Boybands and Teenage Girls

After watching the documentary ‘Crazy About One Direction’, I just kept thinking that this kind of craziness isn’t really anything new. As long as there have been boybands, there have been teenage girls going crazy for them. For example, a woman tattooed Westlife’s faces on her back, and sadly, two girls committed suicide when Take That split up in 1996. For most teenage girls, being into a boyband is right of passage, and simply a part of growing up. For my age group, we used to get 'Smash Hits' and 'Top of The Pops' magazines and take out the posters and put them on the wall. We watched Saturday morning TV to see our favourite group.

 Vicky, with Westlife tattoed on her back

I am a huge Westlife fan. I have been since the very beginning, when I was fourteen years old. I think anyone who knows me associates me with my undying loyalty to the group. I’ve seen them seven times in concert. I also won a competition to meet the group at their World Of Our Own album signing at HMV in Dublin. I was heartbroken when I found out that my favourite member, Shane Filan, had a girlfriend. My first ever concert was Westlife when they performed at The Rose Of Tralee Festival when I was sixteen. Now, Shane is performing his new single on The Rose Of Tralee next Tuesday night, and all I want to do is to finally meet him properly. Even though it is fifteen years later and I am now twenty nine, I will always be that fourteen year old teenage girl when it comes to Westlife.­

While I consider myself to be a ‘normal’ Westlife fan rather than on the ‘obsessive’ side that ‘Directioners’ were portrayed as on the documentary, I can still relate to what it’s like be a fan of a boyband. My favourite moment of the documentary was towards the end when the fans got really emotional when they got their tickets for the tour. For the fans, it is a big deal. Last year Westlife had their last ever concert at Croke Park. I was lucky enough to be there as the tickets sold out in four minutes. You just feel like you have that rare golden ticket into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Nothing beats the feeling of going to see your favourite band live.

Each fandom of a particular boyband feels like they created something original and special, and I’m sorry to tell One Direction fans, you aren’t that different. ‘Shipping’ came up on the One Direction documentary. This refers to a section of their fans wanting members Harry and Louis (known as ‘Larry’) to have a gay relationship. They have created fan art and fan fiction to go along with this 'relationship'. But this is nothing new. With Westlife, fans had the same thing with Shane and Nicky (known as ‘Shnicky’).

But what is different with ‘Directioners’ is social media, and in particular, Twitter. Collectively One Direction have over sixty million followers. It just creates hysteria within the fandom. I don’t think a day goes by where something to do with One Direction trending. They feel like they have personal access to the band, and use it to find out where they are and interact with other fans. It definitely increases their popularity, but I think that if Twitter was around at the height of Take That and Westlife’s fame, it would have had the same affect. But my god are some of the fans scary and take their loyalty to the extreme! The documentary showed that they have tweeted that they will kill themselves if Harry Styles won’t follow them, as well as sending Taylor Swift death threats because of her past relationship with Harry. This is just the tip of the iceberg. After the documentary, #RIPLarryShippers was trending, as there was a rumour that fourty two fans killed themselves after the way they were portrayed in the documentary, which isn’t true at all. Something like this is extremely frightening, as it could give other impressionable fans ideas.

While it’s good to be a fan and wanting to support them goes a long with it, being a part of a ‘fandom that could kill you’ is not. One Direction mania looks like it isn’t slowing down any time soon, so Directioners, all I can say is just sit back and enjoy the ride while it lasts, and don’t get caught up in any hared, disrespect and obsessive behaviour, be the kind of fan your boys can be proud of!