Edits. Accounts. Videos. It’s no secret that the teenagers of 2016 America are engrossed in a full-on fangirl culture. Just read any Twitter post or scroll through Tumblr and you’ll find dedications to bands, movies and TV shows that the person “just can’t live without.” The obsession over media products has never been new, but the process that someone will go through to just to see their favorite celeb has created a worldwide conversation on what really matters.

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a fangirl is a girl or woman who is extremely or an overenthusiastic fan of someone or something. But fangirling isn’t a one-way street; it is made up of many terms regarding people who are all united in the likes of various things. Here are the stages a fangirl goes through on the journey throughout the phase of pop culture excitement.

1). Denial.

This is the stage where you know that you will begin to stalk your favorite celebrity on their social  media accounts. At the beginning, it’s cool to hate the celebrity, but then you realize that their songs/movies/shows are completely addicting, which makes you feel like a Benedict Arnold-esque traitor.

2). Anger.

The next stage is anger. This stage involves you getting upset over something completely random, including the celebrity, that will send you into a fit of rage. Some examples of anger-inducing activities include the artist shutting down their Instagram account or you not being able to go to their concert. Please apologize to your family and the public if this happens in front of them. No one likes to see a violent teenager.

3).  Bargaining.

Stage three is a weird and long stage. The stage of bargaining is when a fangirl buys merchandise of the celebrity and is convinced that this is the “best thing ever”. One album turns into another, and pretty soon, you have 50 copies of Justin Bieber’s latest, enough to open your own record store in New York City. With each album, you waste and waste and waste your money until you realize that when you graduate high school, you will be attending the Univeristy of “Would You Like Some Fries With That?” One day, when you’re alone and homeless on the street, thank your favorite celebrity for causing this tragic misfortune.

4). Depression.

Depression is a stage that happens in every fangirl’s life. Depression usually occurs when the fangirl sees stories of other fangirls meeting their favorite celebrities on the street or at meet-and-greets. You see their happy faces and realize that you’ll never be that person in the celebrity’s lives, that you’ll always just be another person silently admiring from afar. You almost give up loving them, but you know that you won’t and that makes you even more depressed.

5). Acceptance.

The fifth and final stage of the fangirling process is the most thrilling because it continues until the gradual decline of the obsession or until the cycle starts again. Here, you finally embrace the fact that you blast their albums on the bus ride or subtweet about them on Twitter. At this point, you don’t care what anyone thinks of you, and you find a second family in the fan accounts on social media. The only problem? Mom and Dad may want to kick you out of the house after listing Selena Gomez’s updates every 30 seconds. Until then, it’s all good.

Fangirling is a multi-generational community  of people who are dedicated in the lives of others. Every carefully constructed post speaks to others like them who understand the struggles and joys of getting excited over the littlest things. So, the next time your best friend has a full-blown panic attack over the newest Marvel movie, don’t laugh at them or tell them to grow up. Listen to them talk or maybe even go to a Comic Con event near you. Everyone has that fangirl side, where you absolutely lose yourself and don’t have to worry about the responsibilities of an everyday young adult. Letting it out will only help to showcase your awesome personality.