I was researching on the Internet yesterday when I came across two new words, two I had never seen before “fangirl” and “fangirling”. This is why I write this blog. It just takes one word I haven’t seen before and I am off on a new adventure in cyberspace. I am trying to create an understanding from the established authorities and fangirls themselves on what makes a fangirl, to the actual behaviours that constitute fangirling. It was nice to have some fun with the quizzes and read the posts on fan sites (a lot of it teenagers) that engage in meaningful relevant dialogue to construct meaning in a public space. Then there were the fanlistings.
Sure enough when I Googled fangirl lots of definitions came up and hundreds of sites dedicated to various topics. The Google search of the word fangirl is “a fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a like and enthusiasm for something. Fans of a particular thing…” The online Oxford Dictionary even have a definition “a female fan, especially one who is obsessive about comics, film, music or science fiction : your average fangirl despite the implication is a grown up”. The Urban Dictionary online dictionary that describes slang words and phrases states a fangirl or fanboy is “A person who has a compulsive dedication to a videogame series, anime series, and/or music artist”. Fanboys are male equivalent of fangirls. The Merriam online Dictionary defines a fanboy as a “boy who is an enthusiastic devotee (as of comics and movies)”. It is different from fan behaviour in that their interests are gender specific. A fangirl is therefore generally derogatory, gender specific, may or may not be an adult but generally an under aged teenage girl or boy, who is obsessed with certain aspects of fandom including people.
Self-identification is important too. Fangirlism is an online blog written by several educated women on games and books. They wrote about themselves within the context of established definitions. “We aren’t fangirls in the derogatory sense (“a female fan, obsessed with something (or someone) to a frightening or sickening degree. Often considered ditzy, annoying and shallow” –Urban Dictionary): we believe that this other definition that Urban Dictionary provides is more suitable: “Less extreme, a female fan who can laugh at their own passion for their particular interest (or even obsession).” Yes we know that fanlistings are pointless. Yes we know that getting too obsessive about fandom is dangerous. And yes, we’re aware that of the guys we find to be attractive are fictional. It’s all in good fun”. They highlight the positive aspects including having fun and being able to poke fun at themselves.
The interests that create fangirl and fanboy communities are endless. These fangirl communities range across a variety of age groups, attract men and women from different educational, economic and cultural backgrounds. If you have access to the Internet and have a particular interest there is a community for you. thefanlistings.org has over 17 350 listings of groups in everything you could possibly imagine. They define a fanlisting “A fanlistings is simply an online listing of fans of a subject, such as a TV show, actor, or musician, that is created by an individual and open for fans from around the world to join. There are no costs, and the only requirements to join a fanlisting are your name and country. Fanlistings do not have to be large sites (although some are) - they are just a place where you can have your name listed along with other fans of the same subject. TheFanlistings.org is the original (but not only) web directory for fanlistings, dedicated to uniting fans across the globe”. There are particular rules for joining the site such as not stealing a fansite’s membership list, advertising your site as official, falsifying comments and tutorials for beginners in participating fanlisted sites.
This description of a fan girl comes from Wikipedia. Although unreferenced many of these ideas about fangirls can be found in various discussions on other Internet sits. “A fangirl is a female member of a fandom community (counterpart to the masculine "fanboy"). Fangirls may be more devoted to emotional and romantic aspects of their, fandom especially (relation-)shipping . However, it is commonly used in a derogatory sense to denote a girl's obsession with something, most commonly a male teen idol or an aspect of Japanese pop culture. Fangirl behavior can vary in intensity. On one end of the scale are those that, while harboring a crush on a particular actor or character, are perfectly capable of understanding that the fulfilment of the crush is never going to happen. On the other end are the girls who are said to be obsessive in their claims on a fictional character, even fighting with other fangirls over who 'owns' the character in question. Fangirl behavior can fall anywhere in this spectrum, but the closer someone is believed to be towards the obsessive end, the more derogatory the use of the term fangirl is perceived to be. Fangirls of all persuasions are believed to be the largest contributors to fanfiction websites, sometimes disregarding the canon storyline of their fandom or altering it to fit either their own favored romantic pairings; or themselves into the continuity (termed self-insertions or Mary Sues). A popular culture gag is that celebrities would use their fans as an army to take over the world”.
Wikipedia explains“A fanboy is a male who is highly devoted and biased in opinion towards a single subject or hobby within a given field. Fanboy-ism is often prevalent in a field of products, brands or universe of characters where very few competitors (or enemies in fiction, such as comics) exist. An example…an "Intel fanboy" prefers CPUs made by Intel, and might aggressively defend their supposed superiority compared to the other brand(s), be skeptical or in denial about negative reviews of the product, and exert a high level of brand loyals…The term originated in comic book circles, to refer to someone who was socially insecure and used comics as a shield from interaction, hence the disparaging connotations. Fanboys are often experts on minor details regarding their hobbies, such as continuity in fictional, and they take these details extremely seriously. The term has also been applied to criticize perceived fan elitism…The term itself is often used in a derogatory manner by less serious fans of the same material. Nevertheless, self-labeling usages of the term have been noted; in the songs of the fannish parody musician Luk Ski, many characters proudly consider themselves fanboys….The term is usually used by and applied to people in their teens or 20s; an age group that is typically found pursuing geeky hobbies obsessively. Within this group, common objects of deference for fanboys are TV shows, movies anime, cars, video game consoles, video games, music, operating systems, trains and home computers (in earlier decades), MMORPGs, ISPs,, software, and computer hardware companies.”
References
Definition of fangirl (British and World English) at www.oxforddictionaries.com viewed 8 February 2013.
Definition of fanboy (Merrian Online Dictionary) at www.merriam-webster.com/...fanboy viewed 9 February 2013
Urban Dictionary Fanboy/Fangirl at www.urbandictionary.com viewed 8 Februrary 2013
