Abstract
This chapter investigates tensions between girls as producers of (autobiographical) cultural media and girls as cultural consumers, particularly in online contexts. This chapter explores “fangirling” as a label that invokes a mode of cultural consumption which positions girls as hysterical, undiscerning cultural consumers, and has been used to allocate a low cultural value to texts widely loved by girls. In contrast, this chapter proposes that, by describing herself as a “professional fangirl”, young feminist fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson claims and reformulates the fangirl as cultural critic. The chapter shows how fangirling can work as part of an automedial strategy of auto assemblage, engaging complex tensions between consuming cultural products, formulating an identity as a consumer/producer of media, and being a brand and consumer product.
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Notes
- 1.
The band is often referred to in the abbreviated form “1D” and I will refer to them as such in this chapter, as well as using the full name.
- 2.
I refer, throughout this chapter, to the magazine GQ as a collective entity. The controversy around this issue involved journalists, editors, and social media managers acting under the collective identity of GQ rather than as individuals, therefore I use the magazine’s name to represent the work and actions of these individuals here.
- 3.
Importantly, social media handles are used by directioners—and fangirls from a range of fandoms —to identify themselves as fans. In this case, the handle references 1D member Niall Horan.
- 4.
Fanboys are also sometimes objects of shaming, especially when their objects of fandom are coded feminine. For example, “bronies”—male fans of My Little Pony.
- 5.
#gamergate was a sexist and misogynist movement that gained traction online among young male gamers who sought to maintain the status quo of gaming as a masculine space . It particularly targeted industry publications, journalists, and bloggers who called out gaming culture’s rampant sexism and sought to diversify gaming journalism to reflect more accurately the range of identities who participate in gaming and its surrounding culture.
- 6.
Urban Dictionary is a user-generated dictionary that specialises in informal, colloquial, slang, and new-media terms. Users submit definitions, which are voted up and down by other users.
- 7.
Throughout this chapter I refer to the publication as both Rookie Mag and the shortened form, Rookie.
- 8.
Part of fan practice in the 1D fandom includes the use of social media platform Twitter to send messages via “tweets” addressed to the Twitter accounts of 1D members. This is the practice that Gevinson refers to here.
- 9.
The references I have omitted from the body of the text for brevity are listed here: Bossypants (Tina Fey’s memoir in which she narrates her career path as a comedian; the memoir includes Fey’s reflections about sexism in comedy), Sex and the City (successful HBO show about four women looking for love in New York City, which ran from 1998 to 2004 and was followed by three films), Cosmopolitan (iconic women’s magazine), Joy Division (New Wave band popular in the 1980s, which still has a cult following), Snoopy (character from cartoonist Charles M. Schultz’s well-known children’s comic strip Peanuts), “Blister in the Sun” (popular song by indie rock group the Violent Femmes), My So-Called Life (1994–5 television drama centred on a teenage girl and her experiences with friends, family, school, and identity—this show is cited often by Gevinson in her fangirling practice), Freaks and Geeks (another of Gevinson’s core references, Freaks and Geeks [1999–2000] is a television show set in the 1980s that narrates the high-school experiences of a group of friends), “Dancing on My Own” (song by pop artist Robyn: specifically Gevinson references the episode of Girls that features this song), Madonna (one of the most successful recording artists in history), John Hughes (Hughes produced many iconic 1980s teen films such as The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles), Morrissey (singer and member of 1980s indie band The Smiths), Culture Club (flamboyant 1980s pop group).
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Maguire, E. (2018). Fangirling as Feminist Auto Assemblage: Tavi Gevinson and Participatory Audienceship. In: Girls, Autobiography, Media. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74237-3_5
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