Welcome Back!

Join Lily and guest ethnomusicologist, Becca, at the intersection of academics and artists where they muse on the rising queer band, boygenius, and the context that brought them into the light. This episode detangles the social structures that exist both within the band and between artist and fan and why those may exist. Lily defines such concepts as hegemony, agency, cultural capital, and performativity as they relate to all things boygenius.

Listen to their top tracks on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/1hLiboQ98IQWhpKeP9vRFw?si=p1vz_fJPRMC_MbnG24JGcQ

For further reading on ethnomusicology: https://hugoribeiro.com.br/area-restrita/Rice-Ethnomusicology-A_very_short_introduction.pdf

Check out all the episodes here:

YouTube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD46GgMnP-pfCoEWeWcA82z8juYABNP58

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https://open.spotify.com/show/4DVBZTesL0nGvIZ6THJOrL?si=db968efc944f441d

Apple:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-anth/id1681214113

Single Promo link:

https://life-anth.captivate.fm/listen

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https://www.zoomcatchers.us

Hello and welcome back to Life and Anth!

I'm your host, Lily Forrester,

and I'm super excited to have you back and listening again.

If it's your first time here, not to worry,

we'll get you up to speed.

And if it's your third time here,

then thank you very much for being a fan!

As I always tell you, modern anthropology

is plagued by its exclusivity

and we are working to build an outlet to bring

the principles of the discipline

outside the realm of academia to people like you--and me.

With that being said, let's quickly recap

what we already learned

and get those concepts solidified.

Last week, we talked about power structures

within the recreational fitness space

and unpacked the concepts of the parasocial relationship

and gender relations as they pertain to

structuralist anthropology.

This week, we're gonna take

a slight turn into the specifics,

which means that first we need to cover some basics.

My 101 professor always told me

that when I mention I study anthropology,

people will ask me if I'm like Indiana Jones.

And while that hasn't totally held up,

I do find that archeology is where peoples' heads go first.

It's no Indiana Jones either way, but it's not totally incorrect.

Archeology is one of the four subdisciplines of anthropology.

There's archeology, biological anthropology,

linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology.

Soon, because it's important for contextual understanding,

we'll do an episode on the history of these divisions,

though I suspect it will not be our most popular episode.

So far, we have discussed only

cultural anthropology on the show,

largely because I'm a cultural anthropologist, and right now

is an interesting time in the discipline for many reasons.

One being the rise of a new subdivision,

known as ethnomusicology.

For all my music lovers out there, this one's for you.

To help us build a foundation,

we're going to observe one specific band called boygenius

and narrow in on some cultural phenomena

that allow them to rise to prominence

in the uniquely connected era

that is the post-pandemic 21st century.

Welcome to Queering the Stage.

Let's get into it.

Your first introduction to this band

may well have been through Taylor Swift,

who welcomed boygenius member, Phoebe Bridgers,

on her Eras tour as her US opener.

If you're an indie music enthusiast,

you may have been familiar with Bridgers

as a standalone artist

prior to her connection with Taylor Swift,

as she was something of an NPR darling

following the release of her first album,

Stranger in the Alps.

Most likely, though, you're familiar with her because

her song "Motion Sickness" went viral on TikTok

around the time the US went into lockdown

for the Covid-19 pandemic,

which conveniently aligned with

the release of her sophomore album,

Punisher, securing Bridgers' prominence on TikTok,

which has become a significant measure of success

in the changing musical landscape.

Between those two albums,

Bridgers joined forces with artists,

Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker to form the band boygenius,

all in lower case.

as was in fashion thanks to Billie Eillish,

and together they released their first EP,

which they also called boygenius.

That EP did not make a huge splash,

but did become something of a phenomenon

among a small group of young, queer women.

However, after the success that was

Bridgers' Punisher album,

fans sought out more of her content

and the band experienced a surge in popularity,

inspiring them to reunite for

a full album release called "the record,"

in, you guessed It,

all lowercase.

Before we get too deep in, I must first offer

a quick sidebar

and note that for legal reasons,

I will not be playing any boygenius music,

but I will leave links in the description

to the songs mentioned throughout

so that you can listen when convenient for you.

So what is unique about boygenius?

Why bother discussing them in specific?

Well, up until this point, many icons who have

brought together a community of queer women,

artists like Marina, formerly known as

Marina and the Diamonds,

Lana Del Rey, and even to an extent, Lorde,

have not themselves been members

of the LGBTQ+ community.

In fact, for many years I was not aware of

any queer female led bands

in the 21st century,

despite seeking out that content.

Now, not only are all members of boygenius,

also members of the community,

they are visibly so, making even a demonstration

of their sexuality,

which we will surely circle back to throughout the episode.

So why now?

As always, I brought on an interlocutor

to help us think critically about boygenius--and who

better than a boygenius fan

to do just that?

Let's meet Becca.

My name is Becca.

I am currently in the process of getting my masters in

Appalachian Ethnomusicology.

And I'm a songwriter.

I would say I got into Phoebe Bridgers

before I got into boygenius.

But honestly, as I got into Phoebe Bridgers,

pretty much right away, I was listening to that EP,

the first one, the boygenius EP that came out in 2018.

While Becca is our lone interlocutor today,

she's our first academic expert on the show,

which is a fun chance to highlight an unrelated

but always important topic in anthropology about expertise.

Anthropology is what we call a

'phenomenological' discipline.

Phenomenology, as a very high level overview,

states that those who lived it are the true experts.

The competing philosophy, 'positivism'

states that those who study it are the true experts.

This episode is extra special

because no matter what you believe,

we can all agree on one thing:

there's an expert on the show today.

We'll revisit that in episodes to come

along with our history lesson.

But today we're going in a different direction.

Let's let Becca set the stage.

There's this awareness that there are not many

female fronted bands that have been successful,

so that leaves a hole.

And then there's this awareness of, wow,

we aren't really centering very many queer people in the music industry,

or queer musicians exist but they don't talk

about their sexuality explicitly.

But I think boygenius has been able to fill that hole.

Because, as a society, or at least in the States,

we've made this concerted effort to call out disparities when we see them.

But I think this is a huge step towards that

and I do think that could be attributed partially to Covid.

COVID.

It seems it's a topic in everything we touch these days,

and music is certainly no exception.

On the surface, the pandemic altered

our music consumption in obvious ways.

There were no more concerts for the foreseeable future,

hopefully no more parties,

and we were commuting a lot less.

So the crazy acoustic environment

that is the inside of our cars was a lot less utilized.

Deeper down, we also found our music differently.

As you will likely recall,

in reflection on your own experience,

we spent a little more time online than we did before

because that was how we connected with each other.

That also became the predominant way

we found new artists and fellow fans on social media.

That part wasn't so much new,

but what was "new" was the power of the internet fandom.

With strong opinions and time to kill,

internet fandoms reached a peak in lockdown,

connecting like-minded people across the world to each other

in a scale never before seen.

This was a way for people not only to find a community

to discuss music, but also to discuss themselves.

In this way, boygenius had a particular resonance.

But I think the reason that they've had

much more success now is because so many people,

myself included, had the time to experience

and figure out their sexuality, and gender identity,

and all of these components of self that are shoved

to the back burner when you're living in

survival mode.

Boygenius gave young, queer people,

predominantly those assigned female at birth,

musical icons to look up to as they navigated

the complexities of their identities.

In my opinion, that is a very important role

to play in society,

and as Becca pointed out,

it's a huge step forward for queer people.

As a boygenius fan, it's tempting to stop talking there

and let heroes be heroes,

but I might lose credibility as an anthropologist.

We do like to tear things down.

Remember, early on I mentioned

that members of boygenius

are visible members of the LGBTQ+ community?

That became particularly prevalent as lockdown eased,

and "the boys", as they called themselves,

set off on tour for their album, "the record."

Some specific clips of their concert

have achieved recurrent virality on TikTok,

and those clips usually feature at least

two members of the band--making out.

I toyed around with the wording there,

but I don't think there's an academic way of saying it.

That is what they do, and it's become a bit of a gimmick.

It's what we call "performative" in anthropology,

which carries slightly different connotations

than the standard cultural meaning because,

in anthropology we stress that performativity does not

necessarily delegitimize something

despite the fact that they are truly queer,

they're also quite literally performing their queerness

to gain what we call "cultural capital."

cultural capital refers to the intangible assets, skills,

knowledge, behaviors, and cultural practices

that individuals or groups possess.

Basically, it's the abstract units that achieve status

within a certain group.

You may have lots of cultural capital

with the wrestling team at school,

but that might not get you very far

with the symphony orchestra.

Similarly, while boygenius seems to be challenging social norms

and potentially losing cultural capital in the US

and the world on whole,

they're gaining quite a bit of cultural capital

within the queer female community,

their target audience.

This is especially complicated

when observing Phoebe Bridgers,

whose romantic history, at least on paper,

does not look as visibly queer.

She, is first of all, dating a man currently

and so it feels like almost this self fetishization

for the sake of public consumption.

And I don't, I don't like that.

I don't think it's necessary.

I do think that our society as a whole puts a huge emphasis

on romantic relationships and romantic, intimacy

and that there can be platonic intimacy,

which I suppose this is, but it doesn't,

I don't think that it reads that way.

Maybe she just is into all of them in that way.

But it does feel performative, and it feels like,

guys, look, I'm actually gay.

I do think it's problematic, because it enforces this idea

that queerness looks a certain way.

And I don't think that it does because

Phoebe Bridgers is dating a man,

but she's queer,

and that's fine.

What Becca is reacting to is an instance

of what's known as "hegemony,"

coined by Italian Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci.

Hegemony is a term used to

describe how the beliefs, values,

and norms of powerful groups in society influence

and shape the way everyone else thinks, acts, and behaves.

A person who occupies a more powerful position societally

has a greater potential to affect the way you view the world

around you and within you.

And on the topic of powerful positions:

There are like clearly certain tracks

that she hasn't really creatively touched as much,

but that being said a lot of tracks,

she is either singing like the main melody

or a harmony that like sticks out in your ear, like,

"Oh, that's Phoebe Bridgers."

Phoebe Bridgers' career has kind of

had a more of a trajectory.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that

I think Phoebe has a wider appeal

to people that aren't even necessarily queer.

So yes, proud displays of queer love

do challenge the status quo,

but as always, it's a little bit more complicated than that.

Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker,

whose names uncoincidentally,

have gotten significantly less play in this episode,

have also gotten significantly less play

on streaming platforms.

Solo, Lucy Dacus boasts about a ninth of

Phoebe Bridgers' Spotify streams

and Julien Baker gets under half of what Lucy Dacus gets.

In a hegemonic lens, Phoebe Bridgers is certainly

the powerful party in question,

and despite being wonderful artists,

Dacus and Baker rely a bit on her stardom

to advance their own careers.

It is worth noting that as a solo artist,

Bridgers has demonstrated this same behavior

with her male guitarist,

suggesting that she at least pioneered

and likely encouraged this practice within the band.

And according to the concept of hegemony,

her influence, out of the three, is strongest.

Undeniably, though it's different when Phoebe Bridgers

performs her sexuality with a male guitarist

than with her female bandmates.

The latter is intended to be a larger statement,

and within the community, that has held true.

But it is important to note that those clips on TikTok

that feature visible queer sexuality

only ever reach a specific audience,

typically an audience who consumes queer content already.

Queer people.

When discussing the topic for this podcast with a friend

who is not a member of the queer community,

she said, "I'm confused.

Isn't Phoebe Bridgers

straight?"

and while the answer to that question is "no",

it is certainly true that the

public perception of heterosexuality

poses some advantage in the broader population,

who perceive her to be more palatable and

less niche.

This leads us to our last concept for the episode,

the concept of agency.

This is one that most people will be familiar with

through organic conversation,

so I won't dwell too long an explanation.

But agency refers to

the capacity of individuals and groups

to act independently and make choices

that influence their lives

and the social structures around them.

Colloquially, it would be easy to chalk this discussion up to

Dacus' and Baker's lack of agency

due to their comparative lack of power,

both structurally and economically.

But anthropology, this is not necessarily true.

Though they do not command as strong a spotlight

and may not have as much artistic agency

within the band,

Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker's decision

to team up with Phoebe Bridgers

is, in itself, an act of agency.

They are also capable of walking away,

which would be a further demonstration

of their agency.

But agency is not limited to the performers.

It extends freely onto listeners,

who wield the power of interpretation.

Those viral TikTok clips, while extremely popular

within the queer community,

also highlight the nuanced challenge of

translating such displays for a wider audience.

An external view of Phoebe Bridgers

from an etic perspective,

if you will,

will likely have difficulty representing

the complexities of her identity's

performative aspects.

That is to say, not only do artists make choices

about how to represent themselves

and their identities,

but their audience also holds agency in

how they perceive those choices.

Do they consume content that would then lead them

to see the viral videos in question,

or do they swipe past videos that might align them

with the queer community?

These absent decisions we make as we scroll endlessly

in bed are all enactments of our agency

as consumers.

Now, because I did not formally establish my positionality

at the top of the episode,

as I often do, I feel it is important for you to know

that I am a big fan of boygenius and of

Phoebe Bridgers as a solo artist.

I think they make great music

and I am, myself, a member of the LGBTQ+ community,

which is why this topic was of particular interest to me,

and why, at times, I may sound a bit critical,

but don't be fooled.

I'll be seeing them in concert come September.

To recap today, we define terms such as

cultural capital

and its fluidity

across contexts.

The concept of hegemony and agency

as it relates to both musician and consumer.

And bonus points for you if you can remember

phenomenology

and positivism.

But if not, don't worry.

We have a super fun history lesson

coming for you soon,

and these two philosophies sit right at the heart of it.

Check out the links in the description of today's episode.

If you want further reading on ethnomusicology

or a chance to listen to some of boygenius' music

or music from any of the boys.

If you liked today's episode, leave us a review.

That feedback is invaluable as we work to build up a listener base.

And if you have suggestions for topics to cover,

drop us a comment on our YouTube channel

and we'll get right to work.

Stay tuned for more episodes to come,

and by all means,

go ruin some parties with

your newfound knowledge.