Howdy y’all! With the release of Harry Styles’ new single, As It Was, it only felt right to create a summer playlist made entirely of Harry/Harry-involved projects. Before we do that, let’s dive into how music is situated in sociology! While reading an article recently, I realized just how much girls and women are invalidated in what music they enjoy. According to this article from Study Breaks, One Direction had 48.8 million album sales in the 2010s and toured in stadiums with roughly 50,000 fans a night. Just by checking my Spotify, they currently have 27,820,306 monthly listeners, despite breaking up in January of 2016. So, why do people treat them as if they aren’t a successful band?
It is common that those who listen to “real music” aren’t fans of “manufactured” bands that they think are just popular because of how they look. But with such a group like The Beatles, who fell mostly into psychedelic/pop rock, how did Beatlemania then delegitimize them? The answer? The societal perception of female fans.
Long queues made up of teenage girls are a feature of both The Beatles and One Direction concerts. Female fans are deemed as hysterical over these groups, which goes back to misogynistic views about the emotions that women should have (and what they should just keep to themselves). Hysteria was introduced as a mental disorder around the 1880s, and patients diagnosed were almost always women. It was not removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) until 1980. Yikes! Now, women are just looked down on by the media, with articles titled with things like “Beware of Obsessive and Over-Emotional One Direction Fans.”
Conclusion
If a teenage girl or woman likes something that is generally more liked by other women, then that interest is automatically invalidated for some reason or another. Think the Twilight franchise. A female fanbase should not be what dismisses the artist’s credibility. There are plenty of opinion pieces on this topic, and a major point is how we don’t invalidate the feelings or things that men like, as discussed in this New Statesman article, this Badger Herald article, and this Daily Targum article. Luckily, Harry Styles has continuously defended the female fan base of One Direction. I think that we are moving away from toxic sexism and moving towards just letting girls and women like what they like. I, for one, cannot wait for the rest of Harry’s new album. Now, for a very Harry summer.
The Playlist
- As It Was by Harry Styles
- Girl Almighty by One Direction
- Kiwi by Harry Styles
- Act My Age by One Direction
- Woman by Harry Styles
- Adore You by Harry Styles
- One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks) by One Direction
- Lights Up by Harry Styles
- What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction
- Carolina by Harry Styles
- Only Angel by Harry Styles
- Live While We’re Young by One Direction
- History by One Direction
- No Control by One Direction
- Up All Night by One Direction
- Girl Almighty by One Direction
