By Ayanna Smith 
Art by Beks

Do you remember the date One Direction started their hiatus? Or the last time the five of them were seen together? 

Me either. But for thousands (millions actually feels more accurate) they could tell you those exact dates and more obscure facts without a moment of hesitation. And I’ll tell you a secret. I’ve never understood it. At least, I didn’t understand it until I found myself under the spell of a queer pop band.

When One Direction announced their hiatus, I remember the shock on my friends’ faces who dubbed themselves as Directioners. Personally, I was too deep in a Grey’s Anatomy binge to recognize that lives were being ruined in front of my face. But for some of my closest Directioner friends, their worlds were collapsing around them, and I was left to comfort their ailing hearts, as I tried to grasp how they could love a band so much that its end would spark deep despair. 

I never understood the power these boy bands held over my friends. I’m a pop girlie at my core, so I always got the appeal of the music, but when my peers obsessed over boy band fanfics, stalked paparazzi pictures for clues that confirmed recent rumors, and proudly proclaimed themselves as “Harry” or “Niall” girls, I just couldn’t bring myself to care.

I thought “fangirl” in the traditional sense wasn’t in my DNA, and even as I grew older and got to know myself better, I never questioned why I didn’t go through the quintessential “boy band” phase so many of my peers did.  

Then the song Silk Chiffon by the iconic queer pop band MUNA entered my life, and my latent inner fangirl emerged. Suddenly, I was the one memorizing every lyric, anxiously refreshing the band’s social media, and watching fan cam videos on repeat. I was in deep. 

While in the throes of my obsession, it dawned on me that this is what my friends must have been feeling the whole time. I was finally able to experience being an undying fan of a band, and therefore relate to the experiences my friends went through a decade earlier. It was also the first time I put a lot of thought into my queerness in relation to the media I am naturally attracted to. I gravitate toward women-led stories in the TV shows, movies, and books I consume, so it’s no wonder I didn’t feel the pull toward boy bands. 

I was/am a fangirl in other ways and for other mediums, I’ve read my fair share of fanfics to prove it, but there is something distinctive about being a fangirl for a band. Getting to proclaim which member is your favorite, geeking out over their chemistry together, and over-analyzing every interaction seemed like a rite of passage I didn’t get to experience until recently.

To me, it felt like part of my second adolescence— the idea that for some queer people who didn’t get to be their true selves growing up, they experience a lot of “firsts” typically associated with being a teenager in a second adolescence when they’re their authentic self.

Bands like MUNA and boygenius are offering safe spaces for queer people of all ages to freely be themselves, connect to the music, and feel like they belong. Being a “fangirl” allows individuals to express themselves, find like-minded people, and build community. These bands aren’t necessarily doing anything revolutionary beyond the fact that they are explicitly singing about and centering queer love in their music, but by doing so, they open the doors and make room for people to feel seen when they’ve often been left out. So I get it now, and I’m so glad I’ve found my own way to experience the “fangirl” life. It’s just fun to unabashedly love something, and I think we could all use a little more of that in our lives. Thank you, MUNA for that space.

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