That Fangirl Life was founded in December 2020 by our editor in chief, Laurel. As a teen in the late 90s/early 00s Laurel was all about boy bands, butterfly hair clips and rushing to get the latest copy of Mizz from her local newsagent every week to see what her boy band crush was up to that month. However back then Laurel felt isolated in her love for boy bands (particularly Westlife) as the Internet didn’t exist then in the way it does now. With the introduction of Twitter, Instagram & Tumblr in the mid/late 00s, the space that fangirls could exist grew massively; however the perception of them remained the same and still does to this day.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Laurel noticed that more people online were embracing their fangirl side & after reading Hannah Ewen’s book Fangirls, Laurel thought fans needed a place where their voices could be heard. To show that they are more than just the screaming, hysterical young girls they are painted to be; from there the podcast was put into an early workshop stage. From the great feedback received Laurel knew that this could be taken further, a place for aspiring & established writers to share aspects of fandom life as well as discussing pop culture topics. & so the website was developed and a full team taken on board.


You can read more in depth about the conception of TFGL here.