Aging, Nostalgia and Older Punk Women’s Fandom.

Abstract

Despite their continued engagement as audience throughout their lives, there is some suggestion that ageing, or older, fans have been at large omitted from fan studies (Middlemost, 2022). This does seem to be shifting, however, and there is a growing body of fandom scholarship concerning ageing fans. Indeed, in the context of punk, there has been a growing recognition of the continued significance of punk to older participants and fans (e.g. Andes, 2002, Bennett, 2006, Davis, 2006), contrasting earlier work which theorized punk as a youth subculture (see, for example, Hebdige, 1998). This reflects the increasing academic interest in the ageing popular music audience more broadly (Bennett and Hodkinson 2012). Despite such positive shifts, ageing women continue to be marginalised in such discussions concerning punk and older fans, meaning that much theoretical and conceptual understandings of ageing punks have failed to fully consider the interaction between ageing, gender and fandom.