A Duran Duran superfan delves into why she became hooked on the music.
Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, and even Sir Paul McCartney are just a few of the celebs who aren’t just dropping their teens and tweens off at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour but sticking around to sing, trade friendship bracelets, and post on their reels that they are “Swifties.”
These celebrities are my age—from both ends of the Gen X age spectrum—and definitely part of the MTV generation who grew up with 24-hour access to our favorite rock stars because our new video channel stayed on day and night. We get the Swifties’ screaming, glittered posters, and happy tears because we teased our hair sky high like Motley Crue, lined our eyes in black kohl because we loved The Cure, and piled bracelets on our lace gloves like Madonna did. I’m betting any of the celebrities packed into Swift’s VIP tents can tell you exactly which band inspired their teenage fashion choices, and whose posters they ripped out of BOP and plastered across their bedroom walls.
I Want My MTV
Swifties pack sold-out stadiums because Taylor makes every one of them feel seen and celebrated. We clustered with friends around the TV, sitting so close our parents warned us we were ruining our eyes because MTV was where we found our people—a nonstop party hosted by the MTV VJs, the coolest kids on planet earth. When the video we’d been waiting two hours for came on, we brushed our hands across the glass, imagining how cool it would be if the poltergeist that pulled little Carol Anne through to the other side would do the same for us.
We also get the fever for any and all gossip about Taylor and Travis because while we kept vigil by the television Friday nights, flipping between MTV and Night Tracks, we pored over the trivia in Tiger Beat to learn everything we could about our celeb crushes from their birthdays to favorite colors. While Swifties get timely tweets about Taylor, we waited for the top of each hour for Martha Quinn to tell us everything we needed to know on MTV News.
This parasocial relationship Swifties are having with Taylor might be one-sided, but those of us “of a certain age” who fell head over heels for bands who’d never know our names didn’t feel the love was unrequited. We memorized the lyrics that felt written for us and belted out songs at the top of our lungs to prove not only that we knew every word by heart, but that the songs knew us.
We called ourselves “Duranies,” and we doodled our first names with the band members’ last names on yellow Pee Chee folders and cried every time a member of the band married another supermodel.
Eventually, we grew up, and most of us traded our mesh crop tops and parachute pants for polo shirts and khakis. Then there are others, like me: Duranies who still set our alarms to buy concert tickets the second they go on sale—although now in Ticketmaster’s senseless queues instead of at Tower Records—then jockey our way to the edge of the stage to belt out songs we’ve known by heart since middle school. As a current (and paying) member of Duran Duran’s very alive-and-well Fan Club, I’ve found myself wondering how many Swifties will outgrow their fandom, and how many will still be truly, madly, and deeply devoted to her in the decades to come?
Why Are You So Obsessed with Me?
Okay, the lead singer of Duran Duran didn’t exactly ask me Regina George’s famous question when we met backstage in 2019, but I suspect—like many of my friends over the past four decades who’ve marveled at my loyalty to the band—Simon LeBon was thinking it. I had seen the band a dozen times or so before finally meeting them—and hugging LeBon long enough that he called it “a nice cuddle”—as I reminded myself to breathe and steadied my legs to keep from falling into a heap at his white sneakers.
Despite warnings from well-intentioned friends to not get my hopes up for fear my teen idol would disappoint, LeBon was lovelier than I ever imagined. “You’ve got a lot of people fighting in your corner,” he said, remarking on all the people who’d retweeted the article our local paper, South Tahoe Now, had written about my journey to meet him. After apologizing for friends bombarding him, he reassured me. “No, it’s good because otherwise, this probably wouldn’t have happened.”
Admittedly, I’ve been curious myself why I’ve hung on so tightly since seeing “The Reflex” video on MTV in 1984. Was it a mere coincidence that MTV brought Duran Duran into my living room just as I was hitting puberty, or was there more to it?
At 12, I watched LeBon grapevine across the stage in a white suit and frosted-tipped mullet to share a mic with John Taylor, whose bleached bangs I’ve copied ever since. That same year, I realized my mother was an alcoholic whose addiction to dangerous men and their drugs required rescue and forced me to grow up faster than any of my friends.
Now, 40 years later and curious about whether my lifelong adoration was healthy and balanced or obsessive and stalkerish, I came across Monika Sudakov’s essay about her deeply-felt connection to Celine Dion. Through conversations with her therapist, she came to realize that the pull she felt to the singer had to do with the trauma she experienced growing up. Bingo.
“The Reflex” was released in April of 1984, the same time my mom was drinking herself to a point of blacking out most afternoons, leaving me to take care of my baby sister while trying to finish my pre-algebra homework.
Sudakov writes, “Fandom offers a much-needed distraction from the often harsh realities of life.”
Harsh was a euphemism for my mom’s mess that I cleaned up every morning and dreaded coming home to every afternoon. Sudakov also suggests that our attraction to celebrities can offer us a sense of companionship. Before MTV brought Duran Duran across the pond to Juneau, Alaska, my remote little town surrounded by ocean and ice fields, I lost myself in sitcoms, studying the “normal” families in The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, and Eight is Enough.
Most nights I spent alone with my little sister, and even when our mom was home, she was passed out or distracted by the man of the month. Attending 14 schools by seventh grade, I “met” Duran Duran at a time I was desperate for connection and craving consistency. Their lyrics steadied me, and I made sure no matter how quickly I had to pack, my Duran Duran records were always safely squished between two pillows in my black trash bag luggage.
Sudakov’s final detail that seems to parallel my decades of devotion to Duran Duran is her belief that our connections to celebrities taught us emotional intelligence we might not have otherwise learned.
Walkman headphones on, volume turned up high enough to drown out my mom fighting with her boyfriend on the other side of my bedroom wall, I danced around my room to lyrics that brought up the emotions I hid—laughter that might wake my mom as she slept off her hangover, sadness I couldn’t cry out because I didn’t want to admit that she was a bad mother, and anxiety about what the monsters she moved in were doing to us. Duran Duran lifted me up and soothed me to sleep.
My hope is that Swifties are experiencing a silly, sweet love for Taylor that will last a lifetime for reasons different from my own. The MTV generation—“latch-key kids” who took care of ourselves and somehow kept our siblings alive—have clung tightly to a youth we either adored or missed out on. Maybe this is why the singers and bands we worshiped as teens are experiencing a renaissance of sorts—Gen X friends are paying thousands of dollars to be in the front row for Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears—selling out stadiums and arenas once again.
Whatever explanation there might be for the magic stardust Swift sprinkles over her Swifties, we, the generation who felt 30 when we were ten and still feel 30 now that we’re 50, are thrilled that they’re willing to trade friendship bracelets with us.
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