White Girls Ruin White Girl Music.
by Ebun Lawore, Staff Writer
Last year I spent $300 on a Clairo concert. Was that a bad decision? Yes. But hear me out, ‘cause that’s not really my fault.
A $200 plane ticket to Boston and a $100 concert ticket are how I ended up at the front row of the Roadrunner with two of my best friends awaiting Clairo’s entrance. But while I was mentally preparing to witness one of my favorite artists, I stopped to look around. I couldn’t help but notice that I was surrounded by white skirts, waves of long brown hair, and Doc Martens. I was so excited by the idea of a Clairo concert that I never stopped to think that it would just be a sea of white girls.
Now, I know that there will be many readers screaming reverse racism at their newspaper, and to that I say: You have no idea what it feels like to be a black girl in an all-white crowd, especially at a concert. The music was more than incredible, but I couldn’t shake the frustration that there were only a certain amount of socially acceptable dance moves, ways to sing along, and things to scream to the artist in this overwhelmingly caucasian environment. What was the point of enjoying Clairo if I wasn’t comfortable to enjoy her the way that I wanted to?
This is my problem with so-called “White Girl Music.” The music itself has never been the issue. Most of the time, the musician isn’t even the problem. But the culture that white girls often create surrounding this music can become so insufferable that it ruins the chances of me ever loving this music the way that I should.
In the past few years, I have unintentionally come to really enjoy some artists that would fit in the category of “White Girl Music.” Clairo, Role Model, Lizzy McAlpine, Lorde, and Audrey Hobert, to name a few. And as the fans of these artists have slowly begun to appear more and more on my social media and in my day to day life, something about them stays consistent: They all care about the artist so much more than they care about the music. This may not seem like that big of a deal at first, but when the majority of a fandom has this mindset, it creates a lot of problems.
The first is that they rely too much on visuals and aesthetics to identify the artists and their fans. Let's look at Clairo as an example again. I have noticed that online many people describe Clairo fans as people who just are like Clairo. Girls with wavy brown shaggy haircuts, who are bisexual, and who like to wear flowy skirts. Saying that those kinds of girls are Clairo’s fans is almost the same as saying that to be a Clairo fan is to be a white girl. Those statements alone have probably pushed many Clairo listeners away from her fanbase, simply because they don’t fit into its aesthetic.
At the end of the day, being a white girl has nothing to do with enjoying Clairo’s music. It has come to the point where people are shocked when a non-pale-skinned, non-totebag user, and non-matcha enjoyer even dares to like the sounds of “Juna.” Clairo has even gone out of her way to combat this rhetoric online, but to no avail. Many fans, whether intentionally or unintentionally, think that by keeping the fandom white, cute, petite, and girly, they are defending Clairo’s honor.
In many white-girl fandoms, this act of keeping the fandom pure has caused them to become irrationally hateful towards anything that they think doesn’t pertain to the artists. But as I have said before, their perception of what pertains to the artists is skewed towards whiteness.
Take Gracie Abrams and Role Model’s fans for example. Those are fandoms that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. The two artists share many fans because of how much they’ve toured together in the past year. But recently, Role Model announced that he would no longer be opening for Gracie on the next leg of her tour. His opening slot was given to Griff, a Black and Asian artist from the UK.
The fans were outraged. They hate that they spewed towards Griff was so intense that you’d think she pointed a gun at Gracie’s head. In reality, there is no way that an artist as successful as Gracie Abrams would ever have an opener that she didn’t approve of. Griff is an incredibly talented performer and these fans didn’t even give her a chance. They only attacked her because she isn't Role Model, she doesn’t make white girl music, and she isn’t white.
To show you all the final way that white girls ruin white girl music, I will turn to the woman who basically invented white girl music, Miss Taylor Swift. Now this fandom is beastly. Every hardcore Taylor Swift fan I have ever met has immediately assumed just by looking at me (a black woman) that I am a hater of her work. Which isn’t really true. I am actually an enjoyer of a lot of her bigger hits, but I have never had a strong enough desire to dig deep into her discography because of the chill that runs down my spine when I think of these white girls. Their main issue is their insane desire to relentlessly defend this woman until the day that they die.
A part of me gets it. Taylor Swift has had a lot of horrible experiences in the music industry, and she does receive a lot of unnecessary hate. But that does not mean that she is incapable of making a bad song, or simply just doing wrong. If any person who claims to be a hardcore Swiftie ever said that, the way that they would be attacked isn’t even funny.
I would be the one thousandth person to say that Taylor Swift does have bad songs. She has inconceivable privilege, and she has been ignorant and performative many times publicly. But many of her fans refuse to acknowledge that, and it only makes me wonder if the fans are all those things as well.
As I come to a close, let me be clear to you: I love white girl music. I scream to “Sally When the Wine Runs Out” and “Karma (ft. Ice Spice)” in the car. I yearn to “Pushing it Down and Praying.” I’m traveling from Oberlin to Columbus on a school night to see Lorde live. I spent $300 on Clairo, and I’ve been patiently waiting for the day that Audrey Hobert announces that she’s going on tour. But a part of me feels like I can’t ever truly be a fan of these artists, because I don’t have a lot of the insane and borderline discriminatory tendencies that many of these fans do. I also don’t wear white skirts, have a tote bag, or have a wavy brown shag. I simply am not a white girl.
