Objectifying One Direction

I have a confession to make. Bordering age 26, I shudder to admit that I am quite possibly the oldest fan of One Direction. At their concert, I stand amongst tens of thousands of teenage girls ooh-ing and ahh-ing over every cute thing that the boys of the band do. Teenage girls who hold posters declaring their love, who launch their intimates at the stage as casually as one does at a game of ring toss (parents, do you know this?), and who spend hours reading fan fiction fulfilling their secret fantasies. 

I am above all that, and if I am guilty of anything, it is of never quite attaining a matured taste in music. To hell with that. Their songs may be highly-fluffed up concoctions of debatably overused pop chords that are scientifically engineered to leave a sticky residue in your memory. It may even have juvenile lyrics. I appreciate songs like "Last First Kiss" and "Back for You" for giving me butterflies in my stomach every time I listen to them. Perhaps I'm simply clinging on to a nostalgic innocence.

Not all fans are this way. I have been to many concerts in my life, and never at any other concert did I have such difficulty hearing the artists' voices over the shrieks and screams of the fans. The fans would sing along to some of the top hits, but most times the loudest noise in the arena was the collective drool that followed when the big screen switched focus from one of the boys to another. At several points in the show, the fans roared "Twerk! Twerk! Twerk!" in an effort to get the boys to do a meme-y dance move. I've never been before, but I imagine this is the sort of thing that might happen more at a strip club.

That got me thinking--is One Direction (and other similar boy bands) aware of the degree to which they are objectified by their audience? Excuse the pun -- but do they object to the way that they are objectified as such? Artists always go out of their way to thank their fans for giving them the dream job, but do they sincerely mean it? Or do they secretly rue the fact that all the energy they've poured into refining their craft is completely overshadowed by their looks? 

Some critics actually claim that One Direction song lyrics inappropriately objectify women. "You don't know you're beautiful, that's what makes you beautiful" and others are lines which often depict the pursued girl as one who is insecure, and one who finds herself imperfect in some way. Is that offensive? Really? I find that this is just clever marketing. These songs are written by seasoned lyricists who know the target market. Any one of us who is not completely sure of ourselves can relate to being insecure, and the message in the songs is always that it's okay to be insecure... and what's wrong with that?

In the end, the boys didn't succumb to the degrading requests for them to twerk, and I'm glad they stood their ground. As much as fans fill their wallets, they still have a responsibility for respecting artists as people. After all, I'm much more apt to stay a fan of someone who still cares to develop his artistry than someone who is complacent with selling their good looks for a living.