The article spends a lot of time on mentioning that things like Twilight and One Direction are looked down upon, before finally explaining what the problem here actually is.
This quote from the screenwriter of the Twilight movies really gets the point through:
> "We've seen more than our fair share of bad action movies, bad movies geared toward men or 13-year-old boys. And you know, the reviews are like ‘OK that was crappy, but a fun ride.' But no one says ‘Oh my god. If you go to see this movie you're a complete xxxxing idiot.' And that's the tone. That is the tone with which people attack 'Twilight'."
How can you believe you're automatically owed respect when something vaguely similar gets it?
It's not as if everything that gets love from teenage girls is hated. E.g., they loved The Beatles and ABBA back in the day, and these are not hated, as far as I can tell.
>It's not as if everything that gets love from teenage girls is hated. E.g., they loved The Beatles and ABBA back in the day, and these are not hated,
That's not true. The Beatles were also hated in 1960s by the older generation that preferred the previous 1950s & 1940s artists such as Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, etc.
You can google for contemporaneous criticism of the time and you'll see plenty of examples such "rubbish ... tiresome..." :
EDIT to reply: We're talking about things hated by the same generation here.
The journalist of this article Laura Moss graduated from college 2005 so she was about ~25 -- so not a teenager -- when the Twilight movie came out in 2008. Also, she would have been in her ~30s when the music band One Direction was at their peak. In her text, she's referring to "teens" in the 3rd person and not talking about herself.
The article is not about the generation gap. Older generations also hated Superman and Spiderman and Star Wars.
While people may have mocked the emotion surrounding the breaking up of the Beatles (something conspicuously absent when ABBA called it a day), their music was shared by many, and still is. It's simply not true that
> "Because once teenage girls start liking something, it's over."
> "We hate everything they love, on principle."
The entire article's tenet is: it's because they are women. Why it doesn't extend to other age groups? No explanation. And the idea that Twilight simply is garbage never even comes up. At best it's playing the victim, or pushing cultural relativism, at worst it's an attempt at driving the political division deeper.
People who enjoy comic book movies are constantly talked down to by others for enjoying them.
The diehard DC comic fans who started the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign and pooled their money together to buy billboards during Comic-Con were called similar things by the rest of the Internet for doing so.
Only in niche circles: those are huge, industry-transforming blockbusters so they’re inevitably going to get some negative reaction but that’s because they’re so mainstream now. The dynamic in the 90s was more like what you’re talking about but that was 3 decades ago.
Was Twilight not a huge, mainstream, industry transforming blockbluster? The film series pulled in billions of dollars, and led the way for quite a few high-grossing YA series adaptations.
I'm not sure what you mean. I can certainly point to examples of actors, directors, and journalists who've said that comic book movies are dumb and everyone needs to grow up. It's not the socially dominant view nowadays, but I don't think Twilight hatred is dominant either.
I think Twilight hatred is dominant, to the point of being a mainstream cultural stereotype. Comic books have mostly gained mainstream success, whereas Twilight, which has also seen success in its field, has never not been hated by the mainstream.
What about the "Twilight Moms", are mom's not mainstream?
For that matter, I'm not sure what mainstream is if an entire generation of children doesn't fall into it.
That’s because usually, boys don’t go on the internet and peddle their crappy action movies so much so that you get in contact with them whether you like it or not. Add to that the inward and outward flowing toxicity these fandoms seem to produce. They also are extremely powerful and concentrated. Just this week the BTS (a K-Pop band) fandom in Germany wanted to cancel radio host over a remark they deemed racist. I can’t remember the last time 14 year old boys initiated an outrage mob.
...what? The history of mob-dynamic, targeted harassments on the internet is, generously, uniformly distributed across gender. See: 4chan/the web in general, prior to very recent history.
Even if we scope it down specifically to fandoms engaging in targeted harassment campaigns, see: Gamergate, Star Wars, the insane fandoms of YouTubers like Logan Paul and PewDiePie.
> Just this week the BTS (a K-Pop band) fandom in Germany wanted to cancel radio host over a remark they deemed racist. I can’t remember the last time 14 year old boys initiated an outrage mob.
This is a bizarre take given the actual remark. This would've been widely condemned regardless and the overall reaction to this has nothing to do with the age of the fans of BTS.
> "Dear teenagers who are listening: Please take no offense," Matuschik said, per a translation uploaded to YouTube. "But personally, I think that BTS is... Let me put it like this: BTS is like SARS."
> "It's an abbreviation for some fucking virus that we'll hopefully have a vaccine for soon as well," he continued.
> Matuschik went on to argue that he has "nothing against South Korea," and couldn't be called xenophobic because he owns a South Korean car. (According to Teen Vogue, one look at Matuschik's now-deleted Instagram account showed photos of his Daihatsu Copen, which is made in Japan.)
> "These little suckers brag with their cover of 'Fix You' by Coldplay," he said. "To which I respond: That's blasphemy... For doing that, you should have to spend a 20-year-long vacation in North Korea."
Some criticism is valid. The movies are bad. I can’t speak for the books...but the movies are very bad. I think it was the 3rd movie that I’ll say is the 2nd worst movie I’ve ever seen.
There are plenty of things that teenage girls like that don’t fall in the category of Twilight. Buffy the Vampire Slayer just as an example. Very similar premise but executed with a great story and acting.
Twilight movies are just bad. It’s a valid criticism.
> "We've seen more than our fair share of bad action movies, bad movies geared toward men or 13-year-old boys. And you know, the reviews are like ‘OK that was crappy, but a fun ride.' But no one says ‘Oh my god. If you go to see this movie you're a complete xxxxing idiot.' And that's the tone. That is the tone with which people attack 'Twilight'."
People say this about boyish movies all the time. I never read the twilight books, but I did see, what I think was the last movie. I recall two things about it. One was a hilariously PG sex scene with visual sparkles to imply an orgasm. The other was a long, hilariously cheap fight scene where every other character got rapidly decapitated.
> Mocking teenage girls and portraying their interest as worthless can further reinforce ideas that things created for women and by women are unimportant.
Should we instead believe that Twilight, One Direction and Taylor Swift are important? That they aren't doesn't seem like a discriminatory judgement, just an acknowledgment that things that are important to teen girls (or boys) aren't necessarily worthy of the rest of our attention.
> But while some girls may be strongly affected by the demeaning of their interests, Jensen says others will continue to love what they love and fangirl despite the judgment. "Fortunately, girls are pretty badass and do their own thing anyway."
This is the healthy response, and not coincidentally, a typical and prerequisite attitude of the common nerd.
Something equivalent that teen boys "adore" like girls and boy bands and twilight?
I can only think of video games.. perhaps anime, possibly comics.
All of which are widely mocked.
Its not that girl's interests are taboo - its that when any gender gets too wrapped up in something that it becomes part of their identity society should mock to encourage adoption of other interests.
Video games, anime and comics (and comic-book movies) are not widely mocked. They're wildly popular.
Getting too far into anime and becoming a "weeb" is widely mocked. A specific video-game, comic or anime series might be mocked, but in the general sense all these things are well liked.
I think you're just revealing your bubble. Depending on the crowd anime and video games can be the thing only losers partake in, whereas high school romcoms and riding horses are considered normal.
I suppose anyone can say "Your argument is coming from your bubble" without saying much else. It's not a great argument. But I think I'd like to hear why you think your read on the situation is better than mine.
Here's why I think I've got a good read on this: I'm in my 40s and I have friends, family and acquaintances from all walks of life. I specifically live my life so that I don't have a bubble or a lot of dependencies. I just hang out a lot online and I'm reporting what I see.
My 10 year old niece loves anime and video games. I have some friends in their 20s and 30s who love anime and video games. I hang out on Twitch, Reddit or 9gag and almost exclusively peruse these sites using the "popular" firehose - I always see lots and lots of references to anime, video games and comic-book movies. Actual comics/comic-books do not come up quite as often - but cos-play does.
I don't really like anime. I enjoyed some classics when I younger - titles such as Akira, Ninja Scroll and uhhh Blood: The Last Vampire. I play one video game: Rocket League. Other than that, I'm not what you'd call a "gamer".
On Twitch though, I definitely see high school kids with tons of viewers playing all sorts of games and talking about anime.
Twitch, 9gag and Reddit are most definitely a bubble. I mean, there are even the jokes in the various subreddits about how they'd never get someone with that belief system here, or on 9gag about how there aren't actually any women.
I'm in my 30s and for me the biggest grounding point for what is and isn't my bubble has come from online dating. Let me just say, being into Star Trek, owning a 3D printer and knowing your way around even the basics of a shell terminal are all, even individually, something only a small fraction of the population would identify with. These are pretty independent things, however, inside of these there is quite a large overlap. Hence, it's a subculture and the modern world which lets us choose our human interactions based on our interests automatically turns that into a bubble.
I believe a similar thing happens to those who descend into the redpill movement, or join the military, or get involved in Twitter activism, or do mountaineering, or base jumping, or Instagram fitness, or eat at a different restaurant every night, or so many other things. Everybody thinks their own worldview represents a much larger population cross section than it actually does. And everyone can find someone with a more extreme perspective, making them feel moderate in their position.
Is it that girl stuff is more widely mocked, or that girls are more sensitive to it? Boys likely generate and receive more mockery and find it easier to shrug off. A boy can be relentlessly mocked for loving Warhammer, but just not care as much as a girl mocked for loving Ariana Grande.
This would be similar to the finding that while men tend to be harassed on social media at least as much as women, women are outraged more by it. Is it more important to change things so that the reaction is equal, or the provocation?
> This would be similar to the finding that while men tend to be harassed on social media at least as much as women...
You lost me there. Setting aside the current political nightmare the U.S. finds itself in, men are not generally subject to death and rape threats like women online. The clothes men wear on TV are not subject to the same constant criticism that women wear. Men who vent frustration on Twitter are not forced to bow out of contention for a Cabinet position like women are.
Ever played a video game online? The death threats I've received from that alone probably number in the dozens by now, for the crime of not playing perfectly in a match.
I've also been told several times that I should be killed or to kill myself because someone didn't enjoy a video game I made and put out into the world (for free).
While I'd agree with your premise overall, online anonymity allows for many a death threat to be thrown out there often and casually by jackasses and kids who don't care how they hurt others.
It is also true that men are more likely to commit suicide, and that suicide is twice as common in the US as murder and non-negligent manslaughter. And also true that the ratio reverses for attempts.
I don’t have solutions, FWIW; unlike the Douglas Adams quip about a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth [0], I have no idea how to make the world a good and happy place.
not sure it matters to the argument, but I'd point out that teenagers who are really into warhammer also get mocked by their peers for it. it's a nerdy interest. a teenage girl is (I think) unlikely to be mocked by her peers for loving stereotypical teenage girl music.
The language against things like video games, skateboarding, or metal was far more charged than it ever was towards things like twilight or one direction.
It seems like girls are just more sensitive to the mockery. Maybe we should keep that in mind and let them have their fun. But it's hard to see how they subject to more criticism than teenage boys are.
There’s lots of evidence now that too much social media consumption amongst teen girls dramatically increases rates of depression. Likely due to FOMO, etc.
The thing they “love” is (usually) being able to interact with their friends online. I haven't read anything about old school forums dramatically increasing rates of depression.
Beatles and One Direction are kinda polar examples (one too old, one too new) to make unbiased answer. So let's choose middle ground. Was Backstreet Boys good quality band? How about Bay City Rollers?
How about instead of complaining and blaming other people for their cultural preferences, we try and encourage teenage girls and boys to be more emotionally resilient from external factors? Life is tough and if you can’t handle the idea of someone not agreeing with your choice of musician or actors, you’re in for a bumpy ride. I think it’s healthier for everyone that way.
I agree that people need to be resilient of people having different opinions. At the same time, I think the author made a good point that media specifically targeted at teenage girls is subject to extreme mockery, unlike anything I’ve seen directed towards teenage boys.
I think we can encourage people to be resilient, and at the same time take a second to think, and then not belittle someone’s interest just because it’s enjoyed by teenage girls.
> I think we can encourage people to be resilient, and at the same time take a second to think, and then not belittle someone’s interest just because it’s enjoyed by teenage girls.
The fact that someone can be offended or emotionally affected by someone else belittling their interests already means that they are not resilient enough. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be able to call out some piece of cultural work as being garbage, whether someone likes it or not. People have always had a cultural hierarchy and it has served us well. If you choose to like some cheesy-ass artist then do it at your own risk and don’t be surprised if others avoid you and don’t invite you to their birthday party.
In this context I mean specifically teenage girls. We can allow teenage girls to enjoy something without belittling them. Adults constantly telling teenagers that what they enjoy is worthless is not ok.
It’s easy to say that they should be more resilient, but that comes with time. Being a teenager is tough to enough without adults trying to tear them down.
Furthermore, the issue is that teenage girls are specifically the targets of this harassment. And they are only being judged because they are enjoying something while being female. That sexist attitude needs to change in the media and peoples opinions.
In principle, I agree, but I think the time for this has come to an end. The modern world doesn't create the cultural pressure to develop emotionally mature adults, and perhaps it's time that we accept this. It's a losing battle to ask people to be responsible, emotionally mature, and resilient. What would be the incentive?
I think that our societies are and will always be deeply hierarchical, and being individually reaponsible is just another dimension across which someone can end up closer to the top above others.
I wouldn’t normally respond to such a snarky comment, but does it seem to you like those who write these kind of articles are willing to change something about themselves? Or put some effort into educating their children? No, it’s always someone else who’s at fault.
Two quotes from the article (both are actually quotes in the article as well):
> turn a butter-wouldn't-melt teenage girl into a rabid, knicker-wetting banshee who will tear off her own ears in hysterical fervour when presented with the objects of her fascinations
> We've seen more than our fair share of bad action movies, bad movies geared toward men or 13-year-old boys. And you know, the reviews are like ‘OK that was crappy, but a fun ride.' But no one says ‘Oh my god. If you go to see this movie you're a complete xxxxing idiot.' And that's the tone. That is the tone with which people attack 'Twilight'.
The first quote is about the reaction of girls, while the other is about the content or value of some media product intended for boys. My only point is that they're taking the first as proof of belittling the content (Twilight, One Direction, etc.) instead of a comment on the reaction itself.
Just as a note, I have no thoughts one way or another about the "hysteria" displayed by teenage girls, but I'm curious why the same kind of hyper-excitement is rarely seen in boys. Presumably it's throwned upon them expressing themselves like that, even for something that excites them?
EDIT: Maybe I just haven't seen that hyper-excitement in boys, I'm open to a contrary suggestion :D
I think the age-spectrum for football (and other sports) is a lot broader and the most energetic fans (hooligans, ultras gangs) are not really held in high regard - but I take your point, there are probably tonnes of fan-boys for Cristiano Ronaldo and co.
> Just as a note, I have no thoughts one way or another about the "hysteria" displayed by teenage girls, but I'm curious why the same kind of hyper-excitement is rarely seen in boys.
It isn't rarely seen in boys, it's just rarely associated with consumption of non-participatory media in boys, but instead associated with opportunities for physical, often violent, action.
And we treat being interested in the things it focusses on far worse than the things teen girls get hyper-excited about (for legitimate reasons; no one got killed by Twilight even if people outside the target demographic dragged into it wished they had.)
The first examples that come to mind of things teenage boys like - Beavis and Butthead, first person shooters, Jackass - generally are considered the downfall of civilisation and inspire calls to ban them. So I’m not sure where the author gets the idea this is limited to teenage girls.
I think this is a solid point. teenage boys definitely have their own "hated things" that, as a group, they tend to like. one possible difference is that there's a vocal segment of adults who also enjoy these things. when I was a kid, adults in my life didn't understand how I could spend so much time "staring at a brown wall" (I spent a lot of time on 24/7 dust2 servers). but a decade or so later, it's pretty common for adults to play those sorts of games. I don't think it's quite as acceptable for adult women to still enjoy twilight. if I had to generalize, I'd say there's a greater expectation for women to "grow out of" their teenage interests. but it varies a lot for each specific interest, not sure how well that generalization holds.
I think this really depends on who you talk to. I know lots of professional adult women who are super into Korean boy bands, but they don’t feel obligated to hide it from friends and coworkers, and I’ve never heard anyone express a hint that they need to grow out of it.
Maybe we adult men can more likely get away with holding onto our adolescent obsessions because we already tend to have more power than our female counterparts. I recently re-read _Ready Player One_, and now that I think about it in this context, it's largely about a billionare who became so powerful that he could not only hold onto his 80s obsessions for his whole life, but give the rest of the world a powerful incentive to share those obsessions.
It reminds the herd, just as Van Gogh and Picasso did- no one has done this before, but guess what, you bunch of obedient cattle, you can! What 'this' is doesnt matter. What matters is, the herd gets that signal on periodic basis. Its what pushes outliers in the herd, doing their own thing, to take steps in directions no one has before. People who think its marks a downfall of civilization need to pack their bags and move to China where you can see first hand what happens to a herd that doesnt get that signal.
Jackass are modern clowns. They appeal to base level emotions (ala fart jokes). It's not high art, and it's not anything particularly special. It's basically Garbage Pail Kids IRL.
Hardly the "downfall of civilization" but I'll take some decent Chinese folk art over Jackass any day.
Well I love the Beatles but when I see (old) videos of women shouting so much that they cannot possibly hear the music and doing it for a loooonng time, I admit I don't understand their behaviour..
Some good points, though I disagree that pathos heavy material aimed at teenaged boys fares any better in the critic's corner.
Anything that is out of balance with the 3 pillars of rhetoric comes across as artistically incomplete and immature to the degree which it's out of balance.
Most art aimed at a specific in-group tends to overemphasize pathos (and to a lesser extent ethos) and almost completely abandons logos - you don't need rationality when you're preaching to the choir.
I don't know about "hate" as it's just a market to be served like any other, but there's no reason to celebrate imbalanced low-stakes art when we have so many counterexamples.
I never saw it much as hating the things girl love, but more the often hysterical reaction. Sure, something like Twillight isn’t great writing, but neither is Dan Brown, and I enjoy his books, so who am I to judge.
It’s the screaming, the all or nothing mentality and the “My life it ruined, I’ll kill myself” reaction when a band breaks up I can’t stand. That honestly cannot be healthy and should be something we as parents help to prevent.
It seems like the mirror image of teenage boys who start raging when they do badly in a game. Lord knows I was one of those teenage boys, and that level of emotional investment really is tied in with community-building, but my friends and family would have been doing me a disservice if they told me it was healthy to get so worked up.
I’m not a psycologist so I wouldn’t know, but doesn’t that ignore the fact that some of these bands, books, movies and series specifically target young girls and exploit this sense of community building and turn the emotions and expect reaction up to 11?
It probably is healthy. It's emoutional release. Teens have so much hormones / body chemical changes going on, they have to have a means to "freak out".
Keeping that all pent up, inside is probably unhealthy.
So what's something teen girls liked, and was hated, but shouldn't have been?
Their example of the Beatles was not the premise but rather disliking teens girls over-liking the Beetles.
Then they list things teen girls like and others like, but that was because they were too male?
A example of something kids liked but was hated was Barney the Dinosaur. In retrospect it was because it wasn't dual layer, it hit a nerve because it was only for kids. Although that still makes it bad for adults the hatred for it was misguided.
Was Barney hated? By whom? I'm not that familiar with it but it seems like the sort of show that is very popular with younger children. When children get older they mock such things as an outward show that they are maturing. They like it, but it's cool to mock it.
Older children I know mock TV/games that the younger kids like - to 'show their maturity'.
Now, there are plenty of shows/books/games my kids watch/read/play that I dislike. I don't dislike them for lack of high culture - I dislike them because they're trash, they're just distraction without any educational benefit (no learning, not even social), no challenge, no development. Part of this is that in the past lots of media was about real life, but now it's 'all' about fantasy universes, often animated. Low value shows with people in at least help you learn to read people's emotions, or whatever.
Barney, from what I recall is relatively good on emotional learning. Often stuff 'for kids' is just about distraction, which is why adults don't like it: loads of kids shows (games, books etc.) have humour, plot, character development, mystery, drama. Loads of others are basically just minimal storylines with flashy images and sounds. If there's nothing to talk about afterwards then it's a bad show for any age IMO.
Darn I misread the title to imply it was going to go into the psychology of teen females vs other segments of population. To explore why those differences exist. Not the rhetorical question it is.
I liked the Twilight movie I watched (no idea which one). I bet people who like pretty much any fantasy would too, if they weren't first told they were suppose to "hate" it.
I've only seen the first Twilight, and it was at least enjoyable up to maybe 2/3 the way in before it went off the rails. I would question the notion that these movies would appeal to anyone who enjoys fantasy. Maybe the sequels, IDK. To me it's pretty clear the aspects of the original that appeal to the teen girl psyche; an ordinary girl who's low on the social hierarchy gets recognized by an attractive but dangerous guy who brings her into his world that's more exciting than hers. It's not difficult to understand how that appeals to its target audience.
Nice article. I had never thought about this matter this way and it makes total sense.
When I was a teenager McFly was a very popular band among teenagers, specially teen girls. I, a teen boy, also liked McFly. I remember that I used to tell people "hey, McFly is actually good, the problem is their fanbase". Only now I realise what I meant by that: "McFly is a good band. But I value it less because it's liked mainly by girls". Even if I didn't express this about the other "girly" things, I feel that I internalized that those things are worth less, even though I liked those things, things such as High School Musical, Hillary Duff movies, Lindsay Lohan movies, Totally Spies, Kim Possible, the list goes on.
I wonder if it could be related to the traditional roles where "the woman" is a guardian of her sexuality, which "the man" covets. He has to act, and shape himself into something She likes, or She will pick someone else. Could this lead to old-school society attaching more importance to what young women desire?
If some imbalance like that did exist, it would go something like this:
In such a world, if half of young men were suddenly really into dungeons and dragons, the young women would simply dismiss them and turn to the other young men, who picked the "correct" interests (american football, being a musician, etc). Young women would not overwhelmingly start dressing like elves and wearing bows. Society, not seeing any side-effects, would then be happy to silently look down on those young men's interests.
On the other hand, if in that imaginary world, half of young women were suddenly really into baby seal hunting, young men would start clubbing baby seals like there's no tomorrow - to be able to compete for their attention. In that case, society seeing a shortage of baby seals would have to do something about it. As a result, society, to maintain control, would try to guard young women's interests jealously - for example by loudly deriding / shaming those who's interests stray from the acceptable.
---
Or the article could be off the mark, for example what if we different gender groups simply have different communication styles, and media adapts to it?
---
I guess the question raised here is:
Do women's desires affect men's actions more than the reverse?
Recently, Stephen Colbert commented to a guest "Anyone who calls them 'the terrible twos' hasn't had a three year old". Similarly, this author seems to be ignoring that perfectly normal (expected for the age) teen fanaticism en masse can become an insane mob. The Beetles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, ... and I'm sure One Direction, feared for their lives at various points when passionate crowds transformed into a mob. When you're a parent of an obsessed teenager, you have to worry about whether their age appropriate level of passion (which is so annoying to be around and does lead to risky behavior, I assume y'all remember?) is tipping over into something really dangerous (e.g. suicide). And they hate you. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" All because you go, yeah, I was really into Backstreet Boys when I was your age. "You don't understand! If you don't let me go to this concert, I'm going to die!"
Anyway, all teenagers are crazy and exasperating, and that's just a fact.
https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Your-Teen-Crazy-Without/dp/093619...
I used to work security at gigs during college (on everything from heavy metal to classical) and teenage girl band stuff had it's own set of challenges.
One was noise, tens of thousands of screaming girls when you are standing at the front was incredibly loud, I'm not exaggerating when I say it was painfully uncomfortable - even with double hearing protection. Way worse than a metal gig. Way worse than even standing on the flight line as a fighter takes off. Something about the pitch would make my ears ring for a week after a teenage girl concert - I stopped doing it because of the damage I know it was causing.
Fainting was also a huge problem, both people faking it and to try and get lifted over the barrier (and promptly escorted out, so I never got why they bothered) and also people just genuinely fainting. When it happened at other gigs it was usually a highly localised crowd push (very rare as that we always on the lookout for) or heat/lack of water/drugs/medical. But at a teenage girls gig that was never an issue really, it was essentially just something I feel might be described as hysteria. It was the only gigs where you would see like a genuine mass fainting phenomenon. Sort of like a specific group of friends and people nearby would whip themselves up into mass hysteria and then over they go. Kind of how I imagine cults are or those odd Christian preacher churches in the US. Other things I just found odd. I was maybe 18 when I started doing this and there were often huge amounts of women only sometimes a year or two younger than me crying their eyes out all night, wetting themselves or other odd stuff. Very surreal.
Crowds near the artists was always a tricky. I worked at lots of gigs with crazy fans (metal heads etc) but teenage girls had this mass sort of strange thing where if they got near the artists they would sort of grab, paw, pull, scrape the artists at times. Which if you have a dozen all doing it at the same time is super dangerous. Understandably artists were really dam scared of it. All it takes is one to start pulling at lanyard or scarf round the neck and you'd have issues. Plus for the bigger artists were nearly certain that there would be a big group of them outside the crew/artist hotel screaming day and night. Similarly you have the risk of just an overwhelming mob happening and especially in an environment where they are young women, you are understandably more limited in the actions you can take to stop and restrain them from jumping barriers etc.
Then there are the other issues - alcohol, well that's just stuff that's a problem everywhere. But there was a huge amount of attempts by crews and artists to take advantage of some of the younger, more nieve teenagers not realizing the consequences of what they were getting into. Often if you were controlling access to backstage you would actually be as much protecting young women for their own safety being brought back stage as you were the artists. You would get offered anything and everything by young women looking to get back stage. Very uncomfortable position to be in. Parents were often just as unhelpful and would encourage shitty behaviour.
Also it wasn't always teenage women, some of the bands had older women in their 20s/30s/40s just as obsessed. Having worked tons of crazy gigs with often huge fights one of the only times I was left badly bleeding was at a teenage girl band because of an obsessive woman in her 40s trying to get back stage. She wasn't on drugs but seemed possessed like I never have seen before. It was totally manic. She had gotten into her head that she wanted to go backstage to the artists and that was that - she was willing to use weapons, nails, rings, glass to do that. When she was arrested after she was practically sober, well spoken, in a sort of daze and I think pretty genuinely not sure about what had happened. Something I never saw from guys who wanted to go back stage. Most of them just tried their luck and if told (or gently helped) t...
Thank you. It was a stream of consciousness without any purpose but it meant a lot to me today that you felt there was something interesting in it. Teenage girls and boys will save the world, despite their awful music (I was a teenager during the Oasis generation so I'm allowed say that! I wouldn't swap their difficult upbringing with social media etc for mine).
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[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 173 ms ] threadThis quote from the screenwriter of the Twilight movies really gets the point through:
> "We've seen more than our fair share of bad action movies, bad movies geared toward men or 13-year-old boys. And you know, the reviews are like ‘OK that was crappy, but a fun ride.' But no one says ‘Oh my god. If you go to see this movie you're a complete xxxxing idiot.' And that's the tone. That is the tone with which people attack 'Twilight'."
It's not as if everything that gets love from teenage girls is hated. E.g., they loved The Beatles and ABBA back in the day, and these are not hated, as far as I can tell.
That's not true. The Beatles were also hated in 1960s by the older generation that preferred the previous 1950s & 1940s artists such as Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, etc.
You can google for contemporaneous criticism of the time and you'll see plenty of examples such "rubbish ... tiresome..." :
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/01/ru...
EDIT to reply: We're talking about things hated by the same generation here.
The journalist of this article Laura Moss graduated from college 2005 so she was about ~25 -- so not a teenager -- when the Twilight movie came out in 2008. Also, she would have been in her ~30s when the music band One Direction was at their peak. In her text, she's referring to "teens" in the 3rd person and not talking about herself.
Which is neither here, nor there. We're talking about things hated by the same generation here.
While people may have mocked the emotion surrounding the breaking up of the Beatles (something conspicuously absent when ABBA called it a day), their music was shared by many, and still is. It's simply not true that
> "Because once teenage girls start liking something, it's over."
> "We hate everything they love, on principle."
The entire article's tenet is: it's because they are women. Why it doesn't extend to other age groups? No explanation. And the idea that Twilight simply is garbage never even comes up. At best it's playing the victim, or pushing cultural relativism, at worst it's an attempt at driving the political division deeper.
The diehard DC comic fans who started the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign and pooled their money together to buy billboards during Comic-Con were called similar things by the rest of the Internet for doing so.
Only by adults with adult taste - which is increasingly a rarity.
There, I said it.
I think the author is just looking in the wrong places.
Marvel?
> I can’t remember the last time 14 year old boys initiated an outrage mob.
Gamergate?
Even if we scope it down specifically to fandoms engaging in targeted harassment campaigns, see: Gamergate, Star Wars, the insane fandoms of YouTubers like Logan Paul and PewDiePie.
This is a bizarre take given the actual remark. This would've been widely condemned regardless and the overall reaction to this has nothing to do with the age of the fans of BTS.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/eleanorbate/bts-german-...
> "Dear teenagers who are listening: Please take no offense," Matuschik said, per a translation uploaded to YouTube. "But personally, I think that BTS is... Let me put it like this: BTS is like SARS."
> "It's an abbreviation for some fucking virus that we'll hopefully have a vaccine for soon as well," he continued.
> Matuschik went on to argue that he has "nothing against South Korea," and couldn't be called xenophobic because he owns a South Korean car. (According to Teen Vogue, one look at Matuschik's now-deleted Instagram account showed photos of his Daihatsu Copen, which is made in Japan.)
> "These little suckers brag with their cover of 'Fix You' by Coldplay," he said. "To which I respond: That's blasphemy... For doing that, you should have to spend a 20-year-long vacation in North Korea."
They named the child Renesmee...
Some criticism is valid. The movies are bad. I can’t speak for the books...but the movies are very bad. I think it was the 3rd movie that I’ll say is the 2nd worst movie I’ve ever seen.
There are plenty of things that teenage girls like that don’t fall in the category of Twilight. Buffy the Vampire Slayer just as an example. Very similar premise but executed with a great story and acting.
Twilight movies are just bad. It’s a valid criticism.
People say this about boyish movies all the time. I never read the twilight books, but I did see, what I think was the last movie. I recall two things about it. One was a hilariously PG sex scene with visual sparkles to imply an orgasm. The other was a long, hilariously cheap fight scene where every other character got rapidly decapitated.
Should we instead believe that Twilight, One Direction and Taylor Swift are important? That they aren't doesn't seem like a discriminatory judgement, just an acknowledgment that things that are important to teen girls (or boys) aren't necessarily worthy of the rest of our attention.
> But while some girls may be strongly affected by the demeaning of their interests, Jensen says others will continue to love what they love and fangirl despite the judgment. "Fortunately, girls are pretty badass and do their own thing anyway."
This is the healthy response, and not coincidentally, a typical and prerequisite attitude of the common nerd.
Seems obvious to me in hindsight. Cultural misogyny runs deep.
Unless it's Ayn Rand novels. I think that might be because some adults also like Ayn Rand.
I can only think of video games.. perhaps anime, possibly comics.
All of which are widely mocked.
Its not that girl's interests are taboo - its that when any gender gets too wrapped up in something that it becomes part of their identity society should mock to encourage adoption of other interests.
Video games, anime and comics (and comic-book movies) are not widely mocked. They're wildly popular.
Getting too far into anime and becoming a "weeb" is widely mocked. A specific video-game, comic or anime series might be mocked, but in the general sense all these things are well liked.
Here's why I think I've got a good read on this: I'm in my 40s and I have friends, family and acquaintances from all walks of life. I specifically live my life so that I don't have a bubble or a lot of dependencies. I just hang out a lot online and I'm reporting what I see.
My 10 year old niece loves anime and video games. I have some friends in their 20s and 30s who love anime and video games. I hang out on Twitch, Reddit or 9gag and almost exclusively peruse these sites using the "popular" firehose - I always see lots and lots of references to anime, video games and comic-book movies. Actual comics/comic-books do not come up quite as often - but cos-play does.
I don't really like anime. I enjoyed some classics when I younger - titles such as Akira, Ninja Scroll and uhhh Blood: The Last Vampire. I play one video game: Rocket League. Other than that, I'm not what you'd call a "gamer".
On Twitch though, I definitely see high school kids with tons of viewers playing all sorts of games and talking about anime.
What's your experience?
I'm in my 30s and for me the biggest grounding point for what is and isn't my bubble has come from online dating. Let me just say, being into Star Trek, owning a 3D printer and knowing your way around even the basics of a shell terminal are all, even individually, something only a small fraction of the population would identify with. These are pretty independent things, however, inside of these there is quite a large overlap. Hence, it's a subculture and the modern world which lets us choose our human interactions based on our interests automatically turns that into a bubble.
I believe a similar thing happens to those who descend into the redpill movement, or join the military, or get involved in Twitter activism, or do mountaineering, or base jumping, or Instagram fitness, or eat at a different restaurant every night, or so many other things. Everybody thinks their own worldview represents a much larger population cross section than it actually does. And everyone can find someone with a more extreme perspective, making them feel moderate in their position.
This would be similar to the finding that while men tend to be harassed on social media at least as much as women, women are outraged more by it. Is it more important to change things so that the reaction is equal, or the provocation?
You lost me there. Setting aside the current political nightmare the U.S. finds itself in, men are not generally subject to death and rape threats like women online. The clothes men wear on TV are not subject to the same constant criticism that women wear. Men who vent frustration on Twitter are not forced to bow out of contention for a Cabinet position like women are.
I've also been told several times that I should be killed or to kill myself because someone didn't enjoy a video game I made and put out into the world (for free).
While I'd agree with your premise overall, online anonymity allows for many a death threat to be thrown out there often and casually by jackasses and kids who don't care how they hurt others.
It is also true that men are more likely to commit suicide, and that suicide is twice as common in the US as murder and non-negligent manslaughter. And also true that the ratio reverses for attempts.
I don’t have solutions, FWIW; unlike the Douglas Adams quip about a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth [0], I have no idea how to make the world a good and happy place.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/79195-and-then-one-thursday...
Could be, but aren't. You're having selection bias, or selective memory, or simply ignoring / applying double standard.
As others pointed out, many of the things teen boys like are mocked. some is actively censored.
It seems like girls are just more sensitive to the mockery. Maybe we should keep that in mind and let them have their fun. But it's hard to see how they subject to more criticism than teenage boys are.
Media targeted at teen boys gets far more credibility and is treated as far more important.
I don't think this is a gender issue, it's just that teenagers, regardless of gender, tend to have poor taste in just about everything.
"The Twilight books are among the books that have received most calls to be banned from from US libraries"
What if they “love“ the thing that harms them?
There’s lots of evidence now that too much social media consumption amongst teen girls dramatically increases rates of depression. Likely due to FOMO, etc.
I think we can encourage people to be resilient, and at the same time take a second to think, and then not belittle someone’s interest just because it’s enjoyed by teenage girls.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutory_delusion
The fact that someone can be offended or emotionally affected by someone else belittling their interests already means that they are not resilient enough. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be able to call out some piece of cultural work as being garbage, whether someone likes it or not. People have always had a cultural hierarchy and it has served us well. If you choose to like some cheesy-ass artist then do it at your own risk and don’t be surprised if others avoid you and don’t invite you to their birthday party.
It’s easy to say that they should be more resilient, but that comes with time. Being a teenager is tough to enough without adults trying to tear them down.
Furthermore, the issue is that teenage girls are specifically the targets of this harassment. And they are only being judged because they are enjoying something while being female. That sexist attitude needs to change in the media and peoples opinions.
I think that our societies are and will always be deeply hierarchical, and being individually reaponsible is just another dimension across which someone can end up closer to the top above others.
> turn a butter-wouldn't-melt teenage girl into a rabid, knicker-wetting banshee who will tear off her own ears in hysterical fervour when presented with the objects of her fascinations
> We've seen more than our fair share of bad action movies, bad movies geared toward men or 13-year-old boys. And you know, the reviews are like ‘OK that was crappy, but a fun ride.' But no one says ‘Oh my god. If you go to see this movie you're a complete xxxxing idiot.' And that's the tone. That is the tone with which people attack 'Twilight'.
The first quote is about the reaction of girls, while the other is about the content or value of some media product intended for boys. My only point is that they're taking the first as proof of belittling the content (Twilight, One Direction, etc.) instead of a comment on the reaction itself.
Just as a note, I have no thoughts one way or another about the "hysteria" displayed by teenage girls, but I'm curious why the same kind of hyper-excitement is rarely seen in boys. Presumably it's throwned upon them expressing themselves like that, even for something that excites them?
EDIT: Maybe I just haven't seen that hyper-excitement in boys, I'm open to a contrary suggestion :D
Have you heard of this sport called "football"?
https://nymag.com/movies/features/62027/
I'm not going to go over the anecdata of "but for every outspoken fan, there are a dozen closeted ones".
There are some numbers in this Telegraph article: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2008/nov/06/twilig...
95% women, ~60% below 25 or younger. Didn't find any other fast sources of data, other studies are welcome
Figures for viewership of Premier League matches:
https://insight.globalwebindex.net/hs-fs/hub/304927/file-259...
Males are roughly twice the number of females, between 19-25% are 25 or younger.
If you find some actual numbers to retort with, that'd be great.
It isn't rarely seen in boys, it's just rarely associated with consumption of non-participatory media in boys, but instead associated with opportunities for physical, often violent, action.
And we treat being interested in the things it focusses on far worse than the things teen girls get hyper-excited about (for legitimate reasons; no one got killed by Twilight even if people outside the target demographic dragged into it wished they had.)
Why must we like the things that mainstream teens love at all, regardless of their youth?
This is a lament for a marketer who is trying to sell more shit.
It reminds the herd, just as Van Gogh and Picasso did- no one has done this before, but guess what, you bunch of obedient cattle, you can! What 'this' is doesnt matter. What matters is, the herd gets that signal on periodic basis. Its what pushes outliers in the herd, doing their own thing, to take steps in directions no one has before. People who think its marks a downfall of civilization need to pack their bags and move to China where you can see first hand what happens to a herd that doesnt get that signal.
Hardly the "downfall of civilization" but I'll take some decent Chinese folk art over Jackass any day.
Duchamp came from a successful art family and was widely recognized by the industry even at the start of his career.
Johnny Knoxville copied You Can’t Do That On Television and Super Dave Osborne and produced nothing notable prior to or after Jackass.
Joe Rogan and Fear Factor had more influence. (Lol)
Fortunately, we have "Helter Skelter".
Anything that is out of balance with the 3 pillars of rhetoric comes across as artistically incomplete and immature to the degree which it's out of balance.
Most art aimed at a specific in-group tends to overemphasize pathos (and to a lesser extent ethos) and almost completely abandons logos - you don't need rationality when you're preaching to the choir.
I don't know about "hate" as it's just a market to be served like any other, but there's no reason to celebrate imbalanced low-stakes art when we have so many counterexamples.
It’s the screaming, the all or nothing mentality and the “My life it ruined, I’ll kill myself” reaction when a band breaks up I can’t stand. That honestly cannot be healthy and should be something we as parents help to prevent.
I think the article touches on it, but it seems like that’s simply part of a community-building aspect for young women.
For the above statement to be adjacent to “healthy,” suicide needs to be something funny and lighthearted.
Keeping that all pent up, inside is probably unhealthy.
So what's something teen girls liked, and was hated, but shouldn't have been?
Their example of the Beatles was not the premise but rather disliking teens girls over-liking the Beetles.
Then they list things teen girls like and others like, but that was because they were too male?
A example of something kids liked but was hated was Barney the Dinosaur. In retrospect it was because it wasn't dual layer, it hit a nerve because it was only for kids. Although that still makes it bad for adults the hatred for it was misguided.
Older children I know mock TV/games that the younger kids like - to 'show their maturity'.
Now, there are plenty of shows/books/games my kids watch/read/play that I dislike. I don't dislike them for lack of high culture - I dislike them because they're trash, they're just distraction without any educational benefit (no learning, not even social), no challenge, no development. Part of this is that in the past lots of media was about real life, but now it's 'all' about fantasy universes, often animated. Low value shows with people in at least help you learn to read people's emotions, or whatever.
Barney, from what I recall is relatively good on emotional learning. Often stuff 'for kids' is just about distraction, which is why adults don't like it: loads of kids shows (games, books etc.) have humour, plot, character development, mystery, drama. Loads of others are basically just minimal storylines with flashy images and sounds. If there's nothing to talk about afterwards then it's a bad show for any age IMO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Barney_humor
There was no reason at the time to think it was better/worse for kids than other age appropriate programs. Adults just hated it.
Twilight movies are garbage. Teen girls can do better. I can't remember if the books were hated.
Emo culture however is an example of something hated that shouldn't have been. But the author of the article seems to rule this out for 'teen girls'.
I liked the Twilight movie I watched (no idea which one). I bet people who like pretty much any fantasy would too, if they weren't first told they were suppose to "hate" it.
When I was a teenager McFly was a very popular band among teenagers, specially teen girls. I, a teen boy, also liked McFly. I remember that I used to tell people "hey, McFly is actually good, the problem is their fanbase". Only now I realise what I meant by that: "McFly is a good band. But I value it less because it's liked mainly by girls". Even if I didn't express this about the other "girly" things, I feel that I internalized that those things are worth less, even though I liked those things, things such as High School Musical, Hillary Duff movies, Lindsay Lohan movies, Totally Spies, Kim Possible, the list goes on.
If some imbalance like that did exist, it would go something like this: In such a world, if half of young men were suddenly really into dungeons and dragons, the young women would simply dismiss them and turn to the other young men, who picked the "correct" interests (american football, being a musician, etc). Young women would not overwhelmingly start dressing like elves and wearing bows. Society, not seeing any side-effects, would then be happy to silently look down on those young men's interests.
On the other hand, if in that imaginary world, half of young women were suddenly really into baby seal hunting, young men would start clubbing baby seals like there's no tomorrow - to be able to compete for their attention. In that case, society seeing a shortage of baby seals would have to do something about it. As a result, society, to maintain control, would try to guard young women's interests jealously - for example by loudly deriding / shaming those who's interests stray from the acceptable.
---
Or the article could be off the mark, for example what if we different gender groups simply have different communication styles, and media adapts to it?
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I guess the question raised here is: Do women's desires affect men's actions more than the reverse?
I hate Twilight and 50 Shades and the current crop of superhero movies that I can't even remember the name of.
Let whoever enjoys them enjoy them but... don't force ME to enjoy them.
Edit: Oops forgot. Hate Disney Star Wars too. It makes me miss Jar Jar Binks.
One was noise, tens of thousands of screaming girls when you are standing at the front was incredibly loud, I'm not exaggerating when I say it was painfully uncomfortable - even with double hearing protection. Way worse than a metal gig. Way worse than even standing on the flight line as a fighter takes off. Something about the pitch would make my ears ring for a week after a teenage girl concert - I stopped doing it because of the damage I know it was causing.
Fainting was also a huge problem, both people faking it and to try and get lifted over the barrier (and promptly escorted out, so I never got why they bothered) and also people just genuinely fainting. When it happened at other gigs it was usually a highly localised crowd push (very rare as that we always on the lookout for) or heat/lack of water/drugs/medical. But at a teenage girls gig that was never an issue really, it was essentially just something I feel might be described as hysteria. It was the only gigs where you would see like a genuine mass fainting phenomenon. Sort of like a specific group of friends and people nearby would whip themselves up into mass hysteria and then over they go. Kind of how I imagine cults are or those odd Christian preacher churches in the US. Other things I just found odd. I was maybe 18 when I started doing this and there were often huge amounts of women only sometimes a year or two younger than me crying their eyes out all night, wetting themselves or other odd stuff. Very surreal.
Crowds near the artists was always a tricky. I worked at lots of gigs with crazy fans (metal heads etc) but teenage girls had this mass sort of strange thing where if they got near the artists they would sort of grab, paw, pull, scrape the artists at times. Which if you have a dozen all doing it at the same time is super dangerous. Understandably artists were really dam scared of it. All it takes is one to start pulling at lanyard or scarf round the neck and you'd have issues. Plus for the bigger artists were nearly certain that there would be a big group of them outside the crew/artist hotel screaming day and night. Similarly you have the risk of just an overwhelming mob happening and especially in an environment where they are young women, you are understandably more limited in the actions you can take to stop and restrain them from jumping barriers etc.
Then there are the other issues - alcohol, well that's just stuff that's a problem everywhere. But there was a huge amount of attempts by crews and artists to take advantage of some of the younger, more nieve teenagers not realizing the consequences of what they were getting into. Often if you were controlling access to backstage you would actually be as much protecting young women for their own safety being brought back stage as you were the artists. You would get offered anything and everything by young women looking to get back stage. Very uncomfortable position to be in. Parents were often just as unhelpful and would encourage shitty behaviour.
Also it wasn't always teenage women, some of the bands had older women in their 20s/30s/40s just as obsessed. Having worked tons of crazy gigs with often huge fights one of the only times I was left badly bleeding was at a teenage girl band because of an obsessive woman in her 40s trying to get back stage. She wasn't on drugs but seemed possessed like I never have seen before. It was totally manic. She had gotten into her head that she wanted to go backstage to the artists and that was that - she was willing to use weapons, nails, rings, glass to do that. When she was arrested after she was practically sober, well spoken, in a sort of daze and I think pretty genuinely not sure about what had happened. Something I never saw from guys who wanted to go back stage. Most of them just tried their luck and if told (or gently helped) t...
Fallacy of assuming the consequent: 1 & 2 implies P(x) -> Q(x)
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