A Closer Look On Being A Fangirl

A Closer Look on being a Fan Boy/Girl

You’ve probably heard the word ‘fan girl’ before. You’ve probably even dropped it in one of your conversation or even read it when you were surfing the net. But what exactly does the word ‘fan girl’ mean? What does it mean to be a fan girl?

A fan girl, according to dictionary.reference.com, is a person obsessed with any other single subject or hobby – it may be an actor or a fictional character. It is a person who has a compulsive dedication to a music artist. She is someone who does various things to show love to her idol. Such activities include talking about them almost all day and creating graphics (wallpapers, layouts, etc) that feature the idol. Some also collect posters and other merchandise of their beloved idol. Others even save up their allowances to go to the concerts of their idols.

Nowadays, when a person hears the word fan girl, they immediately associate it with negative things. Fan girl is always pre-packaged with negative connotations about screaming teenagers, unhealthy obsession and certain shallowness of interest. And since it is associated with unhealthy obsession, most people, especially the parents, believe that being a fan girl is a bad thing because it detracts her from her studies. People believe that instead of focusing on her studies, a fan girl chooses to obsess over her idol/s. When she gets home, instead of doing her home works right away, she would rather sit in front of the computer and look for pictures and videos of her idols to see what they were doing during the day. She would even be on Google and know everything about her idols as much as she can. She would be fantasizing on how she would be able to meet her idol in the future. She would be doing all these first before doing her tasks as a student. And this is why parents often associate being a fan girl as a bad thing, for they only know these things. They don’t know that being a fan girl brings out something very good in every teenager.
Becoming a fan girl happens when you idolize someone. You idolize someone not just because of the amount of wealth that she has or because of her physical attributes. You idolize someone because of her character. Because of this, you have someone to look up to. You have a role model. And since you have this idol as your role model, you excel on everything that you do because you are inspired by your idol.
“Birds of the same feather flock together.” When you become a fan girl, you gain more friends. Believe me, I speak from experience. When you get to meet other people who have the same interests as you, you instantly become friends with them. You talk about why you became a fan girl, your idol, the number of albums and posters you have collected. And similarly, you also talk about your personal life as well, as you gradually begin to open up to this new friend of yours. Aside from that, you learn how to save money when you become a fan girl. Since you want to buy certain things such as the posters and albums of your idol/s or even go and watch their concert, you’d save up your allowance. You will gradually learn to value money because it is not easily earned. You will learn how to sacrifice in order to get what you want instead of always asking from your parents. You will come to know that not everything in this world will be given to us right away. Most of the time, you need to work very hard to make ends meet.
Lastly, the activities done by a fan girl relieves stress. Every day when he/she goes home after a long day at school, a fan girl will immediately sit in front of the computer or laptop and watch videos or gaze at pictures of her idols. This is her way of relieving stress from a very long and tiring day at school. Now this is the thing that other people don’t know about fan girls, most especially their parents. For them, this is their own simple way of dealing with all of the hardships and stress they are experiencing every day. And for me, this is indubitably true because I do this almost every day. When these fan girls see their idols smile or even hear their voice, it’s like all the weariness that they feel melts away in an instant. Of course it doesn’t really go away, but then at the very least they gain the strength to continue and finish a long and stressful day. It is because of their idols that they continue to move forward.
I think that this is one very positive side of being a fan girl because one gets to relieve herself from all the stress. And it indeed is a good thing because instead of doing other things, like drinking alcohol and smoking, she would rather look at pictures or watch videos of her idols to uplift herself. Think about it. This is so much better than resorting to vices like drinking, smoking and gambling. I think most parents should be thankful that their daughters who are fan girls are just watching pictures and videos of their idols or even practicing the dance steps to their idols’ dances instead of finding them outside doing vices. We never know that because of being a fan girl, she might excel in everything that she does. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb inside of his skin and walk around it” (Lee 30). This is what Harper Lee wrote in her book, How To Kill A Mockingbird. It’s the same with being a fan girl. You can never say that it is a bad thing unless you have tried to do it. Most people may view it as something negative, but I most certainly don’t. Being one has even helped me cope up with stress that I feel especially that I am now out of my comfort zone. We might not admit it, but we people tend to judge something or someone without even knowing or hearing the other side of the story. Little do we know that fan girls excel on what they do because they’re very inspired to reach their dream. Moreover, they are motivated by the thought that their idol/s will recognize them one day – not only as a fan but as a successful person who her idol can be proud of.

Works Cited

Lee, Harper. How To Kill A Mockingbird. Warner books, 1960.Print.

Cited: Lee, Harper. How To Kill A Mockingbird. Warner books, 1960.Print.