Readers, I’m going to let you in on a secret. To some, it might be embarrassing. But to others, I’m sure it explains a lot about me. During my teenage years, I was a massive fangirl.
fangirl [fan_gurl]
noun
- Sometimes fangurl. an obsessive female fan, especially of comic books, science fiction, video games, music, or electronic devices
Okay, I know that’s part and parcel of being a teenager but let me get deeper into what I mean.
The noughties and tens were a time of peak fangirl behaviour, mainly over bands and musicians. I wasn’t a Directioner or a Belieber. I wans’t into JLS or McFly or You Me At Six. I was a certain breed of fangirl that can only be referred to as a ‘Tumblr girlie’. Tumblr was (and still is) a social media platform where you repost pictures, write little blogs, and engage in a community based on your interested. I wasn’t a cool Tumblr girlie; one who posted poetry quotes, images of coffee and Doc Martens, and pictures of Alexa Chung and Alex Turner. I was part of the other side. The nerdy side. The ones obsessed with Marvel and John Green and the holy trinity of SuperWhoLock (The CW’s Supernatural and BBC’s Doctor Who and Sherlock).
Me and my school friends had characters we resonated with, wore clothes to dress like them, and would spend hours together just rewatching shows and speculating theories. It was such a fun and comforting time because of the community aspect – there were millions of fellow nerds all over the world who had the same, ‘niche’ interests, so you never felt alone. At times, the community and engagement was all encompassing, verging on every-waking-minute fixations as opposed to a hobby – but hey, I was a teenager, that’s what teenagers do.
(Also, let’s just appreciate the fringe I had going on here! The amount of hairspray it took to keep that in place was colossal.)
It’s been over ten years since I’ve truly been in the throws of my fangirl era. My Tumblr lays dormant, renamed and unused, nothing like the bubbling hub of nerd-ism and laughter it once was. I’ve remained a casual Marvel and Doctor Who fan, and obviously still adore all things book-ish. However, I’ve accidentally dipped my toe back into that all-encompassing fangirl lifestyle, and… it’s been good for me?
Let’s get the main thing out of the way – how on earth do you accidentally fall back into something like that? When I was recovering from my endometriosis surgery, I was craving pure home comforts and that also included the content and media I was engaging with. Over the years, I’ve started on the first few seasons of Supernatural when I needed that nostalgic feeling. So, I started from where I left off on my last watch through.
If you’ve never heard of Supernatural, it’s a a long running fantasy-horror series where two brothers fight ghouls, ghosts, monsters, and more. Think Scooby Doo but live action and with a lot more blood and booze. At first, it was something purely comforting to watch (from a nostalgia sense, I don’t find the horror aspects comforting!). I remembered what was happening, the storylines didn’t take too much focus, and I enjoyed seeing those old comfort characters on screen.
comfort character
[ kuhm-fert kar-ik-ter ]
- A comfort character is a fictional character who is said to bring a person comfort, such as while consuming the media that features the character … Comfort characters are often those with supportive, helpful traits, such as wise mentors, caregivers, and brave heroes. However, characters identified as comfort characters vary widely.
I am very aware that a bunch of monster-killing-men and Biblical characters covered in blood don’t really sound like comfort characters but hey; don’t judge until you’ve seen the show.
However, watching Supernatural quickly moved into being one of the highlights of my day, even once my recovery was finished. I downloaded episodes to watch on the bus and in my lunchbreak; would pop it on the TV when having dinner; and even managed to drag my husband into watching it. I started a playlist called “Tunes for the Impala” focused on 80s rock (which wasn’t too much of a stretch, considering that’s a large part of my music taste anyway). However, the flags popped when I started searching for oversized leather jackets and started getting Tiktoks on my feed about Moose, rock salt, and flannel shirts (IYKYK). A lightbulb seemed to go off in my head and I thought “oh no, I’ve reverted.”
When I had that realisation, I felt uncomfortable. It was that kind of discomfort that you can’t put your finger on; the one mixed with guilt and time wasting and nostalgia and annoyance, that comes upon you in waves and makes you feel simply weird. Despite owning a home, being married, and approaching thirty, I felt childish. For a while, I couldn’t work out why I was feeling that way.
I believe a lot of women feel this, that media and society has tried to teach us that girlhood is short lived, and womanhood is the pinnacle. By the time we reach teen ages, boys can be boys, but girls must be women. The social expectation is for women to grow up quicker, for so many damn reasons. So, any activity that engages in that childlike wonder, teenage silliness, or doesn’t lean towards becoming the perfect twenty-first century Western beauty starts to be discouraged. There’s an anonymous quote making rounds online at the moment that encapsulates this perfectly – “Girls don’t mature faster than boys, girls are punished from an early age for the same behaviour that boys are allowed to indulge in well into adulthood”. Why do you think so many women stopped playing sports when they were girls? The society expectation was to be pretty, not strong or loud or boisterous or nerdy; that was for the boys.
And yet, engaging in nerd and fangirl culture used to be such a respite from any expectations society tried to put on me. In fact, it was a whole community of expectation pushers, shamelessly loving what they love and shouting loudly about it. So why should I let those outdated, unfounded thoughts from fifteen years ago creep in now? It’s not weird or shameful to find comfort and joy in your teenage interests.
The world is hard and noisy and on the verge of catastrophe everywhere you look. Getting back into my comfort show has allowed me time away from all that, away from having my brain switched on at every moment. I’ve been able to kick my legs and laugh with a community on newer social media platforms (Tiktok is where the new age Tumblr kids go, for sure). I’ve even noticed my creative cup as been filling up, as I’ve simply been engaging in restful-neutral thought whilst watching Supernatural. If it makes me happy and excited like a teenager again, that’s the harm in that?
So, I will be wearing my AC/DC shirt. I will be listening to Heart and Foreigner. I will be trawling Etsy for pins and Tiktok for Supernatural jokes. And I will be waiting for my husband to return home so we can watch the next episode of Season 13.
Thank you, Fangirl Era 2.0. You’ve given me the joy of silliness and fandom again, and I’m very grateful.
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In all seriousness, if you are finding yourself in a creative slump or are struggling with the state of the world at the moment, I would honestly recommend turning to media that you consumed when you were younger. The music that made you dance in your room; the artists you sang along with at concerts; the characters you dressed up as; the films you watched on repeat. It is sometimes in the familiar and the comfortable that we can rest and allow ourselves to simply enjoy. And that’s one of the first steps to caring for yourself and your creative nature.
Rosie x
PS let me know what your fixations and fandoms were when you were a teenager! Surely, I wasn’t alone in being an absolute dork…
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rosie abigail 
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