Swoon

Fangirls, Their Idols and the Counterculture of Female Lust - From Byron to the Beatles

Swoon is a prehistory of the fangirl. From the Byromaniacs of Regency London to the screamers of Beatlemania, it revisits six defining moments in book, film and music history through the eyes of the girls and women who gave birth to pop culture as we know it today.

From Frank Sinatra in the 1940s to Harry Styles inthe 2020s, many of the biggest male stars in the world built their earlycareers on their romantic appeal to young women. The lovestruck teenager gazingat pictures of her idol in magazines or screaming in hordes at a concert is astock character in the textbooks of fame. And yet no history book has, untilnow, told her story from the start.

Swoon revisits six defining moments in book, film andmusic history to uncover the story of how the fangirl became the most enduringyet disdained icon of pop culture. From the Byromaniacs of Regency London tothe screamers of Beatlemania, these women were tastemakers, visionaries andcultural disruptors. Their obsessions shaped literary canons, built Hollywoodicons and turned musicians into messiahs long before social media came along.But with power came panic. Fandom became a moral and cultural battleground.What was at stake was women's right to want things they weren't supposed towant, feel things they weren't supposed to feel and express these thingsloudly, shamelessly and in public.

Part cultural history, part joyful reclamation, Swoonreturns the silly, swooning, screaming girl to her rightful place infeminist history - because behind every sigh and every squeal, the seeds of arevolution were stirring.

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