I'm a Belieber: Girl Fan Culture Surrounding Male Pop Stars

In this week's reading "Feminism and Youth Culture", Angela McRobbie goes into great depth discussing the participation in and visibility of girls in subcultures.  This piece was written in the late 1970s, early 1980s and deconstructs girls' participation in the motorbike, mod, hippy and teeny-bopper subcultures of that era.  She notes that historically "the mod preoccupation with style and the emergence of the unisex look and the 'effeminate' mode man, gave girls a more legitimate place in the subculture than had previously been the case" (McRobbie 7).  Although this granted girls access into the subculture, it did not permit any form of "sexual fluidity" (as McRobbie describes) it for girls (7).

Now let's turn an eye onto one of today's most popular teeny-bopper icon: Justin Bieber.  

Justin Bieber is the Canadian-born pop singer that was discovered on YouTube. Quickly after his musical debut, he became a pop-sensation and won the adoration of girls all across the world. 

We discussed Justin Bieber a little bit in class last week, namely that there is a girl's perfume coming out branded with his name.  What I find to be particularly interesting is the following website: LesbiansWhoLookLikeJustinBieber.tumblr.com

LesbiansWhoLookLikeJustinBieber.tumblr.com

This is a teeny-bopper culture that is centralized around girls who physically resemble the pop-icon Justin Bieber.  Not only do the girls glamourize having the physical appearance of Bieber, they also celebrates a non-traditional form of beauty: girls who resemble an effeminate boy.  Sexuality is another aspect of this subculture that must be considered.  This particular subculture consists of homosexual women who are in a way celebrating their resistance to "normative sex roles" by explicitly stating their adoration and (sexual) desire for the other girls featured on the site.  An example of this can be seen in the following two comments:

Considering all the aforementioned information, I have a few questions.

• What are the implications of new media on the formation of girls' subcultures?
• Does new media open a new venue for subcultures, even countercultures to form and exist whereas in other circumstances these subcultures may fail to flourish?

**(Although the specific ages of the website participants is not explicit, it can be determined through the picture that the individuals still belong to our loosely-defined category of "girls".)