A lot of Pop Forums (and parts of Reddit/Twitter) have a large LGBTQ+ following, mainly gay men, who gravitate to female pop stars as icons. Women in pop are often seen as embodiments of empowerment, escapism, and theatricality. Female artists also tend to embrace camp, glamour, reinvention, and melodrama, which resonates with fan communities who love dissecting eras, aesthetics, and narratives. And as a gay, I eat that up so much!

Female pop stars are also much more relatable, often positioned as underdogs or innovators fighting against industry pressures (misogyny, ageism, controlling labels, etc.). Which can reflect struggles the LGBTQ+ community fight against with homophobia, transphobia, and the government controlling our rights. Male pop acts are rarely discussed with that same lens; they’re often marketed as mainstream-safe, which can feel less exciting (especially for someone like me).

Then if you throw in fan behaviour and "Stan Culture" it adds a whole new dramatic element to it all, with each fanbase fighting for it's side - adding more fuel traffic to the forums.

Then (and this is most important part) the music itself. Female-led pop often leans into melodic hooks, dance beats, and emotional themes (heartbreak, empowerment, drama) that fans love to analyse, remix, and celebrate. Male pop tends to be less sonically adventurous in the mainstream (with exceptions), or it’s tied to bands marketed at teens (One Direction, BTS) where fandoms cluster elsewhere (Twitter, TikTok, Discord).

Plus the forums like BuzzJack, PopJustice, and UKMix were built on Pop Music to begin with, and back then there were a plethora of male pop stars that used to dance, sing pop bangers, be colourful, and perform like there life depends on it - but now there's only a small amount compared to the girls output - it's not gonna generate a lot chit chat. It's a shame, because a lot of male singers in the LGBTQ+ community still deliver is, but that also doesn't bring in much traffic (besides artists like Troye Sivan, and Conan Gray), but that's a whole other topic.

BuzzJack attracts a younger demographic too than some other bands who have high charting week one albums thanks to devoted fanbases made up of mostly middle aged men (e.g. Saint Etienne, Pet Shop Boys), but whose fans don't really spill over much onto Buzzjack outside a few members. Popjustice forum moreso, yes.

And just look at Record Store Day every year, and the queues it attracts at record shops. You won't find many of those people on BuzzJack but they are all music fans who are devoted to certain artists and getting up at silly o'clock to get hold of exclusive records by them. A lot of it is skewed towards rock and guitar music but not always these days. All sorts of male acts have devoted fanbases who we just don't see on BuzzJack, but you can see it in the charts from the crazy priced boxsets that make it in sometimes.

When I was younger I went through a phase of being a big Alisha's Attic fan and I recently made a blog post about why https://myrandommusicblog.blogspot.com/2025/08/why-alishas-attic.html

Basically they were the first all female act I ever bought music by and they were in the unique position of making music I liked and being attractive.

On 11/09/2025 at 12:14, gooddelta said:

BuzzJack attracts a younger demographic too

omg my IMPAKT