Black Girls Belong in Pop Fandom Too
A recent concert incident shows how exclusion still finds its way into fan spaces, and why inclusion and recognition matter.
While scrolling TikTok this weekend, I came across a video from a woman named Latoia, known online as @itslatoia. She had gone to the Jonas Brothers’ show in Charlotte expecting a fun night. Instead, she said two white women approached her and asked what she was “doing there,” insisting she didn’t belong in her floor seats.
She said security was called on her repeatedly, and by the end of the show, someone on the crew ended up gifting her Nick Jonas’ guitar pick because they saw she was “having such a horrible night.” In the video, she adamantly proclaimed that she would never go to another Jonas Brothers concert again.
“No one could fathom a Black girl had floor seats to the Jonas Brothers,” she said.
I feel lucky to have never experienced a night like the one Latoia described. But as a Black woman who has spent her entire life in predominantly white pop fandom spaces, I couldn’t help but feel every word she said.
For me, loving pop music as a Black girl has always been a bit of a conflicting experience. I grew up in a community and at schools where everyone looked like me, so I never felt out of place in my day-to-day life. But I was known for my interests. People would joke about how I listened to “white girl music.” Whatever that means…I never understood the label. Music shouldn’t be racially assigned, especially when so much of what we now call “pop” is built on the sounds and contributions of Black artists anyways. Regardless, comments like that never truly seemed to hurt my feelings, but they did become my thing, a silly little detail everyone attached to me.
It also ended up shaping the way I navigated my interests. I was already used to people minimizing aspects of my blackness, because of how I talked, for example, so my pop music taste felt like just another thing to file under “things that made me different.” I didn’t expect anyone around me to share my interests, and because of that, I didn’t expect much space to be made for me in the fandoms I loved either. I understood myself as the outlier, and I adjusted.
Finding other Black fangirls became such a big deal. When you’re the only girl in your friend group who likes One Direction or Shawn Mendes, you learn how to make space for yourself. I turned to the internet, and even though it wasn’t super common, I did occasionally find Black fangirls who loved what I loved. That mattered more than I realized at the time. It felt like proof that I wasn’t strange for liking the things I liked, I simply didn’t have anyone around me who shared my interests.
I ended up with this funny double life. All of my real-world friendships were with people who didn’t really care about pop culture at all, and then I had this pocket of the internet where girls who looked like me were making edits, running fan accounts and decoding every crumb from our favorite artists. I needed both.
I’ve also been going to shows my whole life, and over the years, I’ve gotten pretty used to being one of only a few Black women in the crowd. To put it into context, a few weeks ago, a 25-year-old woman went viral on TikTok after sharing her negative experience attending a Sombr concert. She complained that she felt out of place because the crowd was full of preteens, to which Sombr catered directly to. I have to be honest, I really wasn’t moved by the discourse at all. People were arguing about feeling “out of place” in a sea of tweens, but to me, it felt like such a non-issue. Not because her feelings weren’t valid, but because that sense of not quite fitting in has been my baseline for so long. When you grow up as a Black girl in white pop fandom spaces, you get used to being the person who doesn’t match the room. I truly believe I can survive just fine at a concert surrounded by 15-year-olds. That doesn’t make the discomfort okay, it just means I’ve learned to navigate it in ways a lot of people are just encountering for the first time.
Nothing bad has ever happened to me, and that’s something I don’t take for granted. Latoia’s video was a reminder of a reality I’ve simply been lucky enough to avoid.
Of course, there were always small signs of who fandom was often assumed to be for. For example, my fellow Black Directioners may remember the little things, like every hand in the “Night Changes” music video being white. My point isn’t to assume whether small actions like this were malicious, however, when extra care isn’t given, it’s easy to make others in your community feel left out.
The Jonas Brothers have always been one of my favorite artists. I saw them in concert for the very first time when I was just six years old, and I have seen them numerous times over the years.
Ironically enough, before leaving Twitter, one of the last fandom group chats I was active in was one for Black women who love the Jonas Brothers. They organized meetups and hung out together at shows. I never got to meet any of them in person, but seeing them create that community brought me so much joy. As a minority in the fandom, I think it’s truly special to see us still be able to carve out our own spaces for community.
As someone who cares deeply about celebrating the good in fandom, I sometimes catch myself thinking, “Well, not all fans…” And it’s true. Every community has bad actors, and while we should call out systemic issues, we shouldn’t let a subset define the entire ecosystem. I always want to believe the best in people and that these incidents are isolated and not representative of everyone.
But reading through the comments on Latoia’s video made that harder. Other Black fans shared similar experiences, little moments that made them feel scrutinized or unwelcome.
“I took my daughter in 2021, the looks we got were insane,” one fan wrote. “I kept my cool for my baby as it was her first concert. People were more focused on us having a good time than the actual show.”
Luckily, many others rallied around Latoia. Some expressed disgust at the behavior she described. Others called for more inclusivity, and ensured that all fans were not like that ones she had encountered.
And then, Joe Jonas himself commented.
“Completely unacceptable,” he wrote. “I’m sorry you had this experience. I don’t condone this type of behavior from anyone. If you ever change your mind, just know arms wide open over here.”
One fan, however, went the extra mile. Nicole, who had an extra floor ticket to the Jonas Brothers’ concert in Buffalo, NY, reached out to Latoia and invited her to join her — completely for free. That gesture led to the night Latoia should have had in the first place.
Joe recognized her from TikTok, pointed at her from the stage, and during a moment in the show where he chooses a fan to sing “Backwards” with, he walked right up to her and chose her.
It was a moment that helped Latoia feel seen in the space, and on top of that, it happened at a show that was being livestreamed as part of the band’s partnership with Samsung TV, so people across the country witnessed the highlight on their screens too.
“In that moment, Joe made me feel very seen, very loved as a Black woman,” Latoia said in a TikTok video after the show.
“In the end, it goes to show that evil will never win and kindness always does. And it gave me a friend for life and really that’s the prize at the end of all of this,” Nicole added in her own TikTok video.
Joe saw Latoia’s videos after the Buffalo show, and wrote, “Made me so happy to see you and sing with you 🫶.”
Seeing how Latoia was treated broke my heart. Seeing how the story ended helped put it back together a little.
Stories like Latoia’s shouldn’t be happening. It also shouldn’t require someone going viral to be recognized or protected. But sharing her story matters because it exposes what so many of us have quietly learned to navigate. Being a Black woman in white pop spaces doesn’t always mean you’ll automatically be mistreated, but it does mean you may have to learn to love something that wasn’t always built with you in mind.
There’s a special power, too, when we continue to show up anyways, finding each other and carving out corners for ourselves. We still make fan spaces feel like home even when we’re not the assumed audience, though I wish we didn’t always have to.
I guess, all of this simply reminded me of what it meant, growing up, to look around a concert and not see many people who looked like me, yet still feel like the music was mine, too.
Moments like the ones Joe gave Latoia, and the kindness Nicole showed, don’t fix everything. But they show what it feels like to be welcomed without hesitation, and recognized without having to fight for it. That feeling stays with you. I know it stayed with me every time I found another Black fangirl online and realized I wasn’t alone.
I believe in a space where fans choose community over exclusion, and when artists use their influence to make someone feel seen instead of ignored. One where we can proudly own our interests and take up space. That’s the kind of fandom worth pushing forward.