I’d like to consider myself a connoisseur of boy bands. While the height of my knowledge was reached somewhere between the years of 1998-2004, I’ve tried to keep abreast of the young artists these days and their teenybopper fans.

As a self-professed Backstreet Boys fan, I know what it’s like first hand to be in the ‘fandom’, and in just 10 years, the way boy bands and fans themselves has changed drastically. While at their core, boy bands in 2013 still aim to titilate tweens the same way they did in 2003, here are some main differences between the fans of today and the fans of yore. Also, it’s a handy guide to feel old/in the know when you talk to someone under the age of 18.

Fashion

One thing that has stayed the same throughout the years is a group’s stylist’s need to coordinate every member’s outfit with the others. For some reason, in the 90s, this meant getting the absolute most ridiculous clothes and fabrics and forcing the guys to wear them in photo shoots. Bless.

Then

Now

Girlfriends/Love Lives

Then

Now

Dedication

Then

Now

• Tumblr Directioners: Holy shit, a Larry Stylinson sex tape better leak soon or I will light myself on fucking fire
• Twitter Directioners: Omg, Follow me xx I love you so much
• Youtube Directioners: This is like the best song ever, partyin harrdd
• Facebook Directioners: Haha oh my goodness look at this, you are like my like bff for eva Harry. Omgomg I love you sooooooooooooo muchhh :))))) lololol rofl

Today’s kids turn to all forms of social media, and I feel like it’s reached a whole new level of obsession. Because you can now reach out to your idol – and even possibly get a reply – fans think they form this bond with the celebrities, which ultimately makes them even more devoted and obsessed. I was going to find examples on Twitter and Tumblr, but honestly, it’s a scary, scary place, and I want no part of that.

Rivalries

Pop Quiz:

BSB : *NSync :: One Direction : ???

Then

I admit, I was totally a *Nsync hater – or as I used to call them, *NSTINK. My “hatred” for them ran deep. So much so that I refused to listen to their songs (save for like maybe 5 of their hits). I’ve probably only heard Bye Bye Bye all the way through less than 10 times in my life. One time in dance class, my teacher put on the new *Nsync cd during warmup and I was SO pissed. Like so mad that my teacher could tell that I wasn’t happy about it, and continued to remind me of it until the day I graduated high school. Get a grip.

But the more I think about it, it was never because I hated the group itself. In fact I agree that they were good singers, were probably the better dancers of the two groups, and of course, like any grown ass woman, my love runs deep for Justin Timberlake. My hatred for ‘*NSTINK’ was for their fans. I loathed the annoying way that they always thought BSB sucked and *Nsync was better – and they wanted to prove it. Constantly. I’m sure you can say the same for BSB fans, but obviously I’m picking sides here. And as an adult, I think we can all recognize that it was totally spurred on by the media. If that one journalist didn’t pit the two bands together, there probably wouldn’t be an entire generation of girls who judge each other in their 20s by which boy band they liked better.

The best example of the fan rivalry is in the video clip from TRL below. I remember watching this live, and being so pissed off at the *Nsync team that I was almost as mad as Tiffany. Creeper alert: I somehow got a hold of Tiffany’s AOL SN and stalked her on AIM, in awe of her BSB dedication.

Now

I suppose the correct answer to the analogy above is Justin Bieber. Which might not make complete sense, since he’s not a boy band. Today’s kids are more fandom vs. fandom, rather boy band vs. boy band (or artist in this case). And since kids don’t have the luxury of having TRL, they take to social media yet again, specifically on Twitter. Case in point:

The second thing you need to know is that Directioners don’t like Beliebers. The conflict began (where else?) on Twitter. “The Beliebers trended #HitDirectionersWithAShovelDay” for no reason explains Holly, a 16-year-old 1D fan from Chicago. She says the war has raged on ever since. “When they won at the TCAs instead of Justin Beiber, they started making fun of Harry’s acne. They’re just trying to make us angry.” {x}

Of course Biebs had to say something to stop the madness and the the constant Twitter trends, but that didn’t really stop the fans from being cray online…

 

So whose side are you on? BSB or *Nsync? One Direction or Justin Bieber? Do you even care? Do you just want to reclaim your youth now? Yeah, probably the latter.