22 February 23-March 1, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents What’s in a Name 10 funny and creative music fandom nicknames. BY CARLY MAY GRAVLEY Y ou know you’ve made it big in pop music when your fans start to unite under an ador- able nickname. Fandom names range widely in creativ- ity. While some acts settle for simply attach- ing a suffix to their own name (Taylor Swift has her Swifties, Selena Gomez has her Sele- nators), others choose to go the more per- sonal route, angling more for a fandom in-joke or a pun: Barry Manilow fans are “Fanilows,” Beyoncé has her Bey Hive, and JLo fans “JLovers.” No wonder Ben Affleck is so bored. Here are 10 artists raising the bar for fan- dom names. 1. Ava Max, “Avatars” The “Sweet but Psycho” singer ran an Insta- gram poll to pick her fandom name in 2018, and “Avatars” won out over the honestly su- perior “Aviators.” The final pick makes us wonder if we don’t know how to pronounce “Ava” or if Max doesn’t know how to pro- nounce “avatar.” But the biggest question is: Is it stylized in papyrus font? 2. Azealia Banks, “Kunt Brigade” The rapper and singer is known for being outspoken and controversial, and the name she has lovingly (we have to assume) dubbed her fans reflects that. Banks also graciously chose to spell the C-word with a K, making it an entirely different word so that movies can reference her fanbase and still maintain a PG-13 rating. And she doesn’t get flagged on social media. 3. Ed Sheeran, “Sheerios” Ed Sheeran is the dopey nice guy of pop mu- sic. Aptly enough, his name for his fans sounds like a chipper greeting. We can’t help but smile picturing him on one of his mas- sive tours, playing to a stadium with just his guitar and whatever T-shirt he happened to be wearing that day, and saying something like, “Cheerio, Sheerios!’ If this has never happened, please don’t tell us. 4. Ellie Goulding, “Goulddiggers” If you dig Goulding’s sweet tunes, we couldn’t think of a more fitting moniker for you. Interestingly enough, Goulding and Ed Sheeran were rumored to have dated in the 2010s, with the latter’s biting breakup single “Don’t” rumored to be about Goulding. Based on their fandom names alone, we think “Goulddiggers” can take “Sheerios” in a fight any day. 5. Justin Bieber, “Beliebers” Regardless of how you feel about the Biebs, his fandom name is an all-time great. Not only is it cute and clever, it perfectly repre- sents his steadfast followers, who have beli- ebed in him from his teeny bopper phase through his public menace phase all the way to his “boring married man who knows he doesn’t have to try anymore” phase. He’s like a hometown football team. Fans will keep hyping him up no matter how many times he drops the ball. 6. Lady Gaga, “Little Monsters” Fans of Lady Gaga have been proudly calling themselves “Little Monsters” since the re- lease of her album The Fame Monster in 2009. Lady Gaga herself is “Mother Mon- ster” in this equation. There’s never been a “Father Monster,” unless you count Bradley Cooper during the A Star Is Born promotion cycle. 7. Lewis Capaldi, “Big Fat Sexy Jungle Cats” If you’re a Lewis Capaldi stan and self-identify using this label, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to know what your deal is. 8. Nicki Minaj, “Barbz” Nicki Minaj’s fan following call themselves “Barbies” or “Barbz” after the Barbie per- sona she takes on in some of her songs. Her male fans will sometimes call themselves “Boyz” or “Ken Barbz” instead. We are in- cluding this fandom name because we want to and not at all because we are afraid of the Barbz, who are considered to be one of the most toxic and unhinged fanbases in all of music. Not that that’s a bad thing! 9. Rihanna, “Navy” Some artists have a “squad” or a “team.” Some may even have an “army.” Rihanna, never one to be outdone, has her Navy. The name is a reference to a lyric from her Rated R deep cut “G4L”: “We’re an army, better yet a navy.” Shockingly, this label has no con- nection (as far as we can can tell) to her role in the 2012 box-office bomb Battleship. 10. “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Close Personal Friends of Al” This one isn’t particularly funny or clever, just aspirational. Dishonorable Mention: Ariana Grande, “Arianators” She said it, not us. Grande commented on her fans calling themselves Arianators in the liner notes for 2020’s Positions and minced no words in the process. “Thank you to the most loving, incredible fanbase of all time with the ugliest fandom name ever created,” she wrote. “Seriously, no thank yous for whoever coined the phrase ‘Arianators.’ You get no thank you. Just kidding. Love you all.” She’s honestly so real for this. ▼ FANDOM PLAYING A NEW GAME J4 MANE AND UDON IMAGINE HIGH- END WEAPONRY IN THEIR NEW RAP DUO DESIGNER ARTILLERY. BY RYANN GORDON A fter we introduced them in March 2021 as a “cast of shameless char- acters,” Greyspot Syndicate’s seven members have done a lot of work individu- ally and through collaborations. Two of the group’s notable members, J4 Mane and Udon, have made a name as a duo named Designer Artillery. The project plays on game culture, with references to weapons named after designer brands. “I knew Udon had great storytelling abil- ity, because his first two tapes were a story about him, like, killing and ogres and shit,” says J4 of his longtime friend and rap part- ner of over 10 years. “In regards to rap, I knew he would capture the vision. “And when we freestyled, he would do it right with me, always caught on that vibe, just like that, he was with it. So, boom — we’re in the studio and I’m play- ing these beats, and I start saying the hooks and Udon is freestyling right off of me. I was like, I knew you would fuck with this.” Their storytelling abilities are inherent in Designer Artillery 1, 2 and 3, where each track starts with a skit at the beginning and carries a banter-like dialogue with continu- ing skits halfway through or at the closing. From the first track, they open the storyline narrating as characters themselves, open- ing up a fictional retail store called De- signer Artillery, where they sell, literally, designer artillery. The three-part project includes songs such as “Jimmy Choo Chainsaw,” “Balenci- aga Brass Knuckles,” “Comme des Garçons Gatling Gun [CDGGG]” and, the series’ first track, “Louis V Lightsaber,” which starts the story with a play on Louis Vuitton and Star Wars. There’s a blue-collar lore that carries the narrative, as their characters make sales and build a world with familiar imagery. “You want to battle Darth Vader and look fresh? Come shop with us,” says J4. “It’s a straight-up fusion between designer/ hip-hop culture and dirty movie quotes, right out the gate. It’s a lot of humor and re- ally nerd culture, period. Video games, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, fantasy fiction, all of it.” Udon notes the influence of digital cul- ture in every aspect of society. “Depending on the age group, these kids speak in hashtags,” he says. “Those guys finally have a culture in music. Like, Carly May Lady Gaga’s fans are called LIttle Monsters. | B-SIDES | ▼ Music J4Mane and Udon are the rap duo named Designer Artillery Jaughn Meshack
