Confessions Too: Madonna's Filipino Gen Z Fans on How Queen of Pop Changed Them

(SPOT.ph) It's not true Gen Z does not know who Madonna is. Some of them are even genuine stans, to use the Gen Z lingo for fans. In fact in the Philippines they include a leader of an active fan club and a trans artist who landed very recently in Madonna's Instagram stories.

And they're as obsessed as the rest with the 67-year-old Queen of Pop’s new album, Confessions 2. The followup to her groundbreaking classic Confessions on a Dancefloor from 2005, the 16-track exploration of club and house music has been embraced by devotees and critics alike, garnering for Madonna the best reviews since, well, the first Confessions. Some even consider it better than its predecessor and call it one of the very best in the entire Madonna discography. Confessions 2 is the artist’s first album of all-new material in seven years and it debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, becoming her 10th title to hit the pole position on the list.  

"Thank you so much to my Queen Mother Madonna for this magnum opus," says 22-year-old John Myer Ocampo Bernardo who is among the organizers of back-to-back events celebrating the album's release two weekends ago -- a launch party on July 3rd and a listening party the following day. 

Fearcyz Ballaran, 23, declares "It’s officially Madonna Summer. Periodt." Fearcyz is the Pinoy trans artist who has landed in Madonna's IG Stories not just once but three times in the past two weeks with different videos. 

Spot talked to John, Fearcyz, and two other Gen Z Filipino fans to learn about their Madgejourney (a popular term among fans derived from the Madge nickname the British press gave Madonna when she moved to London following her wedding to British filmmaker Guy Ritchie). 

John was 12 when he saw Madonna live in 2016 at the Manila stop of her Rebel Heart Tour. "It's one of the best nights of my life," he says.  The show, which was in support of the artist's 13th studio album of the same name, was the first concert John ever attended. It was an advance grade school graduation gift from his parents. It was a treat as well for his mother, the original Madonna stan in the family. 

But his Madgejourney started long before the concert. The Madonna albums his mother owned soundtracked his childhood, with “Holiday” from the self-titled debut album and “Material Girl,” “Dress You Up,” and “Over and Over” from Like a Virgin among the songs she was particularly obsessed with. Mommy Bernardo’s Madonna collection included her first greatest hits set, The  Immaculate Collection, which, according to John, was an essential listen during family trips. 

But it wasn't until 2012 when he became a hardcore stan. “I asked my parents to buy the physical album of MDNA (Madonna's latest release at the time) for me as a gift in Grade School and when I heard ‘Turn Up The Radio’ in our vintage CD player, my life was  never the same again."

John, who works as a Client Service Specialist at a bank, joined the Team Madonna PH fan club in 2017 and quickly became an admin. Earlier this year he joined Club Madonna PH and stepped into a leadership role soon after. The group hosted both the launch and the listening parties, In Makati, for Confessions 2. 

“Words cannot express how much I love her,” he says.  “She’s like a mother to me. She’s the best artist of all time, the blueprint, and she paved the way for everyone. She also inspired me to become the best version of myself and it’s absolutely okay to reinvent yourself.”

That's Fearcyz's confession about Madonna sharing three of her Confessions 2-related videos in her official Instagram page. The first video shows the drag artist dancing to the album's first official single, "Bring Your Love (featuring Sabrina Carpenter)." The second sees her performing the album's latin-infused "Read My Lips." 

The most recent of the three videos shows a delightful skit set to the song "Love Sensation" involving her handing over a colored printout of the album cover artwork to a little girl (her niece) which the girl happily receives and, after a quick cut, shows off wearing a pink see-through veil in a direct homage to the iconic visuals on the cover. The video carries this text overlay, Spreading the Madonna gospel to the new generation. 

"I literally cried every time," confesses the 23-year-old singer-songwriter-producer who calls herself Queer of Pop about the Madonna shares, adding that she has not received as much support even from her own peers and family. 

Like most Gen Z stans, Fearcyz's history with the American music superstar started through her mother. In particular, via a cheap pirated DVD she bought "sa gilid gilid, 'yung tig-50 pesos" when Fearcyz was 9 years old. Titled Female All Stars, the video was a compilation of live performances from the likes of Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Destiny’s Child, and Shakira. When Madonna's clip came on -- the performance of iconic hit "La Isla Bonita" in the 2001 Drowned World Tour -- Fearcyz was intrigued. 

"A blonde woman, dressed in a way na hindi typical sa nakikita ko bilang batang bahay," the self-described probinsyana from Bicol recalls thinking. It was her introduction to Madonna. Her mother told her she was a superstar, "parang Nora Aunor."

Fearcyz did not become an instant fan. Her journey slowly unraveled over time. The moment that really got her into Madonna came after a trip to the tiangge. "May nalaglag na CD habang bumibili kami ng arinola ng lola ko," she notes. It was another one of those bargain ripoffs, “‘yung tipong pina-burn lang tapos may tatlong albums na."

The CD contained The Immaculate Collection, Madonna's first remix album You Can Dance, and her r&b set Hard Candy from 2008 (famous for "4 Minutes featuring Justin Timberlake"). Then her mother bought a DVD of Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour, the concert trek that supported Candy. Fearcyz became so enamored she started copying Madonna performances in secret, wearing her mother's bra and panty and using a white towel as a wig, pretending to be Madonna. She was 6.

Fast forward to 2015. The announcement of Madonna's first visit to the Philippines as part of her Rebel Heart Tour scheduled for February the following year "reignited everything" for Fearcyz. "I bought a music video compilation DVD, and that’s when I realized I was going to follow her seriously," she says. She did not get to watch the concert, though, because the family could not afford the expensive tickets. So, the mother went for the next best thing: she saved up and got Fearcyz a legit copy of the Rebel Heart Deluxe CD.

"From there, internet na, Wikipedia deep dives, downloading songs hanggang mapuno storage ng phone," she notes. "I remember hiding my uncle's tablet just to watch her on YouTube."

Now, Fearcyz is returning to the performance stage, invigorated by Madonna's recognition of her art. “Before January, nag-quit na talaga ako sa entablado. I told myself na hinto na ako sa pag-chase ng passion dahil sa toxicity at abuse sa’kin ng industry. Bale tapos na talaga si Fearcyz. But Madonna’s consistent recognition pulled me back on track. It’s Good For The Soul. Suddenly One Step Away from my own dance of life. ‘Di pa matuwid yung daan, pero binalik nya ako sa tamang lakaran."

Like most other young stans, Jayrald Monton grew up with Madonna being a constant presence at home because his mother played "Like a Virgin," "Holiday," and "Borderline" all the time. "That was my early introduction to Madonna and the starting point of my journey into pop music. Even though I didn’t fully recognize her at the time—I just knew I was hearing my mom’s ear candy," he says.

The 25-year-old Data Analyst rediscovered the pop queen on his own on MTV, the music video channel (remember it?), when he was 7. He was waiting for a video from Britney Spears or Gwen Stefani when Madonna's "4 Minutes" came on. She looked new to him and made a strong enough impression that he had to ask a cousin who the artist singing and dancing alongside Justin Timberlake was. When he heard the name Madonna, he realized that she’s  the same artist who sang “Like a Virgin” and was already 50 years old at the time. He was floored.

"My young mind couldn’t process that because she looked incredible," Jayrald says. "That video was my first full Madonna experience." It wasn't enough to make him an instant fan though. That would happen 10 years later, in 2018, when, as a bored 16-year-old who had just gotten a subscription to Spotify, the shuffle feature on the platform led him to "Hung Up," the iconic lead single from the original Confessions album. 

"I was shocked, hearing it at full volume blasting through my wired EarPods," he recalls. "It was an experience." It wasn't his first listen to the ABBA-sampling song; he was already familiar with it, having heard it many times, but it was the first time he encountered the song together with its title and artist. He always thought it was an actual track from the ’70s.  "From that point on, I started listening to her entire catalog—from her self-titled debut album to Rebel Heart," Jayrald says. "It took me about a year, but it was all worth it. She completely changed my standards for pop music.”

Another stan who discovered the pop star thru his mother is Joshua Arevalo. However, growing up in what he calls a "trying-hard-to-be-conservative family" he had to curb his enthusiasm for her, fearful of possible rebuke from his family. In fact, his father told him Madonna was part of the Illuminati. Not that the father forbade everyone to listen to her; he listened to her, too.

The now 26-year-old Healthcare Provider Specialist knew he was already a Madonna fan during his childhood years but it was only in college when he became an active follower. It started after he made a deep dive into her Grammy-winning album Ray of Light. "I think that was my Madonna awakening because I started checking out the album’s predecessors," he notes. 
At the listening party organized by Club Madonna PH earlier this year to celebrate the album's 40th anniversary, Joshua felt that his fandom got legitimized. He confesses, "It was like a baptism of being a Madonna stan."

What does he like most about Madonna aside from her music? That she is headstrong, he says. "She can’t be controlled and is not easily restrained. Nobody can swing her up! Her music, her innovative mind, and her heart." Joshua also likes that she is a good philanthropist and activist.

Although not quite the Madonna activist, he is adamant younger music fans should know that Madonna is the blueprint for modern pop superstardom. "They need to know (pop music) history," he says, adding that his Gen Alpha nieces already know the Queen of Pop.