The Fangirl

I bring you today a creature of scientific interest whom I happen to have quite some experience with. I move in the same circles as this beast, and to a point, I must sadly admit, I am one. The virgo puella insensatus, commonly known as Fangirl, is one of the elder monsters of the Internet. It's been around much before the Internet surely, however it was thanks to the Web that this strange beast managed to find and flock amongst its equals, forming tribes, circles and Yahoo! Groups. While its behavior is possibly some of the most irritating stuff you'll ever read online, it's not exactly offensive or unavoidable... or is it?

Let's first define the Fangirl. By Fangirl we understand a woman in her teens or school years, who is devoted to a fandom to a point that is borderline dementia. Its male counterpart is the Fanboy, although they do not move in the same circles and possess a different behavioral pattern. "Fangirl", however, has gained a rather depreciative connotation in the last few years, and after meeting a few, I understand it perfectly.

Fangirls communicate with each other and the rest of the world in three ways, mainly. The most common and better known one is through crappy fanart and fanfiction. Be it a YouTube tribute video, a piece of text emulating or acting out their favorites or any other given artwork, the Fangirl is often very dedicated to her artistry, no matter how crappy her artistry may be. There are very impressive artists who happen to be fangirls, some who are actually worth reading and watching, but when any given girl with arguable talent keeps uploading doodles and eyesores you know you hit jackpot. Some of the worst possible poetry out there has been dedicated to the imaginary love between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. They beat the Lisbon College amateurs with their hands tied down, and take my word for it, it's quite the feat. These products are conveniently stored in forums of the genre, LiveJournal and websites devoted to the fandom du jour. Some of them, unfortunately, end up leaking to the Internet and showing up in Google searches for the despair of us all.

The other two forms of Fangirl communication are squees and drooling. The squee is a form of vocal production that seems to be closely related to baboon screeches. Fangirls squee whenever they're happy or their need for non-canon fandom material is satisfied. Thus, a Fangirl may squee at the sight of a piece of fanart that is particularly satisfying. Or she can squee for no reason at all. It is unknown if, on the deeper stages of Fangirlism, the squee is produced willingly, or if it becomes a permanent and incontrollable vocal trait. Of course on the Internet, nobody can hear you squee, but the Fangirl goes over this by producing a virtual squee: placing the word "squee" between asterisks as to inform others of its kind she is currently doing so in real life. The number of E letters in the word (ex: *squeeeeeeeeee*) is often representative of how long this screech lasts. If an exclamation mark is found at the end, (ex: *squeee!*), it means that the Fangirl has found something that really pleases her.

The drooling is a form for Fangirls to show they are not only pleased, but rather turned on. Indicated in the same manner as the squee, (ex: *drool*) the number of O letters in the word are also representative of how much salive she is expelling. As such, a large number of O's may mean she is about to drown in her own salivary fluids.

While drooling and squeeing are characteristic to the Fangirl, they do have a virtual language of their own. Expressions like "ohmigod" are common to the Fangirl. We can trace these expressions all the way back to their real life social group: teenage girls. The Fangirl is known to also get herself into a battle of wits against Trolls, one they cannot possibly win. Any Fangirl worth her name will have a pre-designed speech, meant to answer any possible attacks to homosexuality (though they're likely straight) and their right to upload whatever the heck they want to. This speech does nothing against the Troll, so the Fangirl pretty often is wasting typing time.

There are various stages of Fangirlism, raging from mere affection for something to, as previously stated, borderline dementia. Severe Fangirlism is often offensive to mild Fangirlism. The severely affected Fangirl holds nothing sacred, and will defy canon and tasteful at will. A proper example would be as such: a mildly affected Fangirl would find canon sexual tension between Frodo and Sam from The Lord of the Rings, while the severely affected Fangirl will go out of her way to find sexual tension, canon or not, between Gríma Wormtongue and Elrond of the same series. This is known as a "crack pairing", and likely to become the favorite of a group of severely affected Fangirls as soon as it's mentioned. While it's mainly a condition of teenagers, Fangirls of 30 and more have been reported, already married and with children. On this stage in their life, they often tend to cool down, and drop squeeing and drooling. Aging seems to be the only cure for severe Fangirlism, as even the most dedicated Fangirls can turn back to the earlier stages of the condition. It is unknown if the children of a given Fangirl will grow up to be Fangirls and Fanboys for related fandoms.