Check-in was at 3:00 pm and we got there just in time, but getting to the front doors was a trip, and not only because Apple’s overnight bag was big enough to fit a person. Literally. (I’ll come back to that later.) The hotel entrance was congested with people, paparazzi, and a throng of girls just like us, except clearly much less dedicated in their stanning. Because while waiting outside in the cold for seven hours straight until you see your idol had its merits, nothing beat shelling out for keys to the castle.
There was no point being a fan these days if you weren’t willing to go the extra mile for your idols. It wasn’t enough anymore to send them fan mail and kiss the posters above our beds. These days you weren’t a true fan until you engaged in Twitter death threats and endless stan wars. The fandom landscape was peppered with land mines, and there was no other way to navigate it but to walk until you hit one. You come out the other side a little crazier, yeah, but you’re also stronger. You are a true believer. You will do anything for the object of your affection.
Because the truth is, it isn’t worth loving something if you aren’t going to love it all the way. Apple told me a story once about a couple of girls she met in the pit at a show The Ruperts had at MetLife Stadium. Apple had gotten pit tickets too (which must’ve set her parents back a couple grand at least), but she said she was worried for most of the show that she’d have to go to the bathroom and lose her prime spot in front of the stage. These two girls next to her told her that they didn’t have that problem; they were wearing Depends.
No, you aren’t a true fan until you’ve wept for your love. Bled for them. Threatened lives for them. Relieved yourself in adult diapers at their concert without ever leaving the bone-crushing discomfort of your two-thousand-dollar-a-piece spot.
Because what else does it mean to be crazy about someone?
Plus, being a fangirl was just fun. Aside from all the Internet stuff, with fics and gifs and stan wars, there was fandom outside the Internet too. Like the times when Isabel and Erin and Apple and I went for proper stalk sessions. The times when the boys would whiz past us so quick that seeing them was only as brief as catching a whiff of something. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but those few seconds of dizzy excitement were worth it just for how alive they made you feel. Tingly and jittery and crazed—in the best way. A natural high, truly. Even the anticipation that came with waiting for them was part of the fun. It was butterflies—the best kind. We might see the boys and we might not, but the hours in between, spent waiting, or racing down streets, or investigating; it was fun. We filled Instagrams and Twitters with it. We formed lasting friendships. We were a part of something.
Once, Isabel and Erin and Apple and I had our picture in Us Weekly. We were behind the barricades across the street from The Late Show studio as the boys made their way in. We were screaming and we were happy. We were the barricade girls.
Coming to the hotel now was only the tip of the iceberg compared to some of the cray things other people had done. If you really thought about it, we were the rational ones. And for one night we would be sleeping under the same roof as The Ruperts. My feelings on the matter could best be summed up with lyrics from The Ruperts’ hit “I’m So Excited.”
Yeah Yeah Yeah!
I’m so excited!
Yeah Yeah Yeah!
Tonight is the night!
We elbowed our way past weepy girls holding signs that tried to play cleverly on British double entendres (WE WANT YOUR FRANKS AND BEANS) and signs that didn’t even try at all (BONERS!). One sign read WILL KILL FOR A KISS, where the word “kill” was drawn in ominously smeared rusty-colored paint (please let that have been paint). We passed a Senior Strepur (a Strepur approaching middle age) whose cleavage-baring top was open so low that you could see a giant tattoo of Rupert X. on her right boob. She’d either gotten implants recently, gained some rapid weight, or had a tattoo artist who secretly hated her, because Rupert X.’s inky face was so stretched out and badly drawn he looked more like Jay Leno than himself. The only way you could tell it was him was because of the the words below his portrait that read RUPERT X. MARKS THE SPOT.
“Nice tattoo,” Erin told the lady.
Tattoo Lady looked at me expectantly, surely awaiting my forthcoming compliment. “It’s a real treasure,” I said.
Erin snorted and pulled me behind her. We weaved through the bars of the huge scaffolding by the entrance that contained all the fangirls within it like a prison. And even though I was a fangirl myself and shouldn’t have thought this about my own people, the scaffolding seemed appropriate. Sometimes fans needed to be caged, for the good of everyone.
When we got to the doors, our overnight bags hanging from the crooks of our bent elbows, Consuela was the one to speak to the doorman to make him step aside. He leaned on the door for us and held it open wide.
“Hey!” one of the girls behind a barricade yelled. “Why do they get to go in?”
Erin looked over her shoulder and with her sweetest All-American-cheer-captain smile responded, “Because we got a room, sweetie.”
I watched the girl who’d yelled, saw her face turn ugly with shock and jealousy. “That isn’t fair,” she said.