#please continue the convo in the tags ajd comment section i love discussing this topic and would like to hear what more people think of it

[cringengl]

"Delusional fangirls": the 'never ending story' of the dismissal of byler being rooted in misogyny.

As someone who is passionate about both feminism and fandom culture, when I got sent this ask a little less than a month ago, it made me ask myself the question on why shipping byler has been viewed in such a negative light, and you'll never guess, but it's rooted in misogyny.

Even if this ask is a troll, it's clearly replicating what can be seen not just in the Stranger Things fandom, but in general fandom culture, showing the prevalence of this issue. Although this post will be looking specifically at byler, what I'm discussing in this post isn't an issue specific to byler, even if I will be considering some things that are byler specific, such as the likelihood of byler endgame.

Before we start, I just want to talk about why I'm talking about misogyny instead of homophobia (though homophobia will be discussed a little later but it's not going to be the main focus of this post). Homophobia and why people dismiss byler has already been talked about a lot (for example, I've seen posts about people saying that making byler endgame would be a 'risky' move and as Stranger Things produces a lot of money for Netflix, therefore they won't do it, the belief that they wouldn't/shouldn't break up a heterosexual ship for a homosexual one or the failure to put Will outside the 'tragic story of a gay kid that falls for their straight best friend' box).

The dismissal of byler as a 'valid' ship is just as much down to misogyny as it is homophobia and it's an issue that I haven't seen as talked about, likely due to how byler is made up of two guys. If anything I've seen way more people call the byler community misogynistic, and whilst these things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, I do want to open up the conversation about how misogyny deeply affects the public perception of byler and byler shippers as well as talk about how ingrained misogyny is in fandom culture.

The average dismissal of byler as a ship tends to look like this:

All bylers are teen girls.

All bylers are stupid and delusional.

The motivation to ship byler is born out of a fetish of mlm relationships.

Not only is this a summary of what that anon sent me in May, but it's also a rhetoric that can be seen across multiple anti byler statements/posts/comments etc. It's way more common than you may think.

So what is the fangirl stereotype?

A fangirl by Oxford dictionary definition is mainly characterised by the word "obsessive", which has been constantly portrayed in a negative light by the media, and isn't exactly a new phenomenon, with Beatlemaniacs being called "the dull, the idle, the failures" in a 1964 New Statesman article. In fact it hasn't been until the 2020s where the epidemic of constantly making fun of teen girls has finally been criticised.

The most common stereotype of a fangirl is someone who is screaming, crazy and rabid, with "rabid fangirl" having its own Urban Dictionary definition.

Even fangirls of fanbases that are most notorious for 'crazy, rabid fans' have come out and said that they have been misrepresented, such as the comments section of this documentary about One Direction fans made by Channel 4 in 2013.

The stereotype of having a fetish for mlm relationships.

Another common stereotype of fangirls is the fetishization of mlm relationships. Whilst this is a very real issue that needs to be addressed properly, I very clearly remember seeing women talking about "getting off" to scenes in Call Me By Your Name when the movie first came out, however this accusation is often misplaced, meaning it loses it's power as an accusation, leading to the perception that it isn't as big of an issue that it actually is.

Girls, women or even afab or feminine presenting people who ship two men together are often seen as people with fetishes and accused of such. Not only is this sexist as it assumes that women's interests are sexually motivated, but it also reduces women's intelligence by suggesting that the only reason that they are interested in it is because of a sexual factor. This also ties back to the oversexualisation of gay relationships due to traditional, religious, conservative roots- classic homophobia.

And whilst this might sometimes be the case, this ideology ignores something extremely obvious: not all fangirls are straight (which clearly shows why we need lesbian visibility day haha).

This era we are in right now seems to be the dawn of LGBTQ+ rep that seems to be more and more prevalent and the amount of mainstream movies and TV shows that have positive and well developed queer rep is growing day by day. However, queer representation had been previously very hard to find and even now is not perfect (remember that one lesbian purple cyclops from Onward that appeared for like 10 seconds, said the easily censorable word "girlfriend", and was then never seen again??).

Whilst fandom spaces with TV shows and movies such as Stranger Things may have lots of female or female presenting/aligned people, there is also an abundance of queer people in almost any fandom, especially one with existing queer characters or ones that claim to be "an anthem for the marginalised and imperfect", which of course leads to the abundance of queer women, and can also be seen in the byler tag.

However I do want to point out that obviously not all people in fandom spaces and the byler tag are female and/or queer, but a lot of them are and this does vary fandom to fandom. Furthermore, I really don't know the actual ratio of different genders specifically in the Stranger Things and byler fandom- however I feel that it doesn't matter as shipping and other fandom traditions have been associated with teen girls and women anyway. The suggestion that all bylers are teen girls is a sweeping overgeneralisation and the fact that it's used as an insult and a way to demean this ship is sexist.

Queer representation and shipping mlm ships- even if they are not canon.

So how does this link to the abundance of shipping male characters? This is clearly something that has been going on for a long time, as illustrated beautifully through this reddit post:

And you might be wondering that if there are a lot of queer women in these spaces, then why isn't there more sapphic ships? And of course the answer is misogyny.

Women in TV shows and movies are so often underdeveloped and fall victim to millions of sexist stereotypes that make them unlikeable and boring, such as 'damsel in distress', 'strong and unfeeling' or they just have a 2D personality. Furthermore, female characters in media are just less numerous in media. All of this is is we have measures of the Bechdel test.

This is also not helped by the constant cancellation of wlw shows after only one season, which does not allow for the development of the characters or their relationship (I Am Not Okay With This, Warrior Nun, First Kill, Willow, Paper Girls etc).

This idea is only supported by the arcane fandom, where the most prevalent ship is Caitlyn/Vi on pretty much every social media site and ao3, likely due to the focus and development on their relationship.

Moreover, male friendships often have a lot more focus on them than female characters and their relationships. This was particularly obvious and blatant in My Hero Academia, where despite Deku and Uraraka (the het ship) being set up to be endgame, the main relationship that has the most focus and development is the one between Deku and his friend turned enemy turned rival turned best friend (??) Bakugo.

Whilst positive and intricate male friendships are never a bad thing, it does become very annoying very fast when those pieces of media also push female characters to the sidelines (and then also oversexualise them, which is often seen particularly in anime and manga such as mha).

So it's no coincidence when mlm relationships become more popular through the want for queer representation, female characters being ignored and the male characters and friendships having better development (as well as the use of queerbait to bring in a wider audience). However, other fans with little critical thinking skills and the general audience tend to jump to the conclusion that the amount of mlm ships that include straight men (even though these 'straight' men are fictional and don't have confirmed sexualities) is due to fetishization and fans being "weird and delusional".

Back to byler.

So let's link this back to byler. One thing that drew me to make this post is due to how bylers have been called "delusional" which was a specific word I saw byler shippers being called a lot in the June/July era.

Even the word "delusional" implies a detachment from reality and one of the most common sexist views is that women can't lead or make good decisions due to their supposed inherent irrationality, which is apparently caused by hormones and being over emotional (despite testosterone being used as an excuse for cheating- high sex drive- and aggression issues as well as anger not being counted as an emotion. One of the biggest reasons that the stereotypes around fangirls are rooted in misogyny is due to the polar opposite treatment of male sports fans, which if you remember the insane violence that occurred when the fake Tubi ad appeared to disrupt the Super Bowl, this idea is insanely hypocritical).

It confused me as even from a general audience perspective, it would seem that byler at least had a decent chance of becoming endgame, so why is it being so easily dismissed?

It is because shipping, especially mlm ships, are strongly associated with fangirls and are therefore seen as weak, delusional and irrational, not something to be taken seriously and likely the product of a fetish.

Not only is this harmful for the perception of mlm relationships in media, but it also promotes internalised misogyny- distancing yourselves from "rabid fangirls" as soon as possible so that your not seen as one and are instead seen as more rational and sensible.

The powerful arc that Mike and Will have gone through for four seasons now doesn't matter, nor the fact that El's independence is linked with Mike's absence or even what the implications of mleven endgame for not just a queer audience but a general audience would be. None of that matters as ships like byler aren't taken seriously, they're dismissed, due to misogyny (and homophobia).

In conclusion, fuck the patriarchy, let's change fandom culture for the better.

Links to things I watched/read in order to help make this post (not including the misogynistic and homophobic is reddit/tumblr/twitter posts lol):

(Do bear in mind that these tend to talk more about music fans/fandom rather than TV shows)

Frailty, Thy Name Is Fangirl: Misogyny and Fandom Culture

Shaming Fangirls: A Practice Rooted In Sexism

How misogyny-laced comments, actions in fan culture can drive others out

Ted talk: For the love of Fangirls | Yve Blake

From Beatlemania to the Beliebers, What Makes a ‘Fangirl’?

The Channel 4 Crazy About One Direction documentary and the ad for the documentary

Fetishizing Gay Relationship: When Ship and Fan Fiction Turn Toxic