I had a friend throughout my teen years with whom I discussed music almost every day. We would often show each other new artists and say what we liked about them. It was cool to learn about new music and be able to share my old favorites, but I noticed a difference between the way I would talk about artists and the way he talked about them. He would often have an interesting story to tell about each one, and it was usually something interesting but tragic, such as “He was unfortunately murdered” or “This artist burned churches and killed his bandmate in self-defense”. Meanwhile, I never mentioned the life story of anyone I talked about. I just talked about how I discovered the music, how it sounded to me, and what the sound meant to me.
Last year, I filled out a survey that my other friend was making about whether people tend to separate the art from the artist when it comes to music. I thought about his questions for a long time, and then I ended up writing a lengthy explanation about why I do not involve myself in the lives of the artists I like at all. I avoid reading articles about them or any interviews. I feel like it is not the case that just because someone makes art that I like, that I have the right to know about their personal life. Perhaps people won’t see me as a “real fan” of those artists because I didn’t take the time to learn about them, but my personal belief is more important to me.
(Link to my friend's article.)
Eight years ago, when I was eleven and quite naive and impressionable, I started watching funny videos made by a Norwegian musical comedy group called Ylvis. I discovered that there was a community on the website Tumblr where people posted fan content about Ylvis and made online friendships through their mutual love for the group. I became obsessed with Ylvis and their fandom, and started religiously checking my favorite Ylvis-related Tumblr and Twitter pages every day. I became an expert on every piece of Ylvis-adjacent media, I saved enormous amounts of photos of the group to my computer, and I read and sometimes wrote ridiculous fanfiction stories about the group.
As I got more and more involved in the fandom, my online situations became more toxic. I sustained Internet friendships with adults in their late teens and twenties, who sometimes talked about mature topics in front of me, despite knowing I was twelve. I later discovered an artist who was a friend of Ylvis named Sondre Lerche. I became as, if not more, obsessed with Sondre. My Ylvis phase was starting to end, and I was getting a broader perspective on what had happened. I realized there was a lot I disliked about Ylvis: many of their jokes were offensive and generalizing towards foreign groups, and their whole image was conceited and self-serving. I put Ylvis on a pedestal and disregarded all of this. Their fans also objectified them to extreme levels and acted like they were entitled to investigate and discuss their extremely personal issues. I ended up making enemies with Ylvis fans because I was annoyed with their behavior.
I still refused to fully recognize all of that, and I let my Sondre obsession get into full swing, as I started saving many pictures and interacting with fans. However, I started to learn about new artists whose music I liked, and I was genuinely confused. Should I also save hundreds of pictures of them? Should I also obsess about my attraction to them and dedicate lots of time for learning about their life? I just didn’t have the same level of passion for every artist, and I was also a bit traumatized by what had happened with Ylvis after I left the fandom.
I eventually adopted my pattern of refusing to learn about an artist’s personal life at all. As I got older, I became much more of a “music nerd” archetype than a “fangirl”. I focused significantly more on the music itself and the artistry of their albums. Now, if an artist I like or their fans do something horrible, I do not feel like it is my responsibility to justify it and defend them. I appreciate their art, but they are not my friend or object.
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