Together, Together is blazing its way through our hearts once again as Harry Styles has kicked off his MSG residency tour in New York City. Every tour video from London and NYC has sent me back in time and reminded me of why this fandom has a special place in my heart. It’s also made me wonder why every fandom I’ve been part of has made its way through my life and helped me find community, no matter what city I’m in.
As we grow up, we are expected to become more “normal”. Not obsess over somebody like Harry Styles or Taylor Swift. We are expected to be calm, cool, and collected when Threshing Day comes out, see Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and move on with our lives versus watching every interview or dissecting the movie. We have responsibilities, bills, jobs, emails I should have answered three days ago.
And yet, seeing one video of Harry Styles at MSG brings me back to the little girl that’s hiding behind all those responsibilities. And I’ve started to wonder why we ever decided that girl had to grow up.
Life In The Fandom
Everyone, despite how it looks, has some universe they fangirl over. There is a very specific phenomenon that takes form when women get excited about something. We can be perfectly rational up until someone mentions our favorite book, artist, TV show, or fictional man. As kids, this is the expectation: we are gifted posters of our favorite bands that will cover our walls, receive jewelry with Louis Tomlinson’s face on it, collect books of their tours, and watch every tour video that comes out on YouTube.
And then we grow up.
At 19, I was staying up all night with my freshman year roommate waiting for the Eras Tour surprise song to hit our Twitter feed; we patiently waited for Harry’s LOT tour outfits and debated and dreamed of what he would wear in Austin soon after.
I am now 22, still waiting on Harry’s Together, Together outfits, and quietly praying that one day we will finally get unreleased songs from Reputation.
My inner fangirl never went away; she just found other universes to slowly consume her every thought.
Meeting You
The best part of fandom isn’t always the thing we are obsessed with. Sometimes it’s the people standing next to us while we are obsessed with it. Fandom is how I found my freshman year roommate; one conversation about our favorite member of One Direction, and I knew we were meant to be roommates. We decorated our windowsill with our Harry candle, displayed all our favorite vinyls and constantly had music playing that filled our dorm with the type of love that can only be found between two girls who had the same obsession as kids. Eventually, we went to LOT together and even surprised our suitemate with a ticket so we could all enjoy a night that only seemed made up.
But a fandom is not only made up of music-obsessed women, but it is also made up of people who find passion in every universe we imagine ourselves in. A book that was borrowed from a friend suddenly became a story that I cherish and can talk about to any stranger I come across. (Emma, if you’re reading this, thank you). It is a movie theatre full of people who have watched Marvel since they were kids; it’s a coworker you have never spoken to suddenly becoming your best friend.
Something Has To Change
At 22, I am not the same girl who once filled her walls with posters; I am not the same girl who discovered what a fandom even was. Somewhere along the way, being associated with a fandom became something that was immature, a thing that we would eventually grow out of, but when did caring deeply about something become cringe?
Growing up, I have realized we were never supposed to let that go, embrace the cringe, as they say. Our passions change as we grow up; a boy band becomes something you reminisce on, a book series that we once loved becomes books on display on our shelves as a silent reminder of the friends you met along the way. An old tour video reminds you of the good ole days. But when we encounter something we are genuinely passionate about, the inner fangirl comes alive, and the world feels vibrant once again. The fangirl brings the color back. Fandoms grow and change, and people younger than us pick up the torch to remind us all of the worlds we once were a part of.
The fangirl reminds me that the colors I once saw at 12 are still here waiting for me. I just have to drop the facade and embrace her again.