Lock up your 30-somethings. Beyond Barricade Photography
If you are still indulging your habit of scrolling the sidebar of shame on the DM website you will grudgingly admit you know A) who Caroline Flack is and B) that she and someone called Harry Styles was spotted canoodling. Why was this newsworthy? Because Flack is a relatively unknown presenter and Styles is in a band with direction? (HA HA that’s a terrible joke, if you’re au fait with pop culture). Because celebrity canoodling always is newsworthy and must be documented? No, it was newsworthy because EW EW EW Caroline Flack is a wizened 32 years old and New Direction band member Styles was but a nubile 17.
Being a 17 year old pop singer, not just a singer but a member of a boy band, Styles appeals to that most dedicated of fan, the teenage girl. A 21st century teenage girl at that, with social media at her chipped Barry M varnished fingertips.
Being a 17 year old pop singer, not just a singer but a member of a boy band, Styles appeals to that most dedicated of fan, the teenage girl. A 21st century teenage girl at that, with social media at her chipped Barry M varnished fingertips.
Now teen fandom is not simply a case of memorised lyrics, extensive knowledge of management approved likes and dislikes, hysterical weeping every time a teen idol graces a TV screen and decoupaged light switches. The difference between teenage fans of old and these new fans is the Twitter Hash Tag. Both Flack and Styles’ new-alleged-former-older-woman (keep up) radio DJ Lucy Horobin have been attacked on social media sites for daring to attract Styles’ attention. Because, even though they’ve never met him, they just know Styles is their destiny. They can tell.
This isn’t very nice, it’s not the greatest demonstration of Kids Today. However these are teenage girl fans, from Elvis, Beatlemania to Take That we are well versed in the lengths teenage girls will go to in a bid to prove their dedication to the object of their fandom. What’s downright pissy is the tabloids reporting of Styles’ apparent preference for an older lady, there is not just a whiff of disapproval but a insinuation of mild perversion.
I am required to believe the tabloids are run by middle aged men and written for by adults. We’ve had many a film and song concerning a younger man’s infatuation with a woman his senior. It isn’t SO long ago that the boy band (sorry, totally credible band because they played their own instruments. Like the Monkees) of the early 2000s Busted rose to fame wearing school uniforms and singing about a teacher that gave them a reason outside of academia to attend school. So why in each report of Styles and Older Woman X, Y or Z has there been a distinct tone of incredulity that a teenage boy might find an older woman attractive?
The notion of a boy fantasising about an older woman is not particularly shocking, if perhaps a little unsavoury. In the film Weird Science the perfect woman created by the teenagers Gary Wallace and Wyatt Donnelly is most definitely beyond pubescence. The 2 women who have been involved with Harry Styles, Flack and Horobin have also reached that glorious stage in life of post-puberty (a stage that, as a 20-something who still gets spots I look forward to). They are attractive, confident, outgoing and successful. There’s no nauseating mystery was to why Styles might have pursued a relationship with either of them.
The mystery is what does a 30 (or for that matter 20) something person see in a teenager? And how would the relationships have been reported were the roles flipped? Would there have been an underlying tone of ‘good for you mate?’ Perhaps a clearer vision of who seduced who? At the news of a break up who’d be cast as the cast off? The dirty old man or the charming ingénue? But the biggest question of all is this: would the relationship be viewed as so very implausible?
Squeamish Kate
This isn’t very nice, it’s not the greatest demonstration of Kids Today. However these are teenage girl fans, from Elvis, Beatlemania to Take That we are well versed in the lengths teenage girls will go to in a bid to prove their dedication to the object of their fandom. What’s downright pissy is the tabloids reporting of Styles’ apparent preference for an older lady, there is not just a whiff of disapproval but a insinuation of mild perversion.
I am required to believe the tabloids are run by middle aged men and written for by adults. We’ve had many a film and song concerning a younger man’s infatuation with a woman his senior. It isn’t SO long ago that the boy band (sorry, totally credible band because they played their own instruments. Like the Monkees) of the early 2000s Busted rose to fame wearing school uniforms and singing about a teacher that gave them a reason outside of academia to attend school. So why in each report of Styles and Older Woman X, Y or Z has there been a distinct tone of incredulity that a teenage boy might find an older woman attractive?
The notion of a boy fantasising about an older woman is not particularly shocking, if perhaps a little unsavoury. In the film Weird Science the perfect woman created by the teenagers Gary Wallace and Wyatt Donnelly is most definitely beyond pubescence. The 2 women who have been involved with Harry Styles, Flack and Horobin have also reached that glorious stage in life of post-puberty (a stage that, as a 20-something who still gets spots I look forward to). They are attractive, confident, outgoing and successful. There’s no nauseating mystery was to why Styles might have pursued a relationship with either of them.
The mystery is what does a 30 (or for that matter 20) something person see in a teenager? And how would the relationships have been reported were the roles flipped? Would there have been an underlying tone of ‘good for you mate?’ Perhaps a clearer vision of who seduced who? At the news of a break up who’d be cast as the cast off? The dirty old man or the charming ingénue? But the biggest question of all is this: would the relationship be viewed as so very implausible?
Squeamish Kate
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