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This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

Following

Estrogen Brigade

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/orlando_bloom_has_ruined_everything.png
Getting harder to be a nerd these days.
"How could they do this to Kakyoin!? He's the only reason women watch this show!"
— Jean-Pierre Polnareff, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Abridged, Episode 6

An enclave of female fans within a traditionally male-dominated fandom. They tend to focus on a particular character or actor, rather than the entire series. Occasionally both sides butt heads over largely superficial reasons, with buckets of opposite-sex awkwardness, which can get defensive. It should also be noted that not all female fans within such a fandom are necessarily of the Estrogen Brigade.

Unfortunately, it is because of this phenomenon that the female fan is sometimes regarded with suspicion — especially if she admits that she does, in fact, happen to find some of the male cast pleasing to the eye. However, finding certain members of the cast to be attractive does not necessarily preclude a fan from liking other aspects of a particular work — and, thus, should not automatically invalidate her as being a "true fan".

An Estrogen Brigade is easily attracted by hints of Ho Yay, since many members of such brigades seem to agree that Guy on Guy Is Hot. Female Gaze is often used to invoke this.

Not to be confused with Amazon Brigade. Its Spear Counterpart is the Testosterone Brigade, which, while debatable, may be even more frequent.

Example subpages:

Other examples:

    open/close all folders 
    Comic Books 
  • Batman: The female fandom is still very small, but type any combination of male characters into the search bar on DeviantArt some time, if you dare. With all the Foe Romance Subtext, the fact Bruce Wayne is generally depicted as a rather handsome fellow, ass-kicking female characters, Nightwing, and a huge cast of interesting villains, many of whom are just begging for Draco in Leather Pants treatment… it's sort of a wonder the Estrogen Brigade for Batman isn't bigger.
  • Captain America: Bucky Barnes, helped a lot by the MCU version's popularity. A sexy tortured bad boy out for redemption who is a borderline Cosmic Plaything who only has a few loves ones who he is very close too and protective of? Yeah, he's getting fangirls.
  • Deadpool: The series has had an Estrogen Brigade of fun, quirky, female geeks for a few years now, mostly because they get a kick out of his Black Comedy sense of humor. Now he's getting a more traditional Estrogen Brigade, since he's being portrayed by Ryan Reynolds.
  • The Flash: Wally West has a fairly active fanbase of women and gay/bi men, moreso than the other Flash family, to the point the Flash fans among the Feminist Comics Blogosphere tends to be made up almost entirely of Wally fans. Wally is a Mr. Fanservice whose tweaks to the Flash costume included it being drawn in a way that better shaded his figure, with his belt being reshaped in a way to emphasise his butt and crotch, and though he was kind of an ass early on, he's shown to be a Chivalrous Pervert who, upon falling in love, becomes a very devoted and caring boyfriend. Notably, unlike many other comic book relationships where the woman is subject to Male Gaze, Linda Park is very rarely sexualised to even remotely the same level as Wally, making it apparent that Even the Guys Want Him.
  • Green Lantern: The series has a surprisingly strong following in the Feminist Comics Blogosphere, only in part because of the franchise's 50-year tradition of spandex-clad butt shots. Hal is "endearingly sexist", John is "the serious one", Guy is the "gruff den mother", Kyle is The Woobie, and Alan is the sexy older guy.
  • Nightwing: The titular character himself is probably the largest example of this within comic fandom, something that is known by DC and has became an Ascended Meme at this point. He's an attractive Pretty Boy, has a very well-defined ass, his modern costume is sleek and compliments his figure better than almost any other make superhero costume, an he's a sensitive Nice Guy who is shown to be a loving boyfriend. It's well known that Dick has one of most sizeable fanbases of fangirls and gay/bi men.
  • Stan Lee noted in Son of Origins of Marvel Comics (1975), towards the end of the Silver Age of Superhero Comics:
    "For some reason, judging by the amount of mail we receive from girls, Iron Man is easily the most popular of our superheroes with the female fans. Whether it's his money, moustache, or muscles we don't know, but one thing's for sure—the chicks really dig him. Might be a good subject for some psychologist to sink his teeth into."
  • Despite (or perhaps because of) Red Sonja's infamous Chainmail Bikini and reputation for cheesecake, she's always had a prodigious female following. Gail Simone said that she was one of the few heroines that was allowed to be as unapologetically brutal and free as the guys.
  • Spider-Man: The series has assembled quite a large brigade over the years, which may be in part because Spider-Man does have a very noticeable "feminine side", being portrayed as quite sensitive and even shown crying on a few occasions. Also, right from the start taking his romances very seriously — even when he was dating Betty Brant as a high-school student, he was thinking in terms of the future marriage — and it is not for nothing that ever since the Stan Lee/John Romita run The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) has been described as a soap opera with action interludes. When a fan magazine once asked an assemblage of female comics creators to name their favourite superheroines, one of them half-jokingly named Spidey, explaining that he qualified as an "honorary female" anyway.
  • Tintin: The female fans have taken quite a liking to Tintin and the Captain, even if the art style of the comic books is the opposite of "sensual". It probably adds to their eroticism how the two characters get into perilous situations quite often, sometimes even tied up, which can add to those who have the fetish.

    Comic Strip 
  • The page image comes from FoxTrot, involving an arc based around the release of The Lord of the Rings movies. Jason his horrified that his older sister Paige wants to see the film; not for the story, but because Orlando Bloom is in it. Upon getting to the theater, it is absolutely packed with girls, all of whom are there for a similar reason. Considering Amend, the strips creator, is a self admitted huge nerd and a big fan of the Lord of the Rings books, this is likely based on his own experience upon going to see the film.

    Film — Animated 

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Star Wars:
    • Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi (in his youth), Luke Skywalker, and Anakin Skywalker are popular with ladies. In fact, pretty much all major male characters in the franchise except Yoda, Palpatine, Vader, Grievous and Dooku could qualify.
    • Wedge Antilles has one in the Star Wars Expanded Universe; in one of the comics it's mentioned that he gets marriage proposals in the mail. Luke has about six Zeltron fangirls, and one Zeltron fanboy in Star Wars (Marvel 1977).
    • The Phantom Menace: Darth Maul has an Estrogen Brigade. At least one "Estrogen Brigade" site for Darth Maul that was done mostly tongue-in-cheek, and it was brilliant.
    • The sequel trilogy continues this trend with the inclusion of Hux, Poe Dameron, and Finn, with Buzzfeed even releasing a video of Oscar Isaac and John Boyega reacting to thirst tweets! Special mention has to go to Kylo Ren and his muscular build, which gets put on full display during one scene...
  • Rumor has it that the only reason those of the female persuasion agreed to sit through 300 with their boyfriends was the highly buff, almost entirely-male cast who seemed unacquainted with the concept of a shirt.
  • Peter Jackson's Tolkien Films. Big Times.
    • Pictured is the cover to a FoxTrot collection, showing how a good portion of The Lord of the Rings viewers were fangirls ogling Legolas, though many others differed chiefly in that they preferred Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen). Éomer and Boromir also got a fair amount of love, and even Faramir had a small but devoted contingent.
    • Or the Hobbits. All four of them. Separately and together. Helps that three out of four are played by slender handsome actors. The Hobbit trilogy has launched Bilbo's (somewhat) addition to the equation since their release.
    • Dwarves are supposed to be much like what you see in LOTR, with Gimli and his father Gloin looking properly stout and bearded and not what you'd call hot (well...YMMV, some people certainly thought they were). Then Peter Jackson decided that it'd be appropriate to give the parts of the Line of Durin to Richard Armitage as Thorin, Aidan Turner as Kili, and Dean O'Gorman as Fili. It worked.
    • Then there was the embarrassing fawning over an extra that female fans christened "Figwit", who is now officially stated to be Lindir, a character from the book.
    • They cast Lee Pace as Thranduil. If you thought the fangirling over Legolas was bad, don't ever watch a video about Thranduil (even a nice sensible lore video). Your YouTube recommendations will be flooded for days with videos entirely about how hot he is. It's enough to genuinely make a fan feel sorry for whomever eventually gets cast to play Thranduil's even cooler cousin Thingol.
  • Also the Pirates of the Caribbean films, which not only had Orlando Bloom in the cast, but also Johnny Depp, himself an example of eye-candy in almost every film he is in.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe
  • Prince Nuada, from Hellboy II: The Golden Army, also has an Estrogen Brigade. There's even a community to bring him back in a prequel movie.
  • The Italian Hercules (1958) movies were very popular with stay-at-home housewives in the late '50s and early '60s due to their ample displays of buff, shirtless male bodybuilders. As Moviebob put it:
    "Junior got a theoretically exciting movie about swords and monsters and heroes, while Mom got... ideas. Filthy, filthy ideas. And now you know what Dr. Frank-N-Furter was talking about when he said "we could take in an old Steve Reeves movie!"
  • The Estrogen Brigade launched by David Bowie (or, more accurately, his crotch) in Labyrinth is downright legendary. There's even an internet religion based around it.
  • Master and Commander: A lot of appeal came from the original source — the Aubrey-Maturin series. The film also comes with a bunch of buff men in breeches, Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, and a scene with a half-naked injured Stephen moaning in a way that sounds a tad erotic. While Jack's hands press down on his naked abdomen. No wonder fangirls love it.
  • X-Men Film Series
    • X-Men: First Class: Let's see, we have the gorgeous Dr. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Dr. Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult), the sexy Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) and Riptide (Álex González), and of course there's the suave Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). Some teenage girls fawn over the hot Alex Summers (Lucas Till), while others are enamoured with the cute Sean Cassidy (Caleb Landry Jones).
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: If you look at the main cast listing, just about every male actor is a stud muffin.note  More so than any previous X-Men film, the men of Apocalypse cause the ladies to swoon en masse.
  • Victor Frankenstein: Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Andrew Scott and Freddie Fox provide plenty of eye candy for fangirls who enjoy seeing good-looking actors in period costumes.
  • The Jim Dale-era of the Carry On movies notably drew in a bigger audience — many of the audience crush-nursing young women — even with the movies that he didn't appear in, possibly in a hope to see him appear in a cameo. It was also probably why Dale's singing career was successful, long before he became an actor.
  • Westerns in general appeal to women because they feature male American Indians who have bronzed hard bodies, smooth bare chests and long hair.
  • When the original Jurassic Park's 25th anniversary rolled around, Funko Pop!'s tie-in line cheerfully acknowledged that franchise's estrogen brigade with a Target-exclusive figure of Dr. Ian Malcolm in his memetically legendary "injured" (aka open-shirt-with-glistening-chest) pose. The giant Lego set themed to the film the following year not only made sure the Ian minifigure was shirtless and wounded, but included the bunker room as one of the depicted locations so it could be posed properly.
  • Indiana Jones has one of these both out-of-universe (c'mon, it's Harrison Ford) and In-Universe, if the number of swooning females that attend his lectures indicates.
  • The John Wick action film series have a surprising female-following, thanks in part to Keanu Reeves as the titular Badass in a Nice Suit. Go to Tumblr or Archive of Our Own, and a good portion of the fanfiction on those sites pair Wick with an Original Character or a Reader-Insert.
  • A good reason behind the success of High School Musical, originally intended for the 9-13 demographic of both genders, is because of the female fans who were attracted to the male casts, especially Zac Efron. Disney Channel ran with it, and made these boy-obsessed teenage girls their primary target in the next two films.
  • On paper, The Covenant was meant to be The Craft for the male demographic, given the male leads, emphasis on action scenes, and at least one shower scene with the main female character. In practice, between the cast of handsome young men (including a young Steven Strait, Taylor Kitsch, and Sebastian Stan) and the numerous Ho Yay scenes between them, it's got a far larger female fanbase.
  • The Santa Clause: While the film is mostly aimed at young boys, it has a fairly large fanbase of females due to David Krumholtz as Bernard the Elf, with his good looks and Deadpan Snarker personality making him the childhood crush of many 90s girls.
  • Bullet Train: Tangerine has amassed a sizeable female fanbase due to being played by the very attractive Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and a cursory look at Ao3 will show that a good chunk of fanfiction consists of him getting paired up with a reader self-insert character or Author Avatar.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's (2023): Like the games, the film is mostly aimed at male fans, but a lot of fans online are female. This is mainly due to Mike being played by the very good looking Josh Hutcherson, but Matthew Lillard as William Afton and Elizabeth Lail as Vanessa both have their fair share of fangirls as well online.
  • The Mummy Trilogy: The trilogy is aimed mainly at male fans, but, due to the good looks of the male actors, it has a very loyal female following. The biggest following is for Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay, due to his good looks, pretty blue eyes, and natural charisma. Brendan Fraser (Rick O'Connell) and Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep) also have a lot of female admirers in the fandom.

    Literature 

    Music 
  • The Beatles, especially compared to their indie years. They weren't conventionally handsome, but they were charming and they were great peformers, which is what attracted millions of girls to them.
  • A rather unconventional Estrogen Brigade, but Rammstein has one as well.
  • Most men in Heavy Metal bands tend to have rugged looks and long-flowing hair. Do the math.
  • Nu Metal mixed multiple genres and presented modern urban aesthetics. It was noted for its ability to draw in huge crowds of women.
  • Some historians credit Elvis Presley with advancing the feminist movement because his concerts were places that female fans could go crazy and it was totally okay.
  • Many modern Country Music "hunks", like Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, and Florida Georgia Line, owe much of their success to their enormous female fanbases. A number of country music journalists have noted that the front rows of their concerts tend to resemble those of prominent pop and rap musicians, being dominated by squeeing fangirls. This is especially common in the genre known as "bro-country", which incorporates elements of Country Rap and classic rock along with lyrics about partying, trucks, and hot chicks, forming what has been called the country equivalent of Hair Metal or Glam Rap.
    • Before the bro-country wave, there were the "hat acts" of The '90s, who were often hunky young men in cowboy hats. Many of their critics often accused them of trading on their good looks in order to cover up a lack of talent and derivative music.
  • Chris Brown. It's been argued that the only reason why he still has a successful career after what he did to Rihanna is because he's just that damn sexy.
  • Older Than Radio: In Classical Music, the probable Trope Maker is Nicolo Paganini, whose virtuosic violin playing and flowing long hair was said to "leave men weeping and women swooning." The Trope Codifier, though, was the dashing pianist Franz Liszt, who had swarms of hysterical fans literally throwing themselves at the stage and fainting in the aisles wherever he performed. The phenomenon was given the name "Lisztomania," over 120 years before Beatlemania happened. Quoth The Other Wiki:
    "Admirers of Liszt would swarm over him, fighting over his handkerchiefs and gloves. Fans would wear his portrait on brooches and cameos. Women would try to get locks of his hair, and whenever he broke a piano string, admirers would try to obtain it in order to make a bracelet. Some female admirers would even carry glass phials into which they poured his coffee dregs."
  • GEazy has a massive following with female listeners, especially compared to other rappers. He's boasted about this in several songs, such as "One of Them".
    "See them bad bitches? Got tons of them."
  • Despite not being what most consider to be conventionally attractive and not having put out a new album in over a decade, Flight of the Conchords still has a large dedicated fanbase of women. At one point it got so immense that the duo had condoms thrown at them during some of their concerts.
  • Most western fans of K-pop in general.
  • Eminem had one back in the late 90s/early 2000s due to his cute, Pretty Boy appearance and the fact that he was a TRL mainstay, presented back to back with Boy Band videos. This caused a moral panic considering the misogynistic content of his lyrics - for example, the fact that during this period he wrote two entire songs about murdering his real-life wife, and one about raping and murdering his mother. When his movie 8 Mile opened with an overwhelmingly female audience, several newspapers viewed it as the downfall of feminism. The reality is that Eminem's music is more about satirising misogyny than indulging in it, and he likes to play with gender stereotypes by dressing as women in his videos, crying in his songs, and exploring his past as an abuse victim (and an abuser); it's his kayfabe persona, Slim Shady, who's the murderer; he's a loving father to daughters; and while he suffered with Lost in Character issues compounded by drug abuse during this period, all accounts suggest that his natural personality is sweet, sensitive and shy. Even in his middle age, his fanbase skews slightly female (53% to 47%, according to YouGov).
  • Ninja Sex Party is a comedy band with a lot of humor poking fun at straight male sexcapades, and Danny Sexbang's obsession with sex is usually meant to be comically disproportionate to how much success he really has. Even with the parody angle, however, he's an extravagant, attractive rock star in spandex and eyeliner — the female fanbase was inevitable. (Most of the fans get the joke, of course — it just makes the character seem more approachable.)

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Tends to be rather obvious in Professional Wrestling, and tend to have their own favorites apart from the rest of the crowd. Ever notice how the cheers for a Jeff Hardy, or a Randy Orton, or especially John Cena are much higher-pitched than the cheers for any other wrestler? (Though in Cena's case, it's also because of children) Especially when Jeff takes off his shirt…
  • This can certainly be traced back to Ricky Morton of the Rock 'n' Roll Express, who was one of the first wrestlers to be continually beat up to appeal to the mothering instincts of female fans.
    • In wrestling lingo these smaller good looking babyfaces that get sympathy heat are referred to as "blowjobs", Morton being the most successful one at the box office. Today the wrestling audience is predominantly males in their 20s and 30s, but wrestlers like Finn Balor, Adam Cole, and Darby Allin have plenty of female fans. As noted in the examples below, this female fandom often doesn't endear these wrestlers to the male side of the population.
  • "Clique"-era Shawn Michaels was blatantly marketed at female fans, to the point of doing a spread in Playgirlnote . Of course, the result was the male fans turning against him in a way that makes the current reaction to John Cena seem positively tame, culminating in Madison Square Garden rabidly cheering Sid of all wrestlers at Survivor Series 1996. In the pre-Attitude era, that type of fan revolt was shocking. Many male fans take great pleasure in the stunned reaction of a female fan in the front row of that match when Sid pins Michaels clean in the middle as MSG erupts in cheers.
  • Jeff Hardy made an appearance for Ring of Honor. At the time Jeff's popularity with the smark crowd was at a low ebb. Hardy's Estrogen Brigade came to the RoH show just to see Jeff Hardy, and their shrieking seemed to set the RoH regulars off. They booed literally everything Jeff did, and at one point started a "shut the fuck up" chant against the estrogen brigade.
  • All three members of The Shield have lots of fangirls, especially Roman Reigns. In fact, Reigns' estrogen brigade is one of the many reasons (though definitely not a major one) why he was widely disliked by hardcore fans during his main event push.

    Sports 
  • Formula One. Ask a girl why she's watching it, most likely she'll say for the pretty boys.
  • Rugby — a few years ago, the most commonly cited reason from female English fans as to why they like rugby would have been "Johnny Wilkinson's legs! Phwoar".
    • The Vicar of Dibley uses Geraldine as an example of this.
    • Rugby has a fairly large Brigade in New Zealand, as well. The most popular seems to be Dan Carter, flyhalf/underwear model, Richie McCaw, Captain of the All Blacks, and inside centre Sonny Bill Williams, who caused quite a stir when he changed his jersey in the middle of the game in the opening match of 2011 World Cup.
  • A few soccer players. Helps that the players on the winning team follow the tradition of taking their shirts off at the end of a game. In the 70s and 80s, the size of the shorts also helped.
  • Most female St. Louis Cardinals fans do follow the game, but may end up crushing on a player that they like. It's not usually enough to be called an Estrogen Brigade, but now David Freese is developing one since he saved the Cardinals from losing the 2011 World Series at the very last minute of Game 6 and he's cute as a button.
    • Many signs at the victory parade read "DAVID FREESE, WILL YOU MARRY ME?"
  • In the NFL, Tom Brady is probably the player with the most iconic Estrogen Brigade.
  • Women's interest in baseball in general increased when the uniforms switched from baggy knickers to spandex tights.
  • Australian Rules Football. Their shorts are tiny. The sleeveless guernseys help, too.
  • Ice-hockey. There is nothing like tough man, most of them total Hunks, who fight on ice. So hot!
  • Men's swimming, diving and Water Polo interest girls because they'll see smooth and hairless guys with a high level of muscle tone wearing only banana hammocks.

    Theatre 
  • The majority of 2.5D stage plays (Screen-to-Stage Adaptation works based on anime and manga) are aimed towards this kind of fanbase. That doesn't make them shallow works — franchises like Touken Ranbu and Tsukipro keep all of their depth in their stage plays, though they were Cast Full of Pretty Boys series all along. But then you get seinen series like Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, and even Kaiji adapted into stage plays starring Touken Danshi actors as characters who were ugly, smarmy, or creepy in the manga.
  • Roger from RENT definitely has one! As does Mark to a lesser extent.
  • The title character of The Phantom of the Opera has a pretty large one, resulting in an almost all-female fandom. And if you don't like Erik, there's always Raoul...
  • Les Misérables probably got its initial female fanbase almost entirely from Michael Ball (the West End's original Marius), Michael Maguire (Broadway's original Enjolras), and/or Colm Wilkinson (the original Jean Valjean). Although it's fair to say that all the barricade boys have become immensely popular, with Grantaire as a particular breakout.
  • The cast of 1776 is populated largely by intelligent, handsome men in period clothing. Who can dance and sing.

    Video Games 
  • As noted in some of the examples below Nintendo tends to get this a lot, both with their hardware and their IPs. Weirdly this isn't really intentional on their part but more a side effect of their competitor's marketing: both the PlayStation and Xbox mainly target the 15-35 year old male demonote , while Nintendo heavily stresses that their products are for all audiences, which of course includes women. The Nintendo DS in particular was a hit with women, Nintendo estimated that 44% of DS owners were female, a really high percentage for a video game platform. Many of their IPs featuring playable female characters (Princess Peach, Samus Aran, Dixie Kong, etc...) certainly doesn't hurt either.
  • Tomb Raider has the "Kurtis Trent Estrogen Brigade". Larson's getting pretty popular as well.
  • Castlevania games that were released when Ayami Kojima was in charge of character design. Every male Castlevania protagonist she ever designed is a top-grade Bishōnen, which is why there's a lot of fangirls in the fandom, and most of the fanart on Pixiv seems to be made by girls. Castlevania games released before and after that, not so much.
  • There is a small but very vocal part of the Don't Starve fandom that are very attracted to Wilson and/or Maxwell.
  • Surprisingly, the Mega Man games (particularly with Mega Man (Classic) and Mega Man X) has a large female fanbase. There are several possible reasons for this: the adorable main protagonist of the Classic series (alongside many other cute characters like Roll and Ice Man), the numerous "attractive" robot men like Bass and Zero, and for Yaoi Fangirls, the majority-male cast that provides ample fuel for Shipping.
  • Raziel from Legacy of Kain has this, despite lacking a lower jaw. And well, every single male character in Legacy of Kain have female fanbase.
  • The vast majority of Star Control II fans are male, but the FrungyLovers LiveJournal community is almost 100 percent female, and was 100 percent female until recently. Several of them are Admiral ZEX fangirls (unsurprising if you've played the games, but if you think it's only because of the Ho Yay, you have no idea). They like to call themselves Deviant Schoolgirls On Speed, thanks to a colorful description of them made by a poster on a more... 'conservative' forum.
  • Final Fantasy games tend to have a large Estrogen Brigade, and, naturally, so does Kingdom Hearts, to the point that they seem to have female-dominated fandoms with a Testosterone Brigade. Final Fantasy VII deserves a special mention.
  • The Legend of Zelda has had a pretty damn big one ever since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The reason why should be obvious note . This is even referenced in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. If the player finishes the STAR minigame in Hyrule Castle Town, a group of girls will squee and run away every time Link goes by. You get a couple of free hearts from the pure power of estrogen left in their wake.
  • Fighting Video Games such as Tekken, The King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter had these, 'cause you know what. The King of Fighters deserves special mention since SNK has heavily acknowledged its female fanbase since the 90s and even made multiple otome games based on the franchise. There's also Guilty Gear and Blazblue which has had events and merch specifically for female fans.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Solid Snake and Big Boss have very devoted fangirls. Snake's ass and Big Boss's crotch and chest are all very well rendered. Coincidence?
    • A subgroup could take or leave the Snakes themselves, as long as they can keep his English voice-actor.
    • The Woobie Otacon also has a devoted fangirl base.
    • As does Raiden. And Raikov. Though that is hardly a surprise.
    • Even Volgin gets this. Some people just seem to be into that sort of thing.
    • After the players were introduced to their younger selves, both Ocelot and Roy Campbell have been gathering fangirls rapidly. Ocelot fangirls call themselves "Ocelthots".
    • Kazuhira Miller, although not as large as Ocelot's, also has a lot of fangirls.
    • Liquid Snake, being a shirtless Evil Brit, is very much liked by fangirls.
  • Speaking of Kojima games. A not inconsiderable contingent bought Death Stranding purely because the trailer featured a naked handsome man.
  • The Ace Attorney fandom:
    • They are extremely... vocal about prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. The "Edgey Fan Base" on the biggest fansite's forum took up literally more than half the posts in the section about Edgeworth's first game in the series.
    • Apollo gathers fangirls too, thanks to being cute and dorky.
    • Godot/Diego Armando has a smaller but vehemently loyal fangirlbase despite (and sometimes because of) his relationship with Mia Fey.
  • Devil May Cry. Sexy Sparda Syndrome. Dante, Vergil and Nero, who stack RIDICULOUS amounts of fangirls. On their own and in any combination. Slash Fic abound.
  • From BioWare, Dragon Age: Origins' Alistair has an Estrogen Brigade - not bad for a character who's canonically a virgin.
    • The Dragon Age team is very good at writing male characters who are dorkily cute and/or Troubled, but Cute, and they’re also very good at casting actors whose voices are easy on the ears. So there are quite a few major male characters in the series with their own sizable brigades. One who is particularly worth singling out, though, is Cullen Rutherford, a minor character in the first two games who became an Ascended Extra and Promoted to Love Interest in Dragon Age: Inquisition in large part because of this trope.
  • Team Fortress 2 sure has a lot of slashy fanart and fanfics for a gratuitously violent first person shooter with (seemingly) no plot, doesn't it?
  • Fire Emblem has always been a game about war, death and political intrigue between kingdoms, and depending on where each setting places on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, it could even show no illusions on how bad women had it, most notably shown in Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776. Even so, the franchise has earned a gargantuan female following thanks to its deep characters, strong female protagonists and endless supply of handsome men, with all of this being before the Ho Yay is factored in.
    • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are especially infamous for their Estrogen Brigade. Taking place in a setting chock-full of Grey-and-Gray Morality, mature themes like genocide and racism, and the fact that Ike was a BFS-wielding mercenary basically made the Tellius games a Lighter and Softer Berserk. Despite this, they manage to have the largest female-following of the settings, in no shortage to the gargantuan Cast Full of Pretty Boys, the deep storyline, characters and worldbuilding, and endless supply of strong female characters. And this series manages to have the most Ho Yay in a series full of Ho Yay.
    • The latest installment, Fire Emblem: Three Houses gives us a rare, special case where the character causing the brigade is female. The development team anticipated that Edelgard's house, The Black Eagles, would be aimed at straight men as it has the most female characters. However, Black Eagles wound up being the most popular house for women instead. In fact one can be forgiven for assuming male Byleth doesn't exist as fan content for Edelgard and Byleth is almost exclusively lesbian. When you consider that Edelgard is a Lady of War with a Dark and Troubled Past who has a cold exterior but is a Smitten Teenage Girl when it comes to the player character regardless of gender, it's easy to see why this happened. Dorothea and Petra are very popular was well, the former for being The Tease and the latter for being such a genuine Nice Girl.
      • That's not to say the intended Estrogen Brigade Bait underperformed, however: the Blue Lions has the most conventionally handsome guys in the cast, with strong personalities and a lot of emotional complexity to delve into, especially where the Tragedy of Duscur is concerned. There's a reason why the Fan Nickname for the Blue Lions "the Otome house". Dimitri, the head of the house and a potential poster boy for Jerkass Woobie after the time skip, ran away with the votes in a female-majority poll◊ that also gave a lot of love to his house in general and is so well-liked that he even placed on a poll of favorite Nintendo characters, outdoing Yoshi and Princess Peach. Even taking recency bias into account, that's some impressive reception. Sylvain and Felix are also extremely popular for being very handsome, having attractive voices and with angsty backstories.
      • Claude's popularity shouldn't be undersold either, as he's a hugely popular character who came second only to Dimitri in the same poll and many female players have admitted to choosing the Golden Deer house just because they wanted to marry him.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog is disturbingly popular among Sonic the Hedgehog fans.
    • Sonic himself and Knuckles are no slouches either in the fangirl department. Espio also managed to attract quite a few when he was reintroduced into the franchise for Sonic Heroes.
  • The Arbiter and the Sangheili/Elites as a whole have their own Estrogen Brigade, despite being giant space lizards with four mandibles instead of a lower jaw. Not to mention of course, the Master Chief. Despite Halo's fanbase often being stereotyped as overly masculine, the fangirls are definitely out there.
  • Sengoku Basara all the way. If the hot, predominantly male cast isn't enough to satisfy you, then the ridiculous amounts of Ho Yay and/or Foe Romance Subtext will.
  • Professor Layton:
    • Future Luke/ Clive is definitely the character that generates the most fangirls out of the series.
    • Luke Triton is incredibly popular amongst the Lolicon and Shotacon fangirls.
  • Inazuma Eleven despite being a Shōnen series for children has admittedly made many a girl swoon over middle schoolers.
  • Not even Backyard Sports is immune to this phenomenon. There are actually some girls on DeviantArt who insist that Achmed is hot.
  • Portal 2's Wheatley has many, many fangirls, due to his adorkability and the fact that he's voiced by Stephen Merchant.
  • With The Elder Scrolls, there is an awful lot of fangirl-ing over both Cicero and Lucien Lachance from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion respectively.
  • Back in the heyday of the Sierra adventure game fandom, you'd be hard-pressed to find a King's Quest fangirl that didn't have a crush on Prince Alexander, and you'd be equally hard-pressed to find a Gabriel Knight fangirl that didn't have the hots for Von Glower. Probably no coincidence that they were both written (or largely written) by the same creator.
  • Overwatch got one the second McCree premiered. And it quadrupled when they introduced Hanzo. It makes more sense when you realize that every member of the cast could qualify as Troubled, but Cute.
  • Despite Genshin Impact's Fan Nickname Breath of the Waifu, this game has no shortage of female fans. Kaeya, Diluc, Xiao, and especially Tartaglia and Zhongli are the most common recipients of fangirls. miHoYo apparently considered this, as the in-game web event that features Zhongli and Tartaglia plays out like a dating sim (sans the romance elements). It even has Lumine, the character yumejoshi would most likely choose as their player character, as the protagonist for the event.
  • Honkai: Star Rail, also by miHoYo, has swathes of female players because of Dan Heng, Welt, Gepard and Sampo in 1.0. Later characters such as Jing Yuan, Luocha, and Blade further facilitated this.
  • I=MGCM has a few female players, although that game is aimed for the Seinen demographic and has lots of Fanservice and Visual Innuendo, and there's an alternate NSFW version called MGCM DX. Many female players are focused on the player protagonist Tobio Hakari, who is a Nice Guy and cares about his heroines, especially when he is an Executor and he's the best in comparison to his alternate selves. The female players also like the game's adorable and attractive heroines, and Tobio's Remote Body Omnis.
  • Bully with its RPG and social sim features certainly gained a lot more of attention from the female playerbase than the testosterone-filled Grand Theft Auto, presumably for his male characters (and there lots of them) and the many teenage dramas that occur in the game. It also helps that there are kissable male students for the male protagonist.
  • Cyberpunk 2077: Keanu Reeves plays the game's Deuteragonist, so a lot of his fangirls, even ones that don't usually play video games, gave this one a try.

    Web Animation 
  • Camp Camp: David the camp counselor's dorky, optimistic personality and cute appearance have both given him a ton of female fans.
  • Nijisanji distinguishes itself from other large Virtual Youtuber companies in that it hosts male and female talent in almost equal numbers, as opposed to focusing more on the latter. As such, the group has amassed a significant female following in an industry with a dominantly male viewer demographic.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • Despite the Game Grumps' Vulgar Humor being geared more towards other gamer guys, there's a decent female fandom, many of whom find the Grumps attractive. It's not hurt by the frequency of jokingly-flirtatious humor, Arin being In Touch with His Feminine Side and often choosing female players, and the incorporation of games geared towards girls on the show. Danny's inclusion also helps as his stint in Ninja Sex Party has people already attracted to him. The Grumps are aware that fans find them attractve, to the degree of putting out body pillows (including furry versions!) as official merch.
  • The Nostalgia Critic: In a commentary, Doug and Malcolm surmise that this is the reason why minor side characters Devil Boner (aggressive man in leather and eyeliner, with the added bonus of Character Development that made him a feminist) and Benny (bisexual Sharp-Dressed Man who is a badass assassin) became so popular so fast. It helps that the former ends up married to the show's resident Fangirl parody.
  • Most of the writers of Cracked have a large female (well, not necessarily...) fanbase who aren't there for the comedy. Most obvious example is Soren Bowie; the comment sections of his articles are filled with fans talking about how good looking he is and men feeling the need to mention their heterosexuality.
  • Many viewers find NicePeter, co-founder of the Epic Rap Battles of History, very attractive. Some have speculated that this is the reason why the characters he plays tend to win over EpicLLOYD's characters in the fan polls.
  • Now that he has a beard Jay Bauman from RedLetterMedia tends to attract a lot of attention on the live stream comments.
  • While SMPLive wasn't really targeting any one gendered demographic, its initial audience was definitely mostly teenage boys and young men. Because of this, the influx of teenage girls running stan accounts took creators off guard.

    Western Animation 
  • Ben 10 and its sequel are both aimed at preteen boys, but the shows have garnered a fair amount of teenage-and-up female fans. Some of them enjoy the show as an entity, but others just watch it for one of the male characters (or for the Shipping…). Kevin is the most popular (particularly when he grows up), but some girls prefer Grandpa Max. This seems to be a recurring theme for Man of Action, with similar fanbase for Generator Rex and one already developing for Ultimate Spider-Man.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender's target demographic is 6-11 year old boys, so how do they explain this? Perhaps to answer this question one should partake in a bit of a drinking game. Whenever you see a male character on Avatar lack a shirt take one shot. If you can see their chest but they still have their clothes on, take half a shot. There is your answer. note  It is LiveJournal and Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls.
  • Young Justice had a large female fanbase, despite being aimed at young boys. In fact, Paul Dini set off a minor controversy after he explained to Kevin Smith that one of the major reasons the show was Screwed by the Network was because it had too many female viewers in the eyes of the execs.
  • Transformers has always been aimed at boys, with female characters in the franchise few and far-between. Despite this, the series has a female fanbase, which seemingly exploded in size with Transformers: Prime. Why? Two reasons: one, the show aired back-to-back with My Little Pony; two, Knock Out. Girls LOVE Knock Out, almost as much as they love fanfictions and music videos that romantically pair him with other male transformers.
  • Dragon Booster was also aimed at boys, with only a smattering of female characters. The message board which provided the nexus point for most of the fandom, however, has a substantial female population.
  • Storm Hawks was aimed at boys. Girls have fallen for it as well, however.
  • The Warden from Superjail!, and by extension, David Wain in Wainy Days. David Wain joined deviantART. He spends his time there adding sexy fanart of his character to his favorites. It's... unsettling.
  • Fan Art of South Park tells a lot! It got parodied in the episode "The Ring", where they point out that most girls for the Jonas Brothers (or any boy band for that matter) just go to their concerts to look at them rather than listening to their music.
  • In King Arthur's Disasters, Lancelot has his own little cult of ladies following him around in "The Yodeling Dolphin of Kirkwall" and "Mission: Implausible." Hell, some guards were hired in one episode to drive 'em away.
    Random girl takes a lock of Lancelot's hair
    Random Girl: I'VE GOT SOME OF HIS HAIR!!!!!!
  • Similarly to Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teen Titans, despite being originally aimed at boys aged below 12, has attracted many older female fans, mainly due to a crapload of characters serving the role of Estrogen Brigade Baits.
  • Danny Phantom apparently has a huge college age female following. A lot of that has to do with Vlad and Dark Danny.
  • Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja fans are mostly female. Most fan fictions are about the main hero Randy and self-insert characters. Also, the Ho Yay moments between Randy and Howard became of the most popular ships of the series.
  • Regular Show has many female fans. Part of the reason could be the close relationship between the main characters (making it a major target for the Yaoi Fangirls) and also because the show has many romance moments in some episodes.
  • It's pretty safe to assume that 3-2-1 Penguins! has plenty of female fans who fangirl over one of the eponymous penguins.
  • A few teenage girls have been known to love the U.S. Acres segments of Garfield and Friends.
  • Scarecrow is the most popular character from Magic Adventures of Mumfie among female fans.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door due to the cute male characters and romance subplots in later episodes.
  • Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls has a massive fangirl base.
    • As does Grunkle Stan (whose fans have taken to call him Hunkle Stan), his brother Ford, and, believe it or not, Bill Cipher.
  • The titular characters of Sanjay and Craig tend to get fawned over by little girls and even women in some circles of the internet, they also have a lot of romanticized/bishie-fied fanworks out there.
  • Kaeloo: The show has several female fans who fangirl over Mr. Cat.
  • The Penguins of Madagascar has a pretty decent fandom of teenage girls who love shipping the titular penguins with Marlene, Julien or each other. Many of them also tend to fangirl over Skipper and Kowalski. Hans is also pretty popular and tends to be shipped with Skipper.
  • Wilt from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has quite the large fangirl base. There's even an entire thread on the Foster's forum dedicated to this fan demographic.
  • Voltron: Legendary Defender is presumably supposed to be aimed at boys, given that there are only two girls part of the main cast. However, the show has gained many a fangirl, mostly due to Keith and Shiro (and, to a lesser extent, Hunk and Lance).
  • Aaravos from The Dragon Prince has a massive fangirl (and fanboy) base.
  • Samurai Jack is enjoyed by a wide audience, but one reason plenty of female fans enjoy it is because of Jack himself. Considering how he has a very well-built body and often suffers Clothing Damage during fights (and will sometimes end up in nothing but his Fundoshi) as well as often having his long hair come undone, it's hardly surprising.
  • Molly of Denali is technically aimed at a gender-neutral audience (since the main character is a tomboy), but there are older female fans that fangirl over Kenji, Tooey's dad. This ended up having the opposite effect; likely because of his fangirls, GBH (who is very fandom- and internet-savvy) had him disappear in the second season.
  • Johnny Bravo: Ironically, in spite of Johnny's womanizing habits, the show has a rather devoted female fanbase who love it for its deconstruction of the Chivalrous Pervert trope, and find Johnny an overall amusing character due to his womanizing habits making him a Butt-Monkey.

    Real Life 
  • Saint-Just fans show up for the Knight Templar, stay for the Pretty Boy. Saint-Just was so pretty, they named a Bifauxnen after him!
  • Camille Desmoulins also qualifies in a slightly cuter, revolutionary-next-door way. Shouting love letters to his wife while he was being led to the guillotine?
  • Jim Carrey has a surprising amount of fangirls, (some of which are as young as their early-teens.) who find him (especially in his younger years) to be irresistibly delicious, especially on the fan-sites, where some forum users just simply can't stop speaking of their wish to see him naked, or to... well... yeah, you get it. Some of said teenage fans even think he's sexier in his current years.
  • Barack Obama, his chief of staff, and for that matter most of his administration. True story. At least two entries in this Cracked Photoplasty Contest prove it as well.
  • Justin Trudeau is also found attractive by many. Being a prime minister, this isn't a usual quality.
  • The Founding Fathers. The musical 1776 probably helped cement this! Damn you, Mister Adams.
    • Now compounded times a thousand by the juggernaut that is Hamilton to the point where girls are casually referring to a politician from the 1700s as "Alex".
  • Johnny's Jimusho. A whole company full of pretty boys who sing, dance and act just for the sake of this trope.
  • Vladimir Putin, what with him hunting tigers and posing shirtless.
  • Adolf Hitler actually had quite the female following during his initial campaign for office, with random women even trying to kiss him. No, seriously.
  • Pita Taufatofua, Tonga's shirtless and covered with coconut oil flag-bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics stole the hearts of women everywhere, as Savannah Guthrie, Jenna Bush and Hoda Kotb demonstrate on Today.
  • American serial killers and mass shooters are often subject to this. Common examples being the Columbine shooters, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez. The two latters even had groupies assisting their trials. However, this kind of attraction may be caused precisely because of their crimes giving them a certain "bad boy" appeal rather than their physical appearances (as many will agree that none of these criminals are more handsome than the average man).
  • Since the Russia-Ukraine war of 2022, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has become quite the sex symbol for both his rugged good looks and his steadfast defiance of Vladimir Putin's invasion.
  • Cillian Murphy has a massive legion of female fans due to his Pretty Boy good looks and introverted personality, the latter of which many of them find to be both endearing and relatable.

 
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We Like That

A male model's wearing a snug red speedo and the female co-host says "That's a good look. We like that.?" When she says "we", she means her, the women watching in the studio audience and the women watching through the window behind them.

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Alternative Title(s): Oestrogen Brigade

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We Like That

A male model's wearing a snug red speedo and the female co-host says "That's a good look. We like that.?" When she says "we", she means her, the women watching in the studio audience and the women watching through the window behind them.

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We Like That

Beach Volleybal...

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