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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you From how Supports

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And our semi theme for this week

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Speaker 1: on the show has been teen queens because in the

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Speaker 1: last podcast we talked about Taylor Swift. Who is I mean,

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Speaker 1: she's the teen queen. She is crushing the music industry

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Speaker 1: in a good way. Yeah, I guess more raising it

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Speaker 1: up anyway. I like Kristen talk, although she's not a

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Speaker 1: teenager anymore, so she's more the queen of teens. Sure,

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Speaker 1: but now I'm getting into semantics. But today we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about teeny boppers and fangirls, specifically younger female

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Speaker 1: fans of pop music, because this really segways from Taylor

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Speaker 1: Swift because she's often marginalized by her haters because she's

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Speaker 1: most adored by young girls. And the attitude is is, obviously,

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Speaker 1: if young girls like you, you can't be that great. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because young girls don't have any real music taste at all.

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Speaker 1: So and we're not saying that that's not our opinion, right,

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Speaker 1: delivering the opinion of often I don't know, music snobs.

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Speaker 1: Could we call them some critics? Um? So we want, though,

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Speaker 1: to kick off with an early history of music fandom,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't begin with Frank Sinatra and Bobby Socks is

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Speaker 1: going crazy for him. This was really fascinating. Um, it

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Speaker 1: goes all the way back to the nineteenth century when

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Speaker 1: public music performances and the development of musical stars really emerged.

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Speaker 1: And this is coming from an indispensable paper that we

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Speaker 1: found by Daniel Cavici called Loving Music, Listeners, Entertainers and

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Speaker 1: the Origins of Music Fandom in nineteenth century America. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this used some fascinating perspective because I I honestly really well,

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Speaker 1: not that I think about fans and fan girls and

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Speaker 1: teeny boppers all that much, but I totally just thought, yeah, Beatles, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's where Elvis, That's where it goes back to. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: all the way back to the early to mid nineteenth

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Speaker 1: century we get music snobs. So one early music lover

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Speaker 1: talking about the influence that music can have on you

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Speaker 1: was twenty four year old opera fan Lucy Lowell of

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Speaker 1: the Massachusetts Lowells, who wrote in eighty four, I suppose

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Speaker 1: it can't be good for a person to go to

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Speaker 1: things that excite her so that she can't fix her

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Speaker 1: mind on anything for days afterwards, which sounds similar to

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Speaker 1: the kind of adoring fan girling bestowed upon Taylor Swift,

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Speaker 1: one Direction, etcetera. Although I have a feeling that people

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Speaker 1: probably weren't tearing their hair out and crying hysterically at

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Speaker 1: the opera, but it's a similar kind of thing of

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Speaker 1: just being fixated on these musical performances. Yeah, so in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen twenties, this is when we first get the

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Speaker 1: slang word star, which emerges in the theater talking about

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Speaker 1: the well, you know stars, stars with stars of the theater.

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Speaker 1: The stars were born in the eighteen twenties, Caroline, that's right.

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Speaker 1: And then we see the evolution of music consumption in

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Speaker 1: the mid to late nineteenth century because there were more

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Speaker 1: and more public spaces actually built just for music that

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Speaker 1: facilitated the commercial growth of this kind of entertainment. You

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Speaker 1: get more concert halls, pleasure gardens, museum stages, and taverns

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Speaker 1: and taverns people have always played in bars. Can we

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Speaker 1: bring back pleasure gardens though, because those are places I

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Speaker 1: would like to go as often as possible to have

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Speaker 1: a little quartet playing. Yeah, where is where is my

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Speaker 1: local pleasure garden? I don't know, but don't google that.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like that could get you some bad results.

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Speaker 1: It's just a David Busters these days. But in the fifties, though,

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Speaker 1: this is when professional virtuosos began touring nationally, which really

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Speaker 1: helped transform public musical performances into more commercial entertainment and

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Speaker 1: also made it more of a social ritual. You go

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Speaker 1: out and you see the star who's coming through town.

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Speaker 1: You go to the pleasure garden to see the utuoso.

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Speaker 1: And this is when we really get our early music lovers.

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Speaker 1: So maybe not as fanatic to use that important term

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Speaker 1: as a beatlemaniac, or as a Taylor Swift or One

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Speaker 1: Direction fan, but people who are still forming because of

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Speaker 1: these new technologies, because of these new social rituals, they're

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Speaker 1: able to form connections with these entertainers, and they really

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Speaker 1: do their best to not only consume the new musical

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Speaker 1: culture as much as possible, but to also make it

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Speaker 1: their own, for instance, doing things like studying where the

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Speaker 1: best place to sit in a theater or a concert

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Speaker 1: hall is. And I mean that just strikes me so

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Speaker 1: much as like this must just be human nature, because

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Speaker 1: you know, you have music nerds, you know, and I'm

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Speaker 1: not disparaging music nerds, but you have music nerds basically

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Speaker 1: who will do just that, who will learn all they

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Speaker 1: can about a band or a group or an artist

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Speaker 1: and do everything they can not only to connect with

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Speaker 1: that artist, but also to find the best way to

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Speaker 1: consume that product. Yeah. And with that background, in the

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Speaker 1: early eighteen fifties, the first big music stars were born,

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Speaker 1: and most notably we have in the US, at least

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Speaker 1: Swedish opera singer Jenny Lynn, whose US tour was a phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: I mean this was partially due to P. T. Barnum's

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Speaker 1: marketing prowess, because I mean long before she set foot

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Speaker 1: in the United States to do this tour, he you know,

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Speaker 1: basically did all of this pr campaign being like, Jenny

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Speaker 1: Lynde is coming and it will change your life. And

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Speaker 1: people went bananas for her. Yeah, and what's funny, I

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Speaker 1: mean to show you how bananas they went. Um. I

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Speaker 1: knew the name Jenny Lynde, but I didn't know why.

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Speaker 1: And so when Kristen and I were talking about this,

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Speaker 1: I looked up, like, Okay, why do I know Jenny

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Speaker 1: Lynn from being a furniture company, And I googled it No,

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Speaker 1: Jenny Lyne was not a furniture company. There is a

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Speaker 1: very specific style of bed called the Jenny Lind bed.

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Speaker 1: It's one of those school beds. If you have any

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Speaker 1: antiques or no, anyone with antiques, you've probably seen the

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Speaker 1: style of bed. My family has them. She was so

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Speaker 1: popular that she was one of the first entertainers of

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Speaker 1: that caliber to have things named for her, like a bed.

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Speaker 1: But also, I mean there were Jenny Lynde gloves, there

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Speaker 1: were There was all sorts of consumer products around at

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Speaker 1: the time that were named after her or dedicated to her,

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Speaker 1: because that's how much people loved, adored and wanted a

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Speaker 1: piece of her. Yeah. Wasn't there even a Jenny lind tobacco? Oh? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know you've made it when you got your own tobacco.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like how you know, every pop star

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Speaker 1: has her own perfume, right, But fans were so wild

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Speaker 1: for her that they called it Lindmania. And fans went

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Speaker 1: so wild for her that they even called this Lyndmania.

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Speaker 1: And there was one excerpt from a newspaper I forget

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Speaker 1: which one it was, of the journalist essentially being like,

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Speaker 1: sell all of your possessions if you have to, you

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Speaker 1: have to get a ticket to go see Jenny Lynde,

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Speaker 1: and descriptions of these concerts where people would I mean

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Speaker 1: it was almost like a mob, a crazed mob, just

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Speaker 1: clamoring to see her. You could get injured at a

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Speaker 1: Jenny Lynde concert in the eighteen fifties because I mean,

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Speaker 1: if people want to see her, they will trample you

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Speaker 1: to get a better look at her. Victorians be tripping,

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Speaker 1: that's right, well, and that's happening in the United States. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: in Europe we have pianists and composer Fran's List, who

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Speaker 1: incites list of mania, which if sounds familiar, it's probably

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Speaker 1: because of that Phoenix song Lista mania, which is now

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Speaker 1: going to be in my head for the rest of

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Speaker 1: the day. But List was the first performer to walk

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Speaker 1: out on stage, fee to take his seat at the

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Speaker 1: piano bench to do kind of the dramatic entrance, and

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Speaker 1: he also positioned the piano to allow the audience to

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Speaker 1: see his face, so you know, the piano has turned

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Speaker 1: to its side rather than him sitting behind the piano.

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Speaker 1: And boy did the ladies go wild for List. I know,

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Speaker 1: I love this. Stephen Huff who's a world renowned concert pianist,

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Speaker 1: said that we hear about women throwing their clothes onto

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Speaker 1: the stage and taking his cigar butts and placing them

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Speaker 1: in their cleavages, which sounds a little dangerous. First of all,

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Speaker 1: that's plural, and I love that cleavages. Watch out for cleavages.

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Speaker 1: Burns from cigar butts discarded. Also, I wonder where these

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Speaker 1: cigar boats are coming from, because now I'm just imagining

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Speaker 1: lists playing while smoking a cigar without any hands, frantically smoke, yeah,

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Speaker 1: just puffing on it. Um. So clearly, this kind of

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Speaker 1: I mean clearly, this kind of fanaticism long predates Beatlemania. Yeah. Yeah, Well,

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Speaker 1: so we have to then talk about not friends list

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Speaker 1: specific mania or landmania, but music omania in general, which

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Speaker 1: was first described as such in the eighteen thirties and

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Speaker 1: eventually fell out of use by the twentieth century. The

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Speaker 1: physicians had known since medieval times that music could end

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Speaker 1: up having a really profound effect on you physically and psychologically.

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Speaker 1: It can make you feel happy, you're sad, or whatever, melancholy.

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Speaker 1: But during this period in the nineteenth century, there was

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Speaker 1: an actual doctor diagnosis to find as a variety of

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Speaker 1: monomania in which the passion for music is carried to

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Speaker 1: such an extent as to derange the intellectual faculties, which

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Speaker 1: sounds a lot like how fan girls are described one

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Speaker 1: direction urs crying at the side of Harry's styles. It

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Speaker 1: sounds a lot like these early descriptions of music a mania,

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Speaker 1: which really was not gendered at all at the time,

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Speaker 1: although there was certainly a backlash to music a mania,

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Speaker 1: which is reminiscent of the modern day marginalization of teeny

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Speaker 1: boppers and fan girls, because apparently there were calls for

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Speaker 1: more classical appreciation of music, because fans were quote too

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Speaker 1: invested in the wrong ways and for the wrong reasons,

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Speaker 1: and so music snobs of the day would differentiate between

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Speaker 1: the ordinary fan who lacked appropriate education and taste. Who

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Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds a lot like, you know, the

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Speaker 1: record store clerk stereotype of like, even if you like

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Speaker 1: a certain album, they'll still give you the staining guy,

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Speaker 1: because you probably just don't know enough about how it

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Speaker 1: was made or how to appropriately listen to it. Um.

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Speaker 1: But then they also had the musician and the refined fan,

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Speaker 1: the fan who really understood the music to a degree

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Speaker 1: to which they could appropriately and with the love ahead

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Speaker 1: listen to it right, And I mean, I'm sure those

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Speaker 1: are the people who are picking the right seat in

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Speaker 1: the concert hall to hear the music best. And they're

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Speaker 1: not going wild over They're probably not too emotive. It's like, no,

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Speaker 1: it's the wonderful June. Wonderful June. Yeah. I mean. There

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Speaker 1: were even music snobs who looked down on music fans,

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Speaker 1: which honestly wasn't a term until a little bit later,

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Speaker 1: like in the early twentieth century, but look down on

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Speaker 1: fans who would listen to the record or the performance

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Speaker 1: too much and then get sick of it. They were like, obviously,

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Speaker 1: you're not a good enough consumer of this classical, beautiful

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Speaker 1: music if you're going to listen to it all the

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Speaker 1: time until you get sick of it. I am just

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Speaker 1: going to listen to it the once or the twice

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Speaker 1: and really appreciate it. And of course, this development of

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Speaker 1: music fandom, particularly as we move into the early twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: is also facilitated by technological advances that allows you to

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Speaker 1: not only consume music in live venues, to go to

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Speaker 1: the pleasure garden and see the virtuoso of your choice,

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Speaker 1: but also listen to recordings of the Virtuoso or of

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Speaker 1: Jenny Lynde at home, And there's also sheet music being produced,

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Speaker 1: and also you do have more of the performances being

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Speaker 1: turned into this kind of entertainment industry. And then in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties and thirties, this is when the first

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Speaker 1: fan clubs emerged. So we're really getting serious about our

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Speaker 1: fandom post World War One. Yeah, we're coming together. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean, imagine how different it would have been to

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Speaker 1: be in a fan club in the nineteen thirties as

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Speaker 1: opposed to fifteen, when you have the Internet. Back then

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Speaker 1: you have to be really freaking committed to communicating with

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Speaker 1: your fellow fans and consuming all of these you know, products,

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Speaker 1: whether it's cheat music or the records themselves or whatever. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you probably don't even need fan clubs today because

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Speaker 1: Tumbler is pretty much just a giant fan club. Right,

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Speaker 1: different things. But once you get into mid century in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, you have the even more monetization of music,

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Speaker 1: particularly with the development of pop music. And when we

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Speaker 1: have pop music and bubblegum pop in particular come of about,

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Speaker 1: and these record labels really getting savvy about targeting their fans.

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Speaker 1: This is when fandom, though and criticism of music fandom,

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Speaker 1: becomes less generalized and more gendered. Yeah, well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, Kristen mentioned earlier that the whole music a

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Speaker 1: mania thing was really not not gender did it honestly

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Speaker 1: seemed to be more about class, about and not even

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Speaker 1: necessarily financial stuff, but just you were on a higher

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Speaker 1: plane of existence if you consumed and enjoyed music in

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Speaker 1: a certain way versus the people that you look down upon.

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Speaker 1: You know, people who had music a mania were obviously

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Speaker 1: not to be trusted. We don't like those people, but

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Speaker 1: it was all sort of equal opportunity snobbery. There were

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Speaker 1: women who wrote in their diet Ari's sniffing it like,

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Speaker 1: look at these riding masses of people, how disgusting, same

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Speaker 1: as you did with men. And they were writing about

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Speaker 1: people of either gender. And so it is interesting to

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Speaker 1: see that evolution in the mid twentieth century about fan

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Speaker 1: girls and teeny boppers specifically consuming music that honestly, as

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Speaker 1: we'll get into here in a second, I mean, it

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Speaker 1: was made for them. Yeah, and we'll get into all

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Speaker 1: of that and talk more about teeny bopper's past and

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Speaker 1: present when we come right back from a quick break

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Speaker 1: and now back to the show. So in the first

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Speaker 1: half of the podcast, we talked about the history of

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Speaker 1: music fandom that I know I wasn't familiar with. But

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Speaker 1: now it's time to pick up with a name that

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Speaker 1: really launched the whole teeny bopper thing, which is Frank Sinatra. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean this was in the nineties and Sona tra

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Speaker 1: was he was a younger gentleman, is kind of handsome.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he had kind of a pointy face. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: We're gonna be honest. She was kind of the original.

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Speaker 1: Can we say the original justin Bieber. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to disparage Frank Sinatra in that way, but I mean

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Speaker 1: he really incited, though, the first modern fan girling of

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Speaker 1: girls crying and loving him and just wanting I mean

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Speaker 1: they just wanted Frankie. Yeah. But I mean I think

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Speaker 1: that goes, you know, not to go too deep into

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Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra, but I mean I think the whole issue

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Speaker 1: with getting the teeny bopper love and tears and emoting

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Speaker 1: over Frank Sinatra goes back to what we talked about

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Speaker 1: with Taylor Swift in our last episode. Because Taylor Swift

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Speaker 1: is herself a very young woman, very successful, knows how

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Speaker 1: to connect with fans who are also very young, much

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Speaker 1: younger than even she is. And I think that Frank

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Speaker 1: Sinatra was one of the first, early, very young performers

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Speaker 1: who was able to connect with young women who were

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden part of this rising consumer culture,

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Speaker 1: part of this new teenage group of people that had

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Speaker 1: never really been recognized before. That's such a great point.

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Speaker 1: And also with Sinatra, he I'm sure he was not

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Speaker 1: the first to do this, but he also was available

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Speaker 1: in so many different ways to his fans because not

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Speaker 1: only could they see him in appearances or see him

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Speaker 1: singing live, he was also in movies as well, so

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Speaker 1: you could watch him act, you could watch him fall

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Speaker 1: in love. I mean there, you know, it's definitely a

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Speaker 1: multi dimensional star. Um. But then in the nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: we have the emergence of bubblegum pop that, according to

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Speaker 1: the book Girlhood in America quote set the precedent of

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Speaker 1: style over substance in the musical consumption of teenage girls

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Speaker 1: because it was really manufactured for them. Yeah, it was.

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Speaker 1: You definitely had a lot of of record industry executives

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Speaker 1: coming together and saying, Okay, so we're we're in the

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Speaker 1: postwar period. I don't know if anybody was actually saying

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Speaker 1: that in the fifties, but they're in the postwar period.

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Speaker 1: We have this new group of people were recognizing called teenagers,

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Speaker 1: and they have consumer power somewhat a little bit now

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Speaker 1: and and there they have a little bit more agency

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Speaker 1: than children of their age group fifty years prior. Let's

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Speaker 1: package something for them. And so this sort of came

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Speaker 1: along with the whole advent of top forty radio, which

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Speaker 1: relied on a specific teen appealing formula to turn a profit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because teams were spending time by themselves in ways that

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Speaker 1: they never had before. They're also dating, they also had cars, um,

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Speaker 1: and they also had magazines being created specifically for them.

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Speaker 1: Sixteen Magazine in particular, was one of the earliest and

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Speaker 1: most widely circulated teen magazines that totally fed early fandom. Um.

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Speaker 1: This is coming again from girlhood in America, saying quote

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Speaker 1: teeny bopper and is essentially a subculture of consumption. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I sort of this is something that if you

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Speaker 1: really think about it, it makes total sense. But that

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Speaker 1: I still hated reading because it made me sad for

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Speaker 1: young girls who apparently can't win. Um. So this is

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Speaker 1: also coming from girlhood in America, and he writes that

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Speaker 1: the genre is primarily a commodity to be marketed and

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Speaker 1: sold to teenage girls. It uses a specific formula to

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Speaker 1: turn a profit, leaving many to believe that the fans

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Speaker 1: who consume the product are cultural dupes. So basically, girls

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Speaker 1: are being blamed for consuming the very things that they

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Speaker 1: are meant to consume according to record industry executives or

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Speaker 1: radio DJs or what have you. Yeah, I mean, and

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Speaker 1: sure there is a lot of it that is very formulaic.

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Speaker 1: I mean, go back and listen to our episode a

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Speaker 1: while back on boy bands. I mean, these things are

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Speaker 1: specifically built and made for this specific audience. And so

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Speaker 1: from then though until now, when you read media descriptions

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Speaker 1: of this um of this demographic, of the tunny popper demographic,

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Speaker 1: which is which makes it sound like such fogies. Also,

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Speaker 1: I just use the word fogy. I'm but to call

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Speaker 1: them teeny poppers. Um but even today they're described as

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Speaker 1: just having really no taste whatsoever. It's all emotion and

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Speaker 1: hormones and no discriminating taste whatsoever. We're just looking for

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Speaker 1: the Frank Sinatra essentially, But because you've got people who

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Speaker 1: are saying, if you are consuming and rapidly consuming um,

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Speaker 1: something that is prepackaged and bubblegum popish, then yeah, then

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Speaker 1: you must not have any discriminating taste. You're just as

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Speaker 1: as people talk about a lot of people just dismiss

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Speaker 1: girls who like pop music as just this writhing mass

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Speaker 1: of unbridled girlhood sexuality. Yeah, and a lot of pop

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Speaker 1: music scholars mark this point in the emergence in the

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Speaker 1: development of the music industry in the United States as

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Speaker 1: this sort of dichotomy between male pop and rock fans

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Speaker 1: seen as active consumers. They're choosing what they like. They're

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Speaker 1: smarter and more discriminating in whatever goes in their record player,

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Speaker 1: versus passive fan girls who were just sort of we're

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Speaker 1: spoon fed our tastes. Yeah, just tell us who the

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Speaker 1: new pop star off the conveyor belt is, and we'll

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Speaker 1: just consume this music and buy the posters and buy

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Speaker 1: the tickets. Except who should I have a crush on?

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Speaker 1: And I do remember that in my own experience when

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Speaker 1: I first heard about Hansen, because friends of mine had

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Speaker 1: crushes on them, and there was the whole thing of

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Speaker 1: you know, which one did you like? Of course it

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Speaker 1: was the middle one. Obviously he was the hottest, and

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Speaker 1: so I would pre anticipated liking up and wanting to

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Speaker 1: have a crush on him. So there is, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there is that aspect to it as well. I have

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Speaker 1: something to confess what I think you and I in

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Speaker 1: our lives in n we're acting out the dichotomy of

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Speaker 1: which we are currently speaking. Really because I remember being

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Speaker 1: in six or seventh grade whenever Buck came out. But

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Speaker 1: for us, I don't mean whatever have rolled everybody else was,

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Speaker 1: but looking at it and being like, hmm, well, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: you gotta remember too. I was homeschooled, so I I

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Speaker 1: will play that card. And I was edgy urban youth.

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Speaker 1: I certainly wasn't an edgy urban home but I don't know,

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Speaker 1: like where my snobber even came from. It's not like

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Speaker 1: I was actively consuming any type of music other than

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Speaker 1: what I heard on the radio, but just looking down

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Speaker 1: my nose at at this pop music, I think it

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Speaker 1: was less than music though for me, and just the

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Speaker 1: fact that I was primed for crushing. Heck, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: loved crush. So I was sorry, Sorry, I was really

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Speaker 1: busy crushing on Gavin Rossdale, so I didn't have time

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Speaker 1: for tailor hands. Oh yeah, I jumped on that train

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Speaker 1: a little bit later. I was just just that was

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Speaker 1: probably just a late bloomer. But anyway, Um, also at

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Speaker 1: this time, though, it's not just male pop stars who

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Speaker 1: are being developed and groomed for the bubblegum audience, but

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Speaker 1: also you do have girl groups like their Aunts and

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Speaker 1: the Cherrell's who are also being pitched directly to girls,

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Speaker 1: sort of like uh proto Taylor Swift kind of. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in honor of this episode, last night, I was listening

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Speaker 1: to my um, marvel Lett's Pandora station and it's all

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Speaker 1: of these wonderful, wonderful girl groups. And it's interesting, though

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Speaker 1: to listen to that station and here all of these

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Speaker 1: bubblegum pop totally manufactured groups girls who marry me not

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Speaker 1: have you even known each other? Being dragged together by

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Speaker 1: record executives to make money. But the whole thing of

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Speaker 1: out those girl groups is, even if they weren't doing

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Speaker 1: their own songwriting, which they weren't, you had people like

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Speaker 1: Carol King, for instance, writing a lot of the lyrics

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Speaker 1: for these girl groups to sing the songs were still

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Speaker 1: providing a window into the emotional world of young women.

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Speaker 1: And this is something that Andy Zeisler wrote about in

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Speaker 1: feminism and pop culture, that that's sure, they're manufactured. Sure

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Speaker 1: it's pop, it's not like the Highest Denominator or whatever,

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Speaker 1: but it's still great music and it's still for girls,

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Speaker 1: and it's just like Taylor Swift is today. It's giving

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Speaker 1: girls of that era something that they can look at

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Speaker 1: and relate to. Yeah. Absolutely, and in the late nineteen

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Speaker 1: forties and definitely in the nineteen fifties, sort of this

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Speaker 1: groundwork has been laid, so that also in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, once Elvis comes around and then the Beatles,

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Speaker 1: all hell kind of breaks loose fan wise, but that

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Speaker 1: also sort of cements this styeo type as well, of

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Speaker 1: the fawning, crying, hysterical. That work comes up a lot

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Speaker 1: and it's important that it does come up a lot.

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Speaker 1: Um And the perception hasn't improved since then, Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: certainly hasn't. Um. I do think it is interesting though,

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Speaker 1: that there is so much literature out there about young

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Speaker 1: girl fans, whether they're the teeny boppers of the fifties

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Speaker 1: or the swifties of today. But um Jacqueline Edmondson edited

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Speaker 1: this book Music and American Life that did talk about

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Speaker 1: the whole pop versus rock, feminine versus masculine, active versus

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Speaker 1: passive thing and said that although girls and women became

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Speaker 1: an integral part of the popular music industry, they were

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Speaker 1: constantly devalued and objectified. I mean it goes back to

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Speaker 1: that whole thing of rock being serious, rap and hip

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Speaker 1: hop being hyper masculine, and pop is just this thing

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Speaker 1: that gets shoved aside as valueless because it is consumed

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Speaker 1: by girls and women. And there was a note as

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Speaker 1: well in the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music in the

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Speaker 1: World talking about how popular music scholars have really gone

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Speaker 1: back and quote challenge negative and stereotyped conceptualizations of female

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Speaker 1: fans who have regularly been presented in news reports and

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Speaker 1: popular literature as passive consumers. There's that word again, passive

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Speaker 1: uncritically supporting mass produced music, or as swooning teenagers idolizing

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Speaker 1: male pop stars. Yeah, and the thing you get a

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Speaker 1: lot too the more you read about this is the

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Speaker 1: recognition that a lot of it has to do with

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Speaker 1: the idea of the feminine and the female being considered

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Speaker 1: the other um. Asia Romano, who wrote an article in

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Speaker 1: The Kernel called the teens on Tumbler Are all Right,

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Speaker 1: talks about how teenage girls continue to be one of

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Speaker 1: the world's prime targets for being held up as a

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Speaker 1: social example of something a in foreign and overtly sexualized,

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Speaker 1: arriving primordial, massive or orgiastic emotions waiting to be tapped

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Speaker 1: by adult men who treat their identities as a bizarre spectacle.

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Speaker 1: Because when you think about it, especially when you read

426
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,919
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this article a little later, when

427
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,680
Speaker 1: you read like the g Q piece about One Direction

428
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: and talking about their fans, and I mean the way

429
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: they describe these young girls is a hormone bomb, I

430
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: believe was the way they described him. Well, there was

431
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 1: just a lot of horrifying, like a dark pink mass

432
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: of blah blah blah. It's just it got old, too

433
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: old to sexual especially since the girls are talking about

434
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 1: are like eleven um. But it's strange that nobody seems

435
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,719
Speaker 1: to be able to step back and say, wait, okay,

436
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 1: this is just this is just another half of the

437
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 1: population doing something like they want to do. Maybe we

438
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 1: should question why the other half of the population does

439
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: things like they do. For instance, you know, men going

440
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:01,200
Speaker 1: nuts over sports or sports teammes or whatever are going

441
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 1: nuts over music as well, but just in a different

442
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: kind of way. And at this point, I think it's

443
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: worth noting that this conversation really is not an argument

444
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: on behalf of like the fine musical quality of all

445
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: pop music. It's not about the music. It's more about

446
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 1: this persistent pattern of like marginalizing this very specific demographic,

447
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 1: and you throw pop music under the bus along with

448
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: it as well. But what's fascinating to see is just

449
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: how how the media even approaches fangirls. It's like, we

450
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: still don't know how to wrap our minds around these

451
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: young girls. There was even an article about this in

452
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal of all places, called Inside the

453
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: Brains of Justin Bieber Fans, which interviewed these neurologists being like,

454
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: what's happening inside their brains? I mean, what what would

455
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 1: compel a twelve year old to cry at the site

456
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:06,680
Speaker 1: of one direction? And answering this very serious and hard

457
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: hitting question, uh, neuroscientists and neurologists were basically saying that

458
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: this experience of listening to Taylor swift or watching one

459
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: direction releases dopamine, which is of course a neurotransmitter involved

460
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 1: in pleasure and addiction. It provides the same rush as

461
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:32,119
Speaker 1: eating chocolate or winning for a compulsive gambler. Yeah, so

462
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: we like it, in other words, and we just really

463
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: like it and it makes us feel good. We like

464
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: it now. It was noteworthy though that and this is

465
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 1: nothing against Dr Daniel Leviton conducting this research at all, um,

466
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: but I didn't think it was interesting how he said

467
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: that these musical chase are really formed and wired in

468
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: our brains in the teen years and really become part

469
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: of our brains internal wiring. So that, for instance, in

470
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: my case, when I hear Bob, I am taken back

471
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: to when I was eleven or twelve years old listening

472
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: to being like, oh man, their homeschooled too. I know,

473
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: well it's I didn't mean to totally skip over. You

474
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: just said, sorry, but my tween dreams, your tween dream,

475
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: homeschool romance with the middle, with the middle, handsome brother. Yeah,

476
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: I mean this this I feel like dude. Roommate has

477
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: said similar things to me, although his his brain stunting

478
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: came a little bit later. I guess he's still obsessed

479
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: with the Atari's so he formed that emotional obsessive bond

480
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: with a pop punk band. Yeah, it's just it's just

481
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: nostalgia careless. But there's also too Almost every anytime this

482
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: conversation comes up of like why beatlemaniacs? Why one direction?

483
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: Or is why justin Bieber fans. There's also this talk

484
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: of safe sexuality, and we talked about this a lot

485
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: too in our episode on boy bands. Um, it's like,

486
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: calm down, parents, It's just these are just kind of

487
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: like practice boyfriends, which is also highly hedter noormative, and

488
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: we don't even have time to get into uh, sexual

489
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 1: orientation and race when it comes to fandom the portrayal

490
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: of fandom as well, because it is very white and

491
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: very straight. Um, but there's this it's almost like, Okay,

492
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: we can calm down because this is a safe way

493
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: for girls to express their sexualities. We we should actually

494
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: be glad that they're kissing posters and not actually making

495
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: out with real boys. Yeah. Well, I mean it's when

496
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: you think about yourself being in sixth grade or whatever,

497
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: is it really so hard to understand this and to

498
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: imagine it because you're you're hitting puberty, You've got these

499
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 1: hormones rushing through you for the first time. You're looking

500
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: around going like for the first time, your Tina Belcher.

501
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: Basically you're looking around and being like, butts awesome, and

502
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 1: so just like it's no surprise that girls of the

503
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: fifties consumed the music that was packaged and presented too

504
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: and four of them. Is it really any surprise that

505
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: a girl of thirteen would, who's suddenly awakening to the

506
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: idea that hey, I really like but boys, but would

507
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: look at somebody like one direction and start fantasizing or

508
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: almost obsessing over them. Yeah, and not almost. I mean

509
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 1: plenty of girls do outright obsessed over these things. I

510
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: mean I outright obsessed over Prince William truth. He told

511
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: when I was young, I thought I would be Kate

512
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: Middleton per chance. Um. But and this is also too

513
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: all in the context of living in a society where

514
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: expressing outright that kind of sexuality, the sexual desires Tina

515
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: belterering um, is not okay for girls. So it's not

516
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: only a thing of and I think that that's often

517
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 1: left out these conversations of like, well, no wonder they're

518
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: freaking out because in a lot of ways were kind

519
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: of pent up um. But one quote though from that

520
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal article that jumped out was boys also

521
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: developed musical tastes in this phase of life, but adolescent

522
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: girls are far more likely to become infatuated with pop stars,

523
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: experts say, because they are awakening to romantic and sexual

524
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: feelings that are both intoxicating and scary. And it's like,

525
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: but what about the boys though, So they're doing all

526
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: of this, they're developing these kinds of things, they are

527
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: also you know, having experiencing sexual feelings that are probably

528
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: both intoxicating and scary. But we aren't as weirded out

529
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: by that, right. It's almost like a coming of age, uh,

530
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: an expected and accepted phase that a boy will, like,

531
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: you know, tape up pictures of Megan Fox or whoever

532
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: in his bedroom, and you know, we were all like, oh,

533
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: that's just a pervy little thirteen year old bullets what

534
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: they go through. Whereas there's not that same acceptance and

535
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: a pass is not given to young girls. Instead, it's like,

536
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: it's icky and scary that you're also obsessed with these

537
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 1: pop stars. Yeah, how strange, and also too, this is

538
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: around the time there were every now and then you'll

539
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: have comparisons to boys and men's obsessions with sports teams

540
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: to the point that they are also yelling and screaming

541
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: and crying. But there but that doesn't seem strange at all.

542
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: There's never any like, oh, well, what's going on inside

543
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: those fans brains? But coming back to the girls, the

544
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: teeny the girl teeny boppers emotions aside, and perhaps unrealistic

545
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: obsessions with boy bands aside, it's still unanniable that this

546
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 1: is such an influential group. I mean, these girls prop

547
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: up in a lot of ways the music industry. I

548
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 1: mean we talked about in the Taylor Swift episode. How

549
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: I mean her sales accounted for of all records sales

550
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 1: in the United States the week that it came out. Yeah,

551
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just part of a wave that

552
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: has been waving since the eighteen fifties. There is nothing

553
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 1: new about consumer culture when it comes to music and

554
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: the fact that these fans who are so disparaged so often,

555
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: they really are giving these artists quite the fat paycheck.

556
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 1: And and you know, so for that their disparaged, They're

557
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 1: they're buying something it's prepackaged, They're listening to something that

558
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:32,479
Speaker 1: is that is super hyper produced. Um, and everybody says

559
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: that that's just not good enough. But as Asia Romano

560
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:39,320
Speaker 1: over The Colonel pointed out in August, it's not like

561
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: we have to worry so much about the future of

562
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:45,959
Speaker 1: our country based on the fact that kids like pop music.

563
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 1: I mean, they've always liked pop music. If anything, these

564
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,720
Speaker 1: kids might be better off than we were, she argues,

565
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: because they're so social media and real world savvy and

566
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: much more so than we give them credit for, and

567
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,400
Speaker 1: they happened to be much more likely to engage in actual,

568
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: real life activism. For instance, Yeah, there Wash there's a

569
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: mom who wrote a column I think it came out

570
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 1: in The Guardian who talking about her daughter, who is

571
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 1: a die hard one direction fan. She's a one direction

572
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 1: of and she said, yeah, you can disparage her all

573
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 1: you want, but she is demonstrated and learned all sorts

574
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: of real world skills, such as navigating her way to

575
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: a concert, like getting on the subway with her friends,

576
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: figuring out how to budget and then buy a ticket,

577
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: and also meeting all of these other girls, these other

578
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: one direction ers as well. And she was like, I

579
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:42,359
Speaker 1: think it's actually been rather valuable for her. I mean,

580
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: that's a that's a really glass half full kind of perspective.

581
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: But I think that it's worth opening up our our

582
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 1: perception of who these girls are, because a lot of

583
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 1: times we just kind of distilled them down into just

584
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:01,359
Speaker 1: a writhing pink horr mown bomb waiting to go off,

585
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,320
Speaker 1: rather than oh, no, these are individuals and they probably

586
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 1: do all have different tastes in certain ways. I mean

587
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: they you know, we all they have to at least

588
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: choose which one direction band member they like the most.

589
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, I thought an interesting perspective on it,

590
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: kind of jumping off from the whole using social media

591
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: to connect, using social media to participate in activism. They're

592
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 1: sort of echoes of that from the fandom around girl

593
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: groups of the nineteen sixties. And this is coming from

594
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: that book Feminism and Pop Culture by Andy Zeisler, and

595
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 1: she was quoting Susan Douglas who was talking about how

596
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:43,239
Speaker 1: back in the sixties, yes, you have commercialism and all

597
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: of this pop music, but the girls who were listening

598
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:50,240
Speaker 1: to it got this sense of euphoria. She was saying,

599
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the the happiness of listening to this

600
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: music or purchasing it and participating in this culture. But

601
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: she said that for tens of millions of young girls

602
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: who started feeling at the same time that day as

603
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 1: a generation would not be trapped, and there was plan

604
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 1: of the tiniest seat of a social movement. And again

605
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: that might seem like a glass half full, kind of

606
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: a pie in the sky idea, but you know, we

607
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 1: did mention earlier that those girl groups of the fifties

608
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: and sixties it was really the first time that female

609
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 1: singers were singing lyrics about female emotions. Yeah. Well, and

610
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 1: even when it comes to the beatle Maniacs, there have

611
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: also been uh feminists who have said, hey, well, this

612
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 1: is also to the first time we really saw the

613
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: female gaze and mass. Maybe we're also a little uncomfortable

614
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: with this, just because the tables have turned in that

615
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 1: way of you have thousands and thousands of girls actively

616
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: lusting after a group of men, and hey, we probably

617
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 1: just hadn't seen that very much anymore, and we still

618
00:37:56,239 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: to this day are uncomfortable with seeing that guy of

619
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: um sexuality perhaps on display, right, because it's the whole

620
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: heteronormative male culture being the default. That's why no one

621
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:12,279
Speaker 1: questions crazy male sports fandom. It's why it's cool for

622
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: my former dude roommate to scream at the television or

623
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: lose his mind at a U g. A game, But

624
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 1: it's looked down upon if a girl loses her mind

625
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 1: screaming over Taylor Swift. Well, I think this two circles

626
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 1: back not only to our episode on boy bands, but

627
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: also to our bitch episode because we kicked it off

628
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 1: talking about basic bitches, and the hallmark of a basic

629
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 1: bitch is also a die hard love of Taylor Swift,

630
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 1: which I think to reflects this kind of you know,

631
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: eschewing any sign of just unabashed femininity. Because, as writer

632
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:51,800
Speaker 1: and editor Rachel Adiden said two Time Magazine talking about

633
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: this issue of fan girls, and this was more of

634
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: fangirls in geek culture being disparaged. She said, quote, feminization

635
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: is all universally seen as appreciation of value. And it's

636
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: not only that depreciation of value. It is also a

637
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: giant pushing together of really different groups of people. It's

638
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:15,880
Speaker 1: assuming that all of these young girls and can we

639
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: not forget the young boys to who we like this music? Yes,

640
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: I mean talk about like heteronormative culture. It is very heteronormative,

641
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: and it honestly wasn't until recently that popular music studies

642
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: have really highlighted that diversity. And this is coming again

643
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 1: from the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music in the World,

644
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: which cited by a pop music scholar, which found that

645
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:45,439
Speaker 1: female Elvis fans had their own particular personal and also

646
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: political uses for the performer rather than simply worshiping Elvis

647
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 1: because they should worship Elvis and the same thing. There

648
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: was another study that they decided um talking about how

649
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: being a fan is quote more of a celebration of

650
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: girl culture and a process through which female sexuality and

651
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:09,760
Speaker 1: identity are produced as it is about the male performers involved.

652
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:12,359
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense, totally. Yeah, I mean,

653
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 1: if you have, I don't want to keep going back

654
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 1: to the sports example, because I realized that things are

655
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: not always black and white with clear lines. There's plenty

656
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: of overlap here and women love sports. Women love sports too. Yeah,

657
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: but I mean, just to kind of pick on an example,

658
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of social acceptance for boys

659
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,879
Speaker 1: from a young age learning to love sports and using

660
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: it as a way to bond with other men in

661
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: their lives. Whether those are friends or dads or brothers

662
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: or whoever, And why should girls fandom or girls love

663
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: of whether it's a pop princess or a boy band

664
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: or whoever, why should that be less valued? Well, and

665
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 1: a lot of it's probably for that reason though, that

666
00:40:56,080 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: a lot of UH analysts and scholars have noted how

667
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways die hard fandom is transgressive

668
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: of the appropriate feminine roles, both then and still today.

669
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: And we see that just kind of reflected in the

670
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: kind of brush off that they often get. Now, can

671
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: fan girls get obsessive and go wild and also say

672
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: horrible things on social media if you disagree with their taste. Yes,

673
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: fans are not perfect. No fan is perfect. But I

674
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: think it's just worth considering why teeny boppers, in particular

675
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 1: the female teeny bopper, is just so universally maligned. It

676
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: will be interesting, Kristen, when you and I are podcasters

677
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 1: in our eighties to look back and see how this

678
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: particular point in time where we have the intersection of

679
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 1: pop music and fandom and all of that stuff and

680
00:41:57,360 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: social media, how that will affected things. Because you and

681
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,240
Speaker 1: I in the beginning of the podcast kept mentioning changing

682
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 1: technology changing methods for consuming music and all of that

683
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 1: stuff in the way that it fostered that music lover culture.

684
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: It will be interesting to see how all of these

685
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:15,479
Speaker 1: young girls who now feel like they have a voice

686
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: on social media and can connect with each other over

687
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: their fandom, but can also say, hey, screw you g

688
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 1: Q writers for portraying me as a terrible person and

689
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: portraying Harry Styles as a terrible person. It will just

690
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: be interesting to see how and whether that changes the

691
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:32,800
Speaker 1: culture and whether it gives young women more of a

692
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:35,720
Speaker 1: voice as they get older. And you can tune into

693
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 1: that episode in on Stuff Grandma never told you that.

694
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: But now we want to hear from teeny bopper's fangirls listening.

695
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: What do you think about all of this? Mom stuff

696
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is our email address.

697
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 1: You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or

698
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 1: messages on Facebook. We definitely want to hear from fans.

699
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:04,400
Speaker 1: Have you been dismissed simply for being a fan who

700
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: also happens to be a girl or a woman. Let

701
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: us know mom stuff at how stuffworks dot com and

702
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of messages to share with you

703
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:19,319
Speaker 1: right now. So I've got a couple of letters here

704
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: about our episode on ankles and cankles, and this one

705
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: is coming from Wendy, who writes, my husband related to

706
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:28,720
Speaker 1: me the story of a teammate on his high school

707
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: football team. Hey, guys in sports call back. This individual

708
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 1: was a linebacker with a stocky build and was overall

709
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: very athletic, but was very aware of his lack of ankles.

710
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: You mentioned that there were no exercises to slim the ankle,

711
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: but the approach he took was to perform tons of

712
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 1: calf raises to make his calves more prominent, giving the

713
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 1: illusion of a smaller ankle. One day, he burst into

714
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: the weight room exclaiming I have ankles, showing them off

715
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 1: to his fellow teammates. He was so enthusiastic. He was

716
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,919
Speaker 1: also totally open about his excitement the other guys, which

717
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 1: I love. And also it shows that men do talk

718
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: to each other about more than sports and babes in

719
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,320
Speaker 1: the locker room. I thought it would be interesting to

720
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:12,400
Speaker 1: share that this was not just a lady centric issue.

721
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: Love the podcast and keep up the good work. Well,

722
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: thanks Wendy. Well, I have a letter here from Diana,

723
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 1: who starts off the email with three thank you's and

724
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:26,800
Speaker 1: so you're welcome. She says, I have cankles. It is genetic.

725
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: My grandmother on my dad's side never wore dresses, and

726
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:32,320
Speaker 1: now I am in the same boat. It is a

727
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: painful thing to see people staring at my ankles are

728
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: making comments. Don't even think about skinny jeans, which you

729
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:39,800
Speaker 1: didn't mention. But it is a problem for people like me.

730
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: I know what they're saying. As you said, there is

731
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: nothing I can do about it. I have large risks too,

732
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: and although it helped me as an athlete, it will

733
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: never be the definition of the Gibson girl. We women

734
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: are still held out to be. Even finding skew boots

735
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 1: is impossible at times. Oprah once mentioned cankles years ago

736
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: and laughed at the term. I cried. Even Oprah, who

737
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 1: acts as though she is the defender of all people

738
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:08,840
Speaker 1: who are different, didn't get me. I hope this message

739
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 1: reaches those who don't or can't understand my position. In

740
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:16,320
Speaker 1: the hope it will help alleviate the judgment. So thank you, Dianna,

741
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry Oprah doesn't support you. Yeah, Oprah maybe

742
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: so blind to cankles. Even Oprah is not perfect, though,

743
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:27,320
Speaker 1: it's a good reminder. So if you have letters to

744
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: send to us, No Mom Stuff and how Stuff Works

745
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 1: dot com is our email address and we'd love to

746
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 1: hear from you. But if you'd like to give us

747
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:35,319
Speaker 1: a shout out on social media, you can find links

748
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 1: to all of those places as well. It's all of

749
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: our blogs, videos, and podcast including this one with our

750
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: sources so you can read along with us if you like.

751
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:46,840
Speaker 1: All of that's over. It's stuff Mom Never told You

752
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

753
00:45:53,320 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: Does it How Stuff Works dot com six