Boy bands have been a controversial subject in music since the day the very first one was formed.
They have been accused of making terrible music, and that their pure purpose to exist is to sell a boyfriend to prepubescent females. They are not artists, but a product meant to be sold to an easily impressionable and inferior audience who would not know quality if it hit them in the face.
One major factor of why boy bands receive lots of criticism is that a large majority of their fans tend to be female. Their fans are criticized for being passionate about the boys and there seems to be a belief that a girl’s reason for liking the boys is purely hormonal. It does not cross their minds that the girls make the choice to support an artist they enjoy.
When women like things and are excited about things, they are often shamed for doing so because it makes others feel uncomfortable. Funny enough, when men congregate and get excited about things, their interests are taken more seriously and are not as often or easily dismissed.
When the Beatles first came out and their fanbase was mainly female, they received criticism for it, but as the years went on and more and more males became interested in their music, they began to be taken more seriously. This shows that when a lot of women like one thing, it is immediately assumed as asinine and a fad, rather than something they are genuinely interested in.
It is not just men who dismiss boy bands as stupid, I was disturbed to see that a lot of women do too in shameless displays of internalized misogyny. They have this desire to feel special and different because they do not like boy bands. But rather than keeping that to themselves and seeking out something they do like, they criticize the women that do like it, rather cruelly.
They do not have the ability to grasp that not liking something popular does not make them special. Being unnecessarily mean about how much they dislike it just makes them look pretentious and pitiful.
This idea that boy bands do not have casual listeners damages male fans as well. If a guy were to be open about enjoying a boy band there would be a stigma around it. He would be thrown homophobic slurs because of the assumption that all fans of boy bands want to engage in sexual relations with them.
Boy bands challenge what is traditionally masculine. One Direction was continually called gay because of the songs they sang and the clothes they wore. They were not seen as manly or even men, with some insulting them by referring to them as little girls. Their colorful clothes and attention to fashion was seen as homosexual activity. Now such insults are hurled at the new biggest boy band, BTS, with most of their insults being racially motivated.
Now we move on to the fandoms that these bands garner during their peaks of fame. Boy bands are known for having some of the most dedicated fandoms during their runs.
One Direction was a band that had a fanbase that rivaled Taylor Swift in size and power. Because of their massive support One Direction was often a target of hate. Along with most boy band consumers, their fans are seen as nothing more than unruly mobs rather than people with their own autonomy. The fans of boy bands are not mindless drones caught under the spell of some siren, they make their own choices.
I have noticed that female fans have this great ability to organize and make miracles happen for the bands they choose to support. I believe that female fans being loud and proud about their admiration for boy bands makes people uncomfortable because it breaks the image and stereotype of women being demure and subdued.
They can enjoy their things as long as their interest does not take the spotlight from things condescendingly deemed “more important.” Most artists could only dream of having a fandom so dedicated to watching them succeed.
This bias tends to be arrogance and misogyny, and the uncomfortable realization that women have more control over themselves and their hormones that people would like.
In the future, we need to be more open-minded towards the interests other people hold. If you do not like it, fine, but before you decide that, take the time to research and form an opinion based on facts before you make a mistake and form an opinion based on bias.
