5. Identity Construction vs. Identity Erasure

As I already explained, rock fandom is a form of identity construction. People are attracted to rock music because they're attracted to the rock lifestyle, but a rock lifestyle can't be built on the foundation of a single band.

And yet, I've noticed that in Japan, a lot of fangirls basically only listen to a single band, or a very few related bands. A lot of Buck-Tick fans basically only listen to Buck-Tick, yet none of the fans of this type think that's strange or limiting. This single-band phenomenon is common to the point of being mainstream. Seriously, kids, how weird is that?

I simply cannot recall ever having encountered this phenomenon in America or Europe. Everybody's got a favorite band and a favorite band member, but I can't recall the last time I met a Western rock fan who only listened to a single band, and the same goes for Japanese fans of Western rock music. After all, if you only listened to a single band, how could you even consider yourself a rock fan in the first place? As far as the music itself goes, loving music means loving sound, and once you discover a sound you love, you're probably going to go searching for more of that same sound, aren't you? The single-band phenomenon usually applies to the genres we don't typically like, not the ones we do. “I don't like country music, but I listen to Johnny Cash” is a statement we've all heard. “I love punk but I only listen to The Clash”? Not so much.

I'm sure there's a stray Westerner or two who only listen to a single band, but even after all these years, I don't think I've ever met one. In the West, even the craziest obsessed fangirls usually listen to something besides their absolute favorite...because in the West, even the craziest obsessed fangirls (perhaps especially the craziest obsessed fangirls) are still members of the rock subculture, living and breathing rock music in daily life. Ditching school to follow a band on tour is the definition of crazy fangirl, but it's also the definition of rock-n-roll.

And as far as the subculture lifestyle goes, basically, a single band can't support a whole subculture. (Dead Heads and Juggalos are notable exceptions to this, but we're not going to talk about them here because the point is, they're exceptions, not the rule.) In most rock subcultures, it's the depth and breadth of the subculture that gives it its richness. When it comes to creating identity through subculture, the people who attain the higher status in the subculture are the people who immerse themselves more thoroughly, and in the case of rock music, that means listening to more bands, going to more shows, knowing more about the history of influences, collaborations, etc. than other subculture members do.

The thing is, single-band fans in Japan really are not members of the rock subculture. Mired in my own Western perspective as I was, it took me many years to realize this, but once I realized it, it became glaringly obvious. This was the source of the disconnect I'd been feeling between myself and so much of Buck-Tick's Japanese fanbase: I kept assuming that underneath all the squealing and the pretentiousness, they were really rocker kids at heart, just like I was. But they aren't.

Basically, the fact that they've organized their lives around being fans of a rock band is accidental, and incidental. The music and subculture isn't why they became fans. They became fans because they joined the personality cult of one specific guy (or a few specific guys) who just happened to be rock musicians. For these fans, fandom has nothing to do with constructing their identities as members of a subculture. They don't look at the guys they idolize and think “someday, I want to be that cool.” For these fans, fandom isn't a source of creative inspiration – it's a religion. And a religion has only one goal: worship.

The social currency of subculture is creativity. Larger creative contributions to the subculture afford even more status than the knowledge and experience I mentioned earlier – actually being in a band carries much higher status than just being a fan, but the same goes for other related activities like rock-music-related photography, videography, fashion design, journalism, etc. Basically, the more creative you are, the more points you get.

In religious cults, though, creativity usually amounts to heresy. In a cult, status is gained through piety. Who is the biggest worshiper, the truest believer? To create a subculture identity necessitates building yourself up, but to worship involves erasing yourself. If you're demonstrating your status to your subculture tribe, you're trying to stand out, to demonstrate all the ways in which you're unique and special. But if you're a worshiper, you don't matter, except to the extent that you're a vessel for your faith (or your fandom, as the case may be.)

A big goal of identity creation is to earn respect and prestige. When Imai Hisashi first listened to The Stalin and decided he wanted to be a rock star like Endo Michiro, he was taking the first step toward constructing his identity, and eventually, the day came when he achieved his goal. He'd become a rock star in his own right, earned Endo Michiro's respect in turn, and they performed together at the same festival. His creativity had finally afforded him enough cred to share the stage with his former idol. Of course, most members of rock music subcultures don't manage to achieve their dreams in quite so spectacular a fashion, but deep down, it's what they all want: to attain equality the with idols who inspired them. That “someday, I want to be a star, too.”

Cult members, on the other hand, have zero desire for equality. After all, there's no way to attain equality with God! No, what cult members want is proximity, and attention. Religious cult members want to feel that they're close to their god, that they've been touched or blessed by their god, etc. Fan cult members want much the same thing. They have no aspiration to be respected for their personal character, intelligence, or achievements. They simply want to be as close as possible to the object of their worship, and ideally, to force the object of their worship to acknowledge their existence. Because their fandom has largely subsumed their identity, they have, in effect, erased themselves. This is why they need the proximity and acknowledgment so badly. If you've erased your own identity in order to be a cultish fan of someone else, and the object of your worship ignores you, then you've been reduced to nothing.

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