I’m a certified fangirl. It’s hard for me to like something casually, and I know many other girls who are just like me. Girls who, in the comfort of their own circles of girlhood, can passionately rant about their interests. They don’t have to be the most dedicated fangirls to enjoy the conversation and bond with others, but outside of these circles, girls often face scrutiny over their interests.
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a larp is “someone accused of larping, using the slang sense of larp, is pretending, acting inauthentically or performatively, or posing.” I remember the first time someone called me a larp. I was at a Comic Convention talking with another cosplayer, and I admitted that I hadn’t seen a popular anime. The (grown) man chuckled and jokingly called me a “larper,” even though I was in head-to-toe cosplay.
I felt my face get red with embarrassment, and all of a sudden, it felt wrong to be in my outfit, as if I didn’t have the right to wear it. Later, I downplayed it in my head. I told myself it wasn’t that deep, and that was just another way that fans interacted. Sure, it rubbed me the wrong way, but it didn’t seem that serious.
Later, I was talking to one of my friends who experienced something similar with the NHL fanbase. A man made the demand every fangirl dreads: “Name five players.” In this case, you can swap the “players” for anything: songs, characters, books, etc. The sentiment still stands. Why am I getting quizzed over my interest? Even if I’m a casual enjoyer, why does it feel like I just failed a test? Even if I can name five players, it still feels like I’m not qualified to call myself a fan.
“Fangirl” or “Larp”
Fan culture has a hierarchy of devotion: at the top are the super-fans, and at the bottom are the casual enjoyers, but it seems like women are often excluded from this pyramid entirely, relegated to our own class of fan culture and “larping.” If we can’t name every player on the roster or we confuse characters, we aren’t real fans. We aren’t afforded the privilege of casually enjoying media or culture. We’re either obsessed superfans or not fans at all.
Think of a classic fangirl: maybe she’s a Directioner or a Swiftie, maybe she’s a Twihard or an Arianator. She has posters, a TikTok edit collection, and passion. She thrives in female-dominated spaces and knows everything about her fandom.
Now, think of how fangirls are perceived: overemotional, obsessive, and overzealous. She cries at her favorite concert, just like how a fanboy cries when his team scores a goal, but one of those is policed and put under a microscope. The other one is celebrated as passion and dedication. It’s not the behavior itself that’s criticized; it’s the person.
What does this have to do with larping? It’s the same idea in a different form; they’re inverses of each other. It’s not the behavior of women under scrutiny, but the fact that they’re women trying to exist in male-dominated fandoms. I can’t recall the last time I heard of a man calling another man a “larp,” or asking him to name five football players.
Let’s go back to the sports example. When a man starts getting into a new sport or following a new team, the fandom embraces him like they’re at a family reunion. He can mess up rosters or players because it’s okay. He’s new. At the end of the day, he’s still a fan. He’s afforded the wiggle room of getting into something, of discovering something for the first time.
Girls aren’t afforded that kind of grace. When a girl gets into a sport, if she doesn’t know who won the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix, she gets called a larp. Maybe it’s not with particularly malicious intentions, maybe it’s just a joke, maybe it isn’t that deep. But I think it is.
Why it Matters
A fandom is one of the most sacred communities someone can be in. It’s cathartic to talk with someone with the same interests as you. Even if someone isn’t the most dedicated fan, finding out someone has the slightest fascination with a shared passion is rewarding. It’s an opportunity to bond and connect with new people, but instead of being included and welcomed like men are, women are criticized for being casual enjoyers.
What does this do for women? Imagine if you invite someone over for dinner, and they make fun of you the entire time. We’re vulnerable when we invite someone over, like when we share our interests. It’s a form of opening up, like, “Hey, I enjoy this thing, do you like it too?” By meeting this with even casual hostility or subtle judgment, women are pushed out of spaces they’re supposed to feel safe in.
It’s easy to say “it’s not that deep,” but when we normalize this kind of behavior and attitude towards women, it becomes a slippery slope towards discarding the value of women in these spaces. Women can offer different perspectives in each of their respective fandoms, and by pushing them out, we also push out these perspectives and fresh, new takes on different topics.
This doesn’t mean we should stop enjoying what we enjoy or hide it from people. In my opinion, we should do the opposite. I can recall being so scared about wearing my anime t-shirts out in public. What would people have to say? What if they think I’m weird? Then, I remember the number of times I’ve bonded with other girls because of what I was wearing; it instantly broke the ice.
In the face of anxiety or embarrassment about being perceived as a “fangirl” or a “larp,” maybe we should be ourselves. It might seem like an elementary concept, but it’s harder in practice, and yet, it’s so worth it.
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