedward but I'm not even going to bother going into that one. So these "fangirls" trend things like "JUSTIN IS GOD" or "1DFAMILYRTHEBEST" or similarly stupid things like that. And it just drives me mad. Do these girls have no life whatsoever? Have they neglected basic grammar skills? I understand that when you like a singer, actor or whatever, you do talk about them a bit. We all have our idols. But I mean, come on. Justin Bieber? Really? He's some kid that gets paid an insane amount of money to sing whilst girls throw themselves at him and cry hysterically at merely being in the same room as him. He isn't anything special. So he can sing, and what? So can a lot of other people. He put a video on YouTube and was spotted by a celebrity. He hardly worked his arse off to get into the industry, he doesn't write his own songs. He just got lucky. He is not God.


It even makes me a little bit sad that THESE are the people that girls feel are worth worshipping, who are their role models and who they look up to. Whatever happened to your idol being someone inspirational, with immense talent who has worked extremely hard to get to where they are rather than having been on a talent show? As you know, my inspiration is J.K. Rowling. She was a single parent, raising her young baby whilst working, struggling financially and spending any spare time writing. She was rejected by around 12 publishers before she had her first book published. It took her years to write it and even more time to get someone to print it. She then carried on writing for a total of 17 years until her books were finally complete. That is dedication and someone worthy of being a role model and someone who deserves their fame. Not to mention all the other countless inspirational people from Martin Luther King to Stephen Hawking. People that actually made a difference to the world through intelligence, bravery, being strong-willed and hard-working. Not some 16 year olds who got lucky.


Yes, they might have the talent. We all have talents. And no doubt these popstars work hard doing albums and concerts. But they are NOT inspirational. I would be absolutely devastated if my daughter grew up having some teeny bopper as the person she looks up to. That she won't even know names like Hemmingway or Curie because she's too busy sat in her room making a Justin Bieber collage and reading teen pop magazines. It wouldn't bother me as much if the people these girls obsessed over were popstars who have worked their way up, who've had it tough and found it hard to break into the music industry. But the main offenders haven't. Justin Bieber was spotted on YouTube by chance, One Direction were a bunch of failed solo singers who were thrown together as a band on X Factor and got lucky, as with JLS who were also on X Factor. None of these people worked hard to get themselves out there. I just hope that one day, when those girls have to emerge from their poster-filled rooms into the real world they realise that actually, success isn't handed to you on a plate and that they can fill up their airheads with actual knowledge and awareness of people worth idolising.


Rant over.