What’s in a Name: The Politics of “Boy Band”
A good friend of mine recently called BTS — the international supergroup from South Korea — a “boy band” and it just sounded wrong to me. It’s technically true: they are a band composed of young men. It’s also colloquially true. Although there is no set definition of what constitutes a “boy band,” the term suggests a certain style of singing and dancing, and a self-presentation and marketing that appeals to an audience of primarily young women.
The key problem with the term “boy band” is that it is often and deliberately politicized, in the sense that it tends to be deployed to convey certain beliefs about cultural value and status. In other words, “boy band” is often used as a way to devalue and dismiss a cultural product made for young women.
“Boy band” is often used as a way to devalue and dismiss a cultural product made for young women
Plenty of boy bands do claim the term proudly and are happy to do no more and no less than what a boy band does best: to entertain and delight its audience. But loving a boy band usually comes with a caveat: that it’s somehow a guilty pleasure, that we shouldn’t enjoy it as much as we do because it doesn’t meet pre-conceived standards of artistry, authenticity, or what is considered “good” music.
Boy bands, the accepted narrative goes, are manufactured and marketed with a single goal: to enchant young women. When talking about their skill and value, it is usually based around performance, not artistry. Even those who are outside the target demographic of a boy band often begrudgingly admit that they “put on a good show” or release the occasional “fun and feel-good” bop. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a good show or a fun and feel-good bop! The issue is that the concept of “guilty pleasure” includes the assumption that we should feel shame about what we enjoy because it doesn’t meet existing standards of cultural value. But what are these standards of cultural value, and why are boy bands automatically assumed to fall short?
Authenticity and commercial appeal are seen as opposite poles when it comes to art
When it comes to boy bands, you can take two perspectives on their cultural value. The first is the music itself, and the artistic standards of what “good” music is, who makes it, and how. In the West, our sense of “good” music is deeply rooted in notions of authenticity and individuality. The pinnacle is the lone singer-songwriter who writes, composes, produces, and performs their music from start to finish. This music is often personal, sometimes a bit obscure, usually not very commercial. Authenticity and commercial appeal are seen as opposite poles when it comes to art — authenticity must come from the artist without regard for the audience or what is popular or what might sell well. That is also why “pop” music — short for popular, of course — is not quite regarded as “good” or authentic. Any hint of catering to an audience diminishes the inherent authenticity of art.
Coverage of boy bands, from Beatlemania onward, tends to focus on mobs of screaming fangirls. These girls are stripped of agency and diminished to a spectacle.
Which brings us to the second perspective on cultural value: who the audience is. Boy bands are for young women, there’s very little doubt about that. Coverage of boy bands, from Beatlemania onward, tends to focus on mobs of screaming fangirls. These girls are stripped of agency and diminished to a spectacle. The implication is that they are mindless, hysterical, devoid of thought or taste. The term boy band cannot be separated from the implication that it is a cultural product created for young women. As such, its value is inherently rooted in patriarchal hierarchies: young women are one of, if not the most, devalued audience segment. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has written about how hierarchies of taste — who has “good” taste and is thus able to fairly and skillfully judge the cultural merit of art — are essentially elitist. In Western, patriarchal societies the answer to who has “good” taste is: not women, and especially not young women.
The term “boy band” is, thus, saddled with low cultural status from both musical and audience perspectives. The perception is that boy band music is inauthentic in an attempt to pander to screaming fangirls. Even attempts to reclaim “boy band” as a guilty pleasure do not free it from these perceptions because the assumptions of inauthenticity and low audience value are implicitly accepted and not addressed head-on.
I’m not saying we should never use the term boy band — I am saying, however, that it needs a lot of unpacking. Most people use the term boy band as code for “manufactured pop music for mindless teenage girls.” Dismantling these coded meanings is an uphill battle fought on many fronts. To fans of boy bands, it often feels like we’re not only fighting to have the music we love valued by elitist standards of cultural merit, but questioning those standards at the same time, while simultaneously having to prove our own value — as fans, as women, as people. Honestly, we’re so tired.
So is BTS a boy band? Of course. But they’re a boy band in a way that flips preconceived notions on their head.
So is BTS a boy band? Of course. But they’re a boy band in a way that flips preconceived notions on their head. Their music is popular and authentic. It communicates messages they care deeply about, and it unites people on a global scale, transcending borders and languages. Their audience — of yes, mostly women, though not all young — uses their agency and their know-how to break barriers and elevate this group, who has given so much of themselves to provide joy and healing to millions, by setting records, topping charts, and selling out stadiums. BTS neither pander to their audience nor seek to distance themselves in the name of “real” art — BTS and ARMY are a team, they’re co-creating an experience, together. That being said, I‘d rather nobody called them a boy band without fully understanding BTS and ARMY and the battles we continue to fight.
