AFI’s “Miss Murder” and the Power of Teen Girls
One early morning in the spring of my junior year of high school, while watching music videos on MTV, I “discovered” what would soon become my favorite band of all time.
AFI’s single “Miss Murder” debuted in April 2006, which was both 17 years ago and the year I turned 17. I think these two facts are inextricably linked.
I’m taking a brief pause from my typical musings on sabbaticals and self-employment because in this post, I’d like to take a walk down memory lane to share why teenage girls are simultaneously the most powerful demographic and the most derided.
Because I’d argue if anything has ever hit the mainstream, it’s because 17-year-old female fans made it happen.
A Sellout Success to “Selling Out”
Any AFI fan can point to this moment in history as a schism between the band’s hardcore punk days of the ‘90s and their meteoric rise to fame with their album Decemberunderground, which was released on the delightfully provocative date of 6-6-06. It debuted No. 1 on the Billboard charts and eventually went Platinum.
And yet, critically, Decemberunderground was received less favorably than AFI’s previous album Sing the Sorrow, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. By far, most fans would attest STS is still their best work to date.
It’s a tale as old as time. Whatever brings about chart-topping success is the same thing that stirs up accusations from longtime fans of “selling out.” The begrudging acceptance from audiences that what keeps their favorite creators alive is the mainstream expansion of that audience.
Just like many AFI fans roll their eyes when they see “Miss Murder” on the setlist because it’s the song that attracted emo-obsessed teen girls like me, there are countless instances of the battle between male gatekeepers and the female-driven future:
The cast of Twilight catapulting San Diego Comic-Con from a niche event for comic nerds to a pop culture phenomenon
Hot Topic evolving from floor-to-ceiling metal shirts to walls of anime and Disney merch
Danica Patrick’s impact on male-dominated IndyCar and NASCAR
Gamergate and the toxic, misogynistic backlash against women playing video games
It’s aggravating that anything (literally, anything) attracts an abnormal amount of stigma and disrespect when it’s enjoyed by women and girls—even when the creators themselves acknowledge that the only reason they’ve achieved success is because of their female audience.
Just read what AFI told Yahoo Music in 2017 about the shift in the gender ratio of their fanbase:
AFI lead singer and frontman Davey Havok: “We used to only play to men […] we were playing to, like, seven people a night. Two people a night. No people a night. Twenty people a night. Fifty people a night… Up until Jade and Hunter joined the band, really, the crowds were mostly male. And then more women started showing up, and I would say it remained half and half at least from there out, if not weighted towards the female […] It’s cool when it’s weighted towards the female, because from what I’ve known growing up, ladies always have the best taste in music.”
AFI guitarist Jade Puget: “If you’re only playing to guys, you’ll only be this size. You have to appeal to everyone.”
If my favorite band gets it, then why can’t the rest of the world?
The Social Conditioning of Media Consumption
So where am I going with this? What does the popularity of AFI’s “Miss Murder” say about the patriarchy?
Many people believe their preferences, what they like and don’t like, are personal and completely unique to them. But I would argue they’re political—meaning they reflect how they identify as human beings. Whether you listen to country or hip-hop, read philosophy or fantasy, or watch sports or Succession, your media consumption isn’t as subjective as it is socially conditioned.
Consider this study by Vudu: When the media company polled 2,000 Americans on what they rank as their top “guilty pleasures,” here were a handful of the most popular responses:
Watching reality TV (20%)
Romance movies (19%)
Watching daytime TV (17%)
Listening to “cheesy” music (15%)
The top three guilty pleasure movie genres? Rom-com, comedy, and teen romance.
And even the items that aren’t necessarily gendered are still associated with childhood, such as sneaking an extra scoop of ice cream (38%) or watching Disney films and cartoons (25%).
I am wholly unsurprised that the very things we feel most guilty and ashamed about—even as a “joke”—are activities done most by women and children. How do we expect society to treat women as equals when we can’t even view romantic comedies as legitimate and highly valuable forms of entertainment?
It All Comes Back to Romance
You can likely tell why I’m so passionate about this topic—because, duh, I write, read, and watch rom-coms! And not only do I consume them, I also create them with no intention of using a pen name or masking my work in any way. I mention I write romance novels on my website, Instagram, and yes, LinkedIn where my tagline is “creating happily ever afters.”
If something is going to be your personal brand, it needs to be so visible that it’s the first fact people know about you. And, frankly, I would love the fact that I write romance to be celebrated instead of cast aside as frivolous and without any merit.
So when you’re confronted with something you can’t stand—a Netflix dating show, an earworm pop song, the Kardashian sisters or the latest viral TikTok dance—ask yourself: is this thing I hate primarily catered to women and teen girls?
And if it is, perhaps you can open your mind to the possibility that without 17-year-old fans like my former MTV-watching self, those cable networks, music labels, publishing houses and other media conglomerates couldn’t generate the profits needed to bring you the entertainment you do enjoy.
Teen girls aren’t “basic.” They’re trendsetters. And it’s about damn time we start acting like it.
On that final note, let’s close out this post with another AFI hit and love like seventeen.
👏👏👏