{"id":2533,"date":"2025-08-31T02:49:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T02:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/08\/31\/can-you-ever-escape-your-teenage-obsessions\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T02:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T02:49:07","slug":"can-you-ever-escape-your-teenage-obsessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/08\/31\/can-you-ever-escape-your-teenage-obsessions\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you ever escape your teenage obsessions?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/b-side\/dan-and-phil-like-actual-soulmates\/\">Dan Howell and Phil Lester<\/a> consumed my preteen years. I thought about the YouTube duo all the time \u2014 while getting ready for school, while zoned out in class, while getting ready for bed. I listened to <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/7S1uSQJ1fKQ?si=1VtBs5ggZDSGd3aq\">music<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/xACdTzmyaQI?si=zR2VjxFFQLTvf2XW\">popular<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Fjv0agSwQ8c?si=eyRR-7MLXLwDc2kG\">in<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=p1vgEiLAd9c&amp;list=RDp1vgEiLAd9c&amp;start_radio=1\">fandom<\/a>. I would even (poorly) doodle each of them in my notebook before going home and logging onto my Instagram fan account. Talking to me was a bit of a nightmare. I would not shut up about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/tagged\/heart%20eyes%20howell\">#hearteyeshowell<\/a> and theories about their marriage or where they lived.<\/p>\n<p>I was insufferable, and I miss it.<\/p>\n<p>Loving Dan and Phil was a palpable, physical feeling. I was often so giddy about them I blushed or had to jump around my room. I was once so plagued by them that I was nauseous after reading a fanfiction where they fought.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>My obsession has relaxed in recent years, as it felt so specific to my preteen misery. Maybe watching Dan and Phil and imagining them in love gave me hope that I too could find my way to love, especially as mainstream Queer representation <a href=\"https:\/\/glaad.org\/releases\/lgbt-representations-television-lacking-diversity-according-glaads-where-we-are-tv-report\/\">lacked<\/a>. Maybe I was just lonely and made them my friends, or I craved the interaction with the online fandom community. Whatever fueled my obsession, it spoke exactly to my preteen moment.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>It\u2019s been over 10 years since my Dan and Phil obsession began, and there still hasn\u2019t been anything that made me feel quite that insane. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/the-little-women-project-little-women-2019-part-4\/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CLittle%20Women%E2%80%9D%20(2019)%20is%20very%20much%20a%20coming,that%20illusion%20of%20endless%20youth.\">2019\u2019s<\/a> \u201cLittle Women\u201d came the closest. I saw the movie in theaters at 15, and I felt seen in a way that changed my life. The film depicts an <a href=\"https:\/\/razzmag.wordpress.com\/2022\/07\/05\/little-women-2019-ludwigs-representation-of-female-ambition\/\">ambition<\/a> that I hadn\u2019t yet begun to let myself conceive, which I now see as part of the reason I dared to dream of college and writing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The parts of the story that still speak to me now are those most attuned to who I was when I first watched the film. I would never have admitted I wanted to write at 15, but could feel myself quietly admitting it after \u201cLittle Women.\u201d So much of the unrequited (but slightly requited) love between Jo and Laurie still destroys me in a way it couldn\u2019t have without relating it to my teenage experience. The Meg I related to then, the girl who desired marriage and children, has turned into the Jo of my present, current me who desires freedom and a big, ambitious life. On every rewatch, I still find myself yearning for Meg\u2019s life and her dreams, certainly representative of who I was on my first watch. I\u2019m still \u2014 and hopefully forever \u2014 obsessed with \u201cLittle Women.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just Dan and Phil and \u201cLittle Women\u201d who defined my teenage years. I spent so much of my youth obsessed. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/freckles-and-constellations.tumblr.com\/post\/157165711619\/what-is-dodie-yellow\">Dodie yellow<\/a>\u201d is still my favorite color. My morning alarm tells me to \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.refinery29.com\/en-us\/2019\/10\/8580470\/what-does-the-great-perhaps-mean-in-looking-for-alaska\">seek a great perhaps<\/a>,\u201d and I ask people for their secrets because of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/11029011-tell-me-a-secret-a-nice-one-remus-paused-he\">line<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/b-side\/the-marauders-haunting-the-narrative-and-my-life\/\">in<\/a> \u201cAll the Young Dudes.\u201d It\u2019s impossible to know where I begin and my teenage obsessions end. Sometimes, I wonder if I\u2019ll ever like something in the specific, painful way that I did in teenagehood or if everything truly ties back to who I was then.<\/p>\n<p>After my exit from teenagehood, I\u2019ve viewed this type of obsession as a purely teenage phenomenon. I have limited time, in my college years, to daydream about my interests in the way I did then.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s more than just free time that fueled my obsessions. The specific <a href=\"https:\/\/msmagazine.com\/2023\/02\/28\/teen-girls-mental-health-parenting\/\">loneliness<\/a> of adolescence and the (maybe dramatized) suffering of my young life could seemingly only be bandaged by distracting myself with the things I loved. Any hour spent nourishing my interests felt like an hour caring for myself, something likely necessary for the development of any young person.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>The wonderful thing was, my obsessions felt completely encouraged. Yes, \u201cfangirling\u201d is often <a href=\"https:\/\/urban-plains.com\/the-war-on-womens-interest-ep-3-fangirls\/\">demonized<\/a> or made fun of for what feels like no reason except for girls enjoying things and being passionate. But I was so engrossed and impassioned, I rarely stopped to bask in the forced shame.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>From my experience \u2014 the hours on my fan accounts, all of the time in my brain devoted to my interests \u2014 fangirling was the one privilege of being a teenage girl. Young boys are often taught to <a href=\"https:\/\/adaa.org\/learn-from-us\/from-the-experts\/blog-posts\/consumer\/what-toxic-masculinity-and-how-it-impacts-mental\">reject<\/a> emotion, to push down their feelings and worship pure stoicism. While this means pushing down their anger, sadness and joy, it also means they push down their passions. As a result, internet stan culture <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@gabyonearth\/fangirls-are-the-backbone-of-our-society-its-time-we-treated-them-as-such-c70c73200ef9\">booms<\/a> with young girls feeling free to embrace their interests, without toxic masculinity encouraging indifference and weighing them down.<\/p>\n<p>Any fan account was a wonderfully supportive place. There was never any shame around my wild passion, only a community of people dedicated to lifting each other up, encouraging each other to get further and further into their fandoms. That communal obsession was wonderful for lonely, young me and I feel lucky to have had those spaces in my youth, no matter how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/internet\/2025\/04\/22\/teens-social-media-and-mental-health\/\">toxic<\/a> the internet was.<\/p>\n<p>I, the sappy person I am, often mourned the day my obsessions would lose their shiny sparkle. To grow up and not feel the same heart-racing rush when watching a YouTube video seemed like a great tragedy, a loss I feared would haunt me forever.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n<p>Last November, my mom saw \u201cWicked\u201d in theaters for the first time \u2014\u00a0 with no previous knowledge of the musical. Obsessed is not a strong enough word to describe her love for this movie: Glinda and Elphaba wormed into every conversation with her. I believe she saw it five times in theaters before purchasing it for $30 on demand. Every car ride with her included the soundtrack. She once told me she, on multiple occasions, had trouble falling asleep because of how distraught she was over the ending.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>I\u2019d spent so much time wondering if anything would ever strike me like my teenage obsessions, if there\u2019s something about the naive teenage spirit that allowed me to love something so completely, something lost in my burgeoning adulthood. My mom and \u201cWicked\u201d completely changed my perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Here she was, in her mid-40s, losing sleep over the story of two magical girls. A newfound obsession completely overtook her life, with the same life-altering consumption I found in my teenage years. I admired it, and it gave me hope for all of the wonderful art that is yet to consume me.<\/p>\n<p>I started thinking about what exactly drew my mom to \u201cWicked.\u201d I, too, saw and loved the movie, but nowhere near to the extent she did. She didn\u2019t have any previous interest in the plotline or the lead actresses \u2014 I can even remember her expressing a slight dislike for Ariana Grande. So, what got her?<\/p>\n<p>When my mom was little, she wanted to be a performer. Her only dreams were of dancing and singing. Adulthood took the dreaming out of her, but it still comes through at times. \u201cWicked,\u201d with its huge choreographed numbers, its over-the-top acting and insane vocal performances, seemed to strike her in a way reminiscent of who she was back then.<\/p>\n<p>My mom loves a lot of musicals. But \u201cWicked\u201d glows with a childhood wonder, a ridiculous whimsy, that I think might speak to her childhood dreams. Is she, too, forever finding her teenage self in her obsessions today? Is it ever escapable, what you wanted at 15? My mom and \u201cWicked\u201d are telling me maybe not.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>When I look back at my (not far gone) teenage years, what I remember most isn\u2019t the schoolwork, or the lunchroom or every person I knew. What I remember most is what I was obsessed with, how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@starkid\">Team StarKid<\/a> or Hozier or Twenty One Pilots made me feel, how they spoke to what I was going through. Nostalgia will always bind me to what I loved as a teenager, but I\u2019m starting to think that I\u2019ll always be looking for a specific emotion in teenagehood, something I\u2019ll process as contemporary but actually speaks to my younger self.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I\u2019ll never escape what mattered to me at 15. I don\u2019t think I want to. If loving new art always means I get to look at how far I\u2019ve come, at the ways I have and haven\u2019t changed since my youth, I\u2019ll take it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Summer Managing Arts Editor Campbell Johns can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/b-side\/the-unique-aching-obsession-of-teenage-fangirling\/mailto:caajohns@umich.edu\"><em>caajohns@umich.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dan Howell and Phil Lester consumed my preteen years. I thought about the YouTube duo all the time \u2014 while getting ready for school, while zoned out in class, while getting ready for bed. I listened to music popular in the fandom. I would even (poorly) doodle each of them in my notebook before going [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1516,2686,2728],"class_list":{"0":"post-2533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-escape","9":"tag-obsessions","10":"tag-teenage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2535,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions\/2535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}