I have always considered Beyonce to be my favorite female pop artist. I think that she is extremely talented, beautiful, and presents herself in a mature and respectful manner. Recently, one of my classmates posted a blog talking about how she thinks Beyonce is overrated. While I find many of the points in her blog to be true, and I respect her opinion greatly, I do find some of her points to be stereotypical and unfair towards people like me.
I do understand that some Bey-hive members blow things way out of proportion. However, to stereotype Beyonce fans and say that they all idolize her in an obsessive way is extremely unfair to the rest of us. There are plenty of Beyonce fans, like myself, who love her music, but are not overly obsessed with her as an individual. It is possible to be a fan of an artist without feeling the need to kiss the ground he or she walks on.
Oftentimes, I find myself referring to Beyonce as a "queen." I do this because I greatly respect her as an individual and I truly believe that she is iconic to our society. This is also how most Beyonce fans typically refer to her in order to represent how big of a fan they are of her. However, I am not willing to take this title literally and treat her as some sort of royalty because of it. Sure, if I met her in person, I would freak out and express my excitement. This does not mean that I would go as far as to "bow down" to her. She is an artist who I greatly admire, and this is simply just a title to commemorate that. I am fully aware that she is not the head of a monarchy, as are many other Beyonce fans.
The blog post also talks about how Beyonce's old music is not nearly as good as her music. I happen to disagree with this statement. I totally understand why people have this opinion, but I feel that her new music is so different that it is almost revolutionary. Beyonce's recent album "Lemonade" stood on a very powerful platform, and I don't think a lot of people recognize that. In her lyrics, she talked a lot about "black empowerment" and embracing her gender and ethnicity. Not to mention, each of the songs on the album were iconic and extremely different than any music she has ever released before. I get why people don't like whenever an artist changes the way their music sounds, but I think that this album was different. "Lemonade" had songs with inspirations from multiple musical genres. I personally believe that someone with any taste of music can find at least one song on this album that they like (or at least can tolerate). THAT is the reason why I think this album is iconic; it's not because I like her music, it's because I recognize that there are so many people who are not typically Beyonce fans who happen like the songs and powerful lyrics that can be found on this album.
Beyonce also recently announced that she is pregnant with twins. My classmate mentioned that her fans freaked out a little too much over this. While I wholeheartedly agree that people got overly excited in response to this announcement, I do think that there is no harm over being happy for her. As humans, we tend to get overjoyed whenever we hear about a pregnancy of any kind. It is so exciting to know that someone has the capability of bringing another beautiful life into this world. In the case of Beyonce, her fans got excited over her pregnancy because someone they love has created another life (or two lives, for that matter) that they can love and cherish as well. At the end of the day, what's wrong with congratulating and being happy for someone else's pregnancy?
I love Beyonce. I love her music. I love her personality. I love her platform. I love her parenting style. I truly think she is a celebrity who we all can look up to and respect for how far she's come throughout her career. Just because I'm a part of the Bey-hive, doesn't mean I'm a crazy obsessive Beyonce fan. While I understand and respect why some people don't like her, I will never let their negative opinions stand in the way of mine.
