April 15, 2013 • 33 mins
What's the nature of gender, masculinity and sexuality in boy band lyrics? What about race and ethnicity in (mostly white) boy bands? Join Cristen and Caroline for a brief history of boy bands, from The Beatles to 1 Direction.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You from house stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. Caroline. I'm gonna do things a
little backward and start the podcast with a listener email,
Hold onto your hats, folks. So we got this email
(00:27):
recently from Emma and she's nineteen and in college, and
she wrote us with a request. She says, first the backstory,
My roommate and I discovered the popular band One Direction
at the beginning of the school year. Neither of us
had ever been huge boy band fans, but now we
have more than twenty five posters of these five boys
(00:49):
up in our dorm room. We have tickets to a
concert of theirs over the summer, and we have wasted
countless hours watching videos of them and looking at their faces.
We we also managed to get a few more of
our friends to enthuse about them. What I'd like to
know it's why boy bands such as One Direction get
to be so popular. Back in the nineties, we had
(01:11):
Backstreet Boys and in Sync, and there have been many
that have popped up and disappear through time. But why
what makes sense so appealing? Why don't they last very long,
and what is it about them that pulls girls and
guys in so much? I usually pride myself and being
level headed, immature, but put a picture of one d
in front of me and I turned to a squealing
twelve year old girl. What's up with that? Oh, Emma,
(01:35):
I don't know. Short answer soft masculinity and comfortable homo eroticism.
But we'll get to that and the podcast is over. Yeah.
First of all, Emma, thank you for your email. This
episode is dedicated to you and your roommate and Harry
Styles of One Direction and his hair and his hair
and his very large hair. So um, we're not gonna
(01:56):
be able to talk about all of the boy bands. Sorry,
We're gonna go ahead and apologize and say please don't
key our cars. Yeah. Well, I was live tweeting some
of the research, and thanks to everyone who tweeted some
boy band suggestions for me to listen to. But we're
gonna hit on the big names out there, and unfortunately
we can't even get into the entire history of boy bands.
(02:19):
I mean, obviously we will hit on the Beatles and such,
but we really want to get into the more modern
boy band era. But first let's talk about how boy
bands are totally bad, Caroline, Yeah, and how we even
knew this was happening. Um, I'm perpetually out of the
loop as far as music goes, particularly if it is
(02:41):
pop music and boy bands. So back in uh Spring twelve,
One Direction became the first British group to top the
Billboard two hundred charts, a feat that not even the
Beatles could pull off. They sold a hundred and seventy
six thousand copies of their album Up All Night and
its first week of release. Meanwhile, The Wanted I'm learning
(03:05):
so much from all this research. The Wanted had a
top ten hit single and the group Mindless Behavior's album
debut in the top ten. Yeah. Speaking to The New
York Times in about the Wanted in One Direction, Sharon
dats Or, who was the program director of Z one
hundred in New York, said, quote, boy bands are so
back in such a big way. I've been saying it
(03:27):
for about a month now. Music is always very cyclical.
We had the New Kids on the Block time and
the instinct Backstreet Boys time, and now it's that time again.
And some people also attribute the popularity of Justin Bieber
for getting producers thinking again about oh wait, young females
listen to young boys singing and they buy lots of things.
(03:51):
And one of those music moguls who had a big
hand and bringing the boy band back in such a
big way is Simon Cowell from formerly from American Idol
and now with The X Factor over in the UK.
And what he did was take these five boys who
competed on The X Factor and he was like, you
(04:13):
sheld be in a bun together and put them all together.
And they competed but only came in third, I believe.
But he was like, it doesn't matter, Harry Styles, your
hair is going to take you straight the top of
the Billboard charts. And so he signed them to his
music label and it's been pandemonium ever since. Right. But
they came on the scene a little differently than did
(04:34):
Lou Pearlman's masterminding of Backstreet Boys in Sync. It's the
reversal of that pattern, you know, of releasing a single
on the radio first then taking them to the US. Instead,
the label mounted a four month marketing campaign to build
a fan base through social media. They were very sneaky.
They asked fans to sign petitions and inner video competitions
(04:57):
to win a concert in their town, and I believe
Dallas one the One Direction concert. But yeah, it worked.
Facebook followers shot up requests, poured into radio stations to
play the songs before they even had the albums. So yeah,
not not quite the same as the nineties band. So
even though One Direction, you know, is using social media
(05:17):
obviously in a way that wouldn't have even been possible
for in Sync and Backstreet Boys, the One Direction songwriter
Carl Falk admits that he stole the one D sound
from Backstreet Boys, claiming the new generation of boy band
fans is too young to even remember. Which, wait a second,
I feel so old. I do have gray hairs coming
(05:38):
in and I think that I sprouted a few more
when I read that way. Yeah, because Emma, I think,
even as she is a college student, she's old enough
to remember Backstreet Boys. Well, sure she might remember Backstreet
Boys and in Sync, and of course everyone knows who
Justin Timberlake is, But does she know all the words
to Backstreets back like this podcast co host does I know?
(05:59):
I've had Backstreet Boys longs in my huddle week. One
more similar thing that still persists is racial dynamics Christen
in one direction, the ethnic bad boy role that managers
have crafted over the years is filled by Zane ma Lead. Yeah,
this was something that was posted about on the blog
(06:19):
racial Issious, talking about how Saying actually pulled his Twitter
feed for I think it was only a day, but
still he took it down because he said that he
had received so many racial slurs. He's hat Pakistani and Muslim,
and they've never tried to hide that fact at all,
but people, you know, have made a horrible comments to
(06:41):
him to the point that he took his stuff down.
But this is something the whole thing of having the
darker skinned boy band member being cast as the mysterious
one is the same kind of thing that happened with
say a j Who's Latino in Backstreet Boys. Okay, I
was gonna I'm glad you said that because I was
going to cite that example, but I wasn't sure which
(07:01):
band he was in, Patreet Fron Okay. Well, so then
we have a whole issue of whether these new bands
are edgier, whether they're whether they're living on the edge more,
or whether there may be a little bit softer or
a story from Reuter's in A argued that yes, they
are edgier because the Wanted is trying to set themselves
(07:21):
apart by being uncensored about their drinking and partying. And
of course they use the wheel play instruments argument. And
they actually are managed by Bieber's manager. Yeah, and I
will say watching the Wanted video for Glad You came,
and yes, that is a double entendre Uh, that's showing
them just partying on a beach. I believe in Abisa
(07:43):
and just you know, being just really young and rowdy.
I was obviously they're going for that bad boy image,
but with one direction. Though Amanda Hess from Slate and
Alyssa Rosenberg it think progress and also the Antic would
argue that not so much. Yeah. Amanda has this theory
(08:06):
is that boy bands nowadays are less explicitly sexual because
today's young women are free to see sex, love, and
friendship as more interconnected. She says, post hookup culture, young
women's relationships with men are more fun and casual and equitable. Yeah.
And on her Slate posts she has all these screenshots
to compare of videos from in Sync and Backstreet where
(08:31):
they're all, you know, clenching their fists and looking very
pained and anguish because their love is so intense, whereas
One Direction, you know, they're just bebopping around and bepping around.
You know, I'm suddenly and where podcast? Where's your butter?
Scotch candy? Um Melyssa Rosenberg every the Atlantic does argue
(08:52):
that they are less edgy and more lovey Debbie. She
says one d in the Wanted espouse a love beats
all philosophy that's actually squeakier, cleaner, and simpler than that
of the generation of manufactured male teen idols that preceded
them a decade ago. Yeah, she says, even for the Wanted,
you know who are going for the whole bad boy thing.
I just want to get home to the girlfriends at
(09:13):
the end of the day. And she makes a good
point about how One Direction's biggest hit, What makes You Beautiful,
is quote so worshipful that it feels smothering, And I
do agree. I Mean, I could see though, if I
were twelve and watching these boys frolic around on a
beach telling me that I'm prettier than I actually know
that I am, that I would totally get on board
(09:36):
with all of that. But it is kind of funny.
I mean to the point to where they're like, you're
the way you flip your hair drives me Bonkas my quote,
not theirs, and then you just start obsessively flipping your hair. Yeah.
And they would say that that nineties bands, in a
very nineties kind of way, were more earnest. Yeah. She
said that their songs were full of doubt about the
(09:58):
possibility of lasting relationships, hence the clinched fists and anguished
faces versus the more casual Devil may care. I have
big hair attitude of Harry styles. But at the same time,
though we can't talk about boy bands and not mentioned
that some of the songs and some of the lyrics
(10:18):
are a tad not so amazing and uplifting when you
really listen to them, and not just for the more
modern ones. Even going back to the Monkeys day dream Believer,
which I love, yeah and yeah. Rosenberg Over in her
post on think progress dot org talks about the Monkeys
(10:39):
using condescending dismissiveness and daydream believers, something that had never
occurred to me, but she cites the quote daydream Believer
in a homecoming Queen. She doesn't have any real concerns
does she monkeys? Yeah. She also says that the Jackson
five songs Stop, They'll Love You Save is sluge shaming
that instincts girlfriend is textbook negging with Eric, such as
(11:00):
does he even know You're alive? And on a factories back,
the song that I Can't get out of my head
right now is odd and needy in the inverse of
wooing and I had a couple of more examples too.
To me, the one that stands out the most from
my personal boy band experience as from the band five,
(11:21):
and they had one hit Baby when the Lights go out,
and I can sing all of the chorus, I will
not do it, but it's maybe I should do it,
but it's it's so creepy. It's talking about how when
they're at a party and all the lights go out, Babe,
I swear you will succumb to me. So Baby, come
to me when the lights go out, where it's like
(11:43):
whoa five hey take a step back and then even
one direction. In their song little Things, they say you
never want to know how much you weigh. You still
have to squeeze into your jeans, but you're perfect to me,
which is kind of backhand it as well. And then
of course in the wanted Glad you came, I mean
(12:05):
kind of everything about it, but also the standout line
is I'll hand you another drink. Drink it if you can.
Oh my god. So just daring young women to get wasted.
These are their audiences, such young girls, though I know
the scandalized five year old sitting across from you, and
maybe I should bring my hard candy to the next episode.
(12:25):
But okay, so let's you know, we mentioned the monkeys.
Let's look back at some of the history briefly of
boy bands and where they came from. One major aspect
of boy bands from the beginning has been dancing. They
all had a piece on this in May. They talked
about how dancing among boy groups was introduced by Motown
(12:45):
genius Barry Gordy, who hired vaudeville performer Cholie Atkins to
teach his top acts like the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and
the Four Tops some dance moves. Yeah, and right there
with the mentions of Temptations four Top, Smokey rob said,
we have the first kind of tie into where these
mostly all white boy bands of today take a lot
(13:08):
of cues from black male groups of not only Motown,
but then moving up into R and B, which we'll
touch on in a minute. But yeah, the dancing has
always been a big thing up until though these most
modern boy bands, which I mean to me like, yeah,
it was it kind of cheesy, all of the chorey
graph dance moves and dance outfits dance up that the
(13:30):
boy the boy bands of our day would always do. Yeah,
but no more for one direction, what do they do
on stage than if they because I know, like the
Wanted plays instruments, but well, on stage they might have
more chorey graph numbers, but in their videos they're just
prancing around. They're pouring you know, they're doing keg stands,
(13:51):
not actually keg stands, but they're drinking out of solo cups,
going it's lemonade. Well, actually, I don't think they Wanted
even wants you to think that it's limited because they
are just such bad boys. But going back though to
the dance moves, all of that motown dancing, so the
(14:11):
president that carried into the seventies when even boy bands
that played instruments such as the Osman's and Jackson five
incorporated dancing into live sets and TV appearances. And speaking
of TV appearances, Caroline Yeah, February nine, nineteen sixty four,
The Beatles perform on Ed Sullivan and oh my god,
the internet will yell at us so much for saying
(14:32):
that the Beatles are a boy band because they weren't
formed by some mastermind like Simon cow You know, they
met organically playing instruments at school and in clubs. But
they did have those mop tops and dressed the same
and we're you know, coordinated on stage. And they inspired
(14:53):
subsequent boy bands such as The Monkeys that were straight
up assembled for a television show around owned Davy Jones
who recently passed away, alright, p Davy Jones, and that
became a blueprint for future boy bands have a more
manufactured sort that we would think of today. And then
in the seventies we have bands like Jackson five that
(15:15):
in nineteen seventy had four number one hit singles, And
then in the seventies we also have the very take
home to Mom Osmond's. Uh, they were a clean cup
Mormon quintet believe Donny Osmond was a part of the
Osmond's in in nineteen seventies seven. I think this has
to be the longest running boy band of all time.
(15:35):
Get started. Yeah, Minudo starts. It's thirty two year stint
in Puerto Rico. And of course their most famous member
to me anyway, as Ricky Martin. He joined in the eighties,
I believe when he was thirteen, and he beat out
Howie who ended up in the Backstreet Boys for a gig.
Now who got the better deal, I don't know, I
say Martin's. Well, okay, So we mentioned how you know
(15:58):
African American groups, uh do wop groups, Berry Gordy, and
we mentioned how these groups really kind of paved the
way for these white boy bands to come along. Well,
one of those trailblazers in three is New Addition. It's
a Boston R and B group credited with the boy
band crazes of the next twenty years. Yeah Candy Girl,
(16:20):
I wish you could be playing right now in the
background because it is such a good song. But they
were groomed by this guy named Maurice Starr, who later
developed another Boston group you might have heard of called
New Kids on the Blocks. Swoon Jordan was my favorite.
In four Star basically takes the New edition model and
(16:40):
it's like, hey, I'm gonna do this with a group
of Boston white kids. And so he puts together in
Ko TV with Jordan, Joey, Donny, Danny, and John. And
I was too young to be a real die hard
New Kids fan. But my old one, I'm only year
older than you, I well, I just didn't. I was
He wasn't in your sphere. It was not in my sphere,
but wasn't my older sister's sphere. And I remember she
(17:02):
got this Coke brand New Kids poster in the mail
and she was so excited about it. It It was her
prize possession. And I can't remember who her favorite was.
But anyway, it took a little while though for New
Kids to ascend to stardom. It wasn't until their second
album was released, Hanging Tough, Hanging Tough. Oh my god,
(17:28):
I'm sorry I totally interrupted you to sing that, But
it was released that year and it's sold. It's sold
seventeen million copies, and album step by Step went triple platinum.
But a year later we have the first album released
from another very influential boy band, Boys two Men. They're
released Cooley High Harmony, and they would go on to
(17:49):
win four Grammys and it released more than ten multi
platinum albums and get a star on the Hollywood Walk
of Fame. Yeah. So, in skipping forward a little bit,
Lou Pearlman, famous manager and con man, formed the Backstreet Boys,
which I never knew. They were named after a flea
market in Orlando, so he held auditions in Orlando, and
(18:13):
this pretty much sets off our modern era of crazy
boy band fans and everything. Yeah, because Pearlman essentially saw
what Starr was doing and all the money that he
was making from new addition and then new kids, and
was like, hey, I could totally do this, which he
also said later in his career when he started a
Ponzi scheme. That's for another podcast made right. Yeah, the
(18:36):
story about Lou Perelman goes on forever, and it's fascinating
and creepy. But um in a song that I could
not get out of my head for approximately three years,
uh debut at number one. That's R and B group
All for One. I swear I like couldn't listen to
it for the rest of the nineties because they would
get in my head. Um. So in Perelman turns around
(18:59):
and worms in Sync and sent them on a European
tour to get all of that promotion before he brought
them over to the US. And let me tell you,
the Germans love from justin timber Lake. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Um in we have Atlanta Quartet one twelve, who got
their start on Diddy's Bad Boy records. And really, I
mean you'll you'll notice it's very apparent that these are
(19:21):
just that's one of just a few African American groups
listed in all this. Well yeah, because basically the you know,
the these white boy bands just took the blueprint established
by these earlier R and B groups and we're like, oh,
well we will, we will sing to these legions of
young girls. Um Now, though this one has a special
(19:43):
place in my heart, and it was Hanson. Hanson came out.
They're less traditional because their three brothers, they're like the
early Jonas brothers. And of course their song was Bob
and I thought that they were so cool because they
were home schooled, and I was like, wow, that's they're
they're just like me. They're weird, just like me. That
(20:06):
they're millionaires. But by this point, this is when backstreets
blowing up. The instinct rivalry with Backstreet is picking up
because you know, they're starting to blow up. Degrees comes
out and releases its first album, which was signed to
Motown Records. Interestingly, in a throwback there, um and so yeah.
(20:27):
In the late nineties, we have the reign of the
boy bands, and all the music critics are subsequently pulling
their hair out because all of the hit songs are
these kind of bubblegum pop, super produced pieces of well,
they would say music trash because it's like, oh, Backstreet,
that's not music, whereas a lot of these you know,
(20:49):
very talented vocal performers are saying, hey, we're doing you know,
we're making We're making good music. Right, Yeah, just because
Luke Pearlman is pulling the strings doesn't mean that we're
not good musicians. Well, and that's a question though. The
the whole uh dismissal immediate dismissal of boy bands is
something that Gayle Wald looked into and her paper teeny
(21:10):
Bopper Music and the Girling of boy Bands was published
in the journal Genders in two thousand two, and she
raises a question of whether we think that boy bands
are automatically just kind of stupid because their fans are girls. Yeah.
She talks about a definite gendered hierarchy of high and
low popular culture that specifically devalues the music consumed by
(21:35):
teenage girls, and she says it's based on the notions
of fickleness, superficiality, and aesthetic bankruptcy of the material forms
that girls desires take in popular culture, you know, because
we're buying sleeping bags with the new kids on the
block on them, and we're buying all these posters of
the Jonas Brothers and things like that. Well, she also
points out, too, with this whole girling of the boy band,
(21:57):
that they symbolically feminize the male vocal groups that have
the special appeal for young female consumers. We think of
them as something for girls. And in driving home this
point about how dismissive we are of boy bands, she
cites a piece by New York Times music writer John
(22:18):
Pariella's and this was back from the backstreet days, he wrote.
When it's directed at males, that squeal signifies romantic fantasy
while it tests out some newly active hormonal responses Directed
at females, it's a squeal of sisterly solidarity and fashion
approval and it's surrounding out anything more mature audiences had
in mind. I have to give an eye roll. I understand,
(22:43):
I'm not a big boy band person. I never was,
aside from new kids on the block or and boys
to men, let's be real, but I mean, we've always
had these bands, and it just seems like rehashing old
grapes when music critics are just like gross little girls
like it. It's like, all right, come on, we've always
had boy band well, and then it gets into, you know,
the bigger questions of the whole, you know, selling out
(23:05):
of the music if it's really music. I mean the
fact you know today with the Wanted that they and
with One Direction, that they have a stronger hand in
the music that they play and produce, even though all
the songs that One Direction has written among themselves none
of them have been released as singles. But it is
it is kind of interesting when you step back and
(23:25):
think about why we tend to dislike boy band music
so much, and then also this idea of the girl
ish type of masculinity. It's like it takes all of
this sexuality that they're obviously exhibiting and somehow making it
quote unquote safe, right, Well they are. She writes that
(23:47):
they're taking black performance styles of the eighties, which were
more frank and staunchly heterosexual, and makes it, yeah, like
you said, softer and safer, and fans use that as
a way to negotiate their own fluid gender and sexual
desires well, And that also brings up this racial question
as well that some critics have brought up in terms
(24:08):
of how white these crazy popular boy band empires are
in that you know, well, are we are they quote
unquote safer or more sellable to these legions of female
fans because they are white, Because we still are uncomfortable
with that black masculinity because it would inherently be too
(24:30):
frank or too strong. So that's something also to think
about in all of this. Yeah, and kind of how
like with which we brought up at the top of
the podcast with one direction, how a lot of times
the darker skin members of groups are characterized as the
mysterious bad boy. Why is that? Why does that have
to be? I don't know. Well, so we mentioned that,
(24:52):
you know, fans are using this the softer version of
masculinity to kind of figure out their own raging hormones
sociologist Mark mccore mic for the Oxford University Press blog
in July, wrote about One Direction, in particular redefining modern masculinity,
saying that they're open displays of emotion actually helped to
make them famous. He said, there's no homophobia among these
(25:15):
young guys. They actively thank their gay fans and even
performed at a gay club in London. He said that
these kids model and mirror the gendered behaviors of today's youth,
and they're part of a significant change in attitudes towards homosexuality. Yeah,
and in the same way that you know, a lot
of times when we think about girls crushes on boy bands,
they're assumed to be kind of a way for girls
(25:36):
to negotiate their these first feelings of their their blossoming sexuality.
But in you know, and that's in a very kind
of heteronormative box. But in the same way, boy bands
have always had gay boy fans as well. There was
a two thousand article in The Advocate talking about this
and they cited Mike Glass, at the time was the
(25:57):
managing editor of the magazine x Y, which was for
gay youth, and he said, all these bands have always
had young gay admirers. Now there are media outlets that
represent young gay culture and provide an opportunity for young
gay people to be more vocal and um. Some say
too that since everything is driven so much on social
(26:17):
media now and all of these websites, that that facilitates
even more um. I guess adoration among gay fans that
can you know, access not just the music, but also
you know, all of the different kind of rituals that
girls have with boy bands, including fan fiic, poops, slash
(26:38):
fiction is apparently huge and apparently a lot with One Direction,
to the point that one girl who wrote a one
story about a love triangle between her and two members
of One Direction got a book deal from it from
like Penguin Books. M man, you can make money off
of these boy bands? That you can? I had no
(27:00):
idea well. Jennifer Margaret smith over at a blog from
the University of Wisconsin in April wrote about what she
called comfortable homo eroticism and called the interpersonal relationships the
interactions between the guys of bands like One Direction as
a variation on the bromance trend, which we've talked about,
very very browy. And yet these guys are a lot
(27:22):
more comfortable exhibiting their affection for each other. She said
that quote they can play with their queerness because their
heterosexuality is constantly reinforced both in the reports of their
personal lives, like when Harry Styles dated Taylor Swift and
and they're aggressively heteronormative song lyrics. Yeah, she talks about
how they hug, grope, fall asleep on each other, constantly
(27:43):
pretend to kiss each other for laughs, and even joke
about queer relationships between them. So, um, you know, this
is another way that you know, I kind of like
the idea, though, of one direction at least being more
open about all of that as being kind of that
bridge between childhood and sexual maturity, not just for female fans,
(28:05):
but for male fans as well. I think that's great
that they openly thank they're gay fans and know that
they're a strong part of their their fan base. So
even though songs like what Makes You Beautiful might not
have the most lyrical depth, there's obviously a lot within
boy band history and you know why they exist and
(28:28):
why they do hold such appeal that you know that
we can kind of learned about I don't know, like
girlhood boyhood. Well, yeah, I mean, I honestly never I
mean because I just don't think about boy bands, but
I never thought about the gendered aspects, the racial aspects,
the fact that you know, just like they repackaged Elvis
(28:49):
as a white version of black music back in the day,
they're doing the same thing and they have been doing
the same thing for decades with these boy groups. But
my only question though, is that in the same way
that you know, boy bands seem to facilitate this kind
of opening of girl girl ish sexuality, if that makes sense,
I want to know how music or if music facilitates
(29:11):
the same thing in boys and not just s gay boys.
I'm talking about like when we think of more boy music,
you know, or is quote unquote boy music considered neutral
and therefore has no effect on boys. But because boy
bands are for girls, then it has this effect and
the boy bands themselves are feminized because of that gendered
(29:31):
hierarchy and pop culture astute observation. Caroline, Well, I think
it's now time to turn it over to our listeners
and see what they think about boy bands. Who's your favorite? Um,
do you find any other creepy lyrics as well? We
would be happy to hear about. Do you have any
(29:52):
any boy band feedback? In particular, you'd like Caroline, who
is your favorite in any of them? In any of
them at all? Who is your favorite boy bander? And
if you're in the boy beend Harry Styles. If you're listening,
you can go ahead and write in how heavy is
your Hair? Dot com is where you can send your email.
(30:14):
And now we got a couple of letters in responds
to our episode Tampons and Toxic Shock Syndrome. This one's
from Jamie. She said, When I started using tampons, my
mom frequently warned me not to wear them to bed
because I would get toxic shock and die. I know,
aren't Mom's the worst. I never asked any questions about
(30:34):
what it was or why I would die. These warnings
didn't stop me from wearing them to bed, but rather
scared me into thinking that I would die in my sleep.
I'm twenty five now and sometimes still worry about this
silent killer as I saw it. But now thanks to
you gals, I think I can sleep a bit easier.
I think it's craziness, but I never researched this on
my own or even ask questions before thank goodness for
(30:57):
you girls. Great job. Thanks and thank you Jamie. I'm
glad we could help, and I hope you're sleeping better
after all these years. Well, I've got one hair from
Allison about a bit of a tampon horror story as well,
and she says, like Caroline, my mom never gave me
the talk, and instead I got to read her romance novels.
So I was on vacation with a friend and her
(31:19):
mom was at the beach. Of course, periods have perfect timing,
and I started right then, and I was all in
a tizzy what to do, because you can't wear a
pat in a bathing suit. So I decided it was
time to use a tampon. As you might imagine, since
we didn't talk about sex, my mom never talked to
me about tampons, so I had no clue how to
use them. Que me in a porta potty in the
(31:40):
parking lot by the beach, trying to insert my first
tampon for twenty agonizing minutes. I'm in tears because I
can't figure out this labyrinth called a vagina, and I'm
shaking because I'm nervous and embarrassed that my friend and
her mom are waiting on me? Oh, it was terrible.
I finally made myself calm down and reread the instructions
for the twelfth time in figured out that I wasn't
(32:01):
doing the whole angle thing and just basically stabbing myself
repeatedly trying to shove this piece of cardboard into me
at a ninety degree angle to the ground and searching complete,
I finally exited that porta potty of terror and went
and had fun at the beach. Ya happy ending. Sorry
if this was a little more info than you wanted.
Love the show and I loved that story. I'm glad
(32:22):
you've figured it out. Oh I sympathize, Yeah, me too.
It that the first time is usually a memorable talk
of the wrong reasons. So if you have any tamp
on horror stories or boy band love stories to send
our way. Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is our
email address. You can also message us on Facebook, tweet
(32:43):
us at Mom's Stuff podcast, and while you're at it,
you can follow us on tumbler stuff mom Never told
You dot tumblr dot com, And as always, you can
make yourself smarter by heading over to our website, It's
how Stuff Works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You from house stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. Caroline. I'm gonna do things a
little backward and start the podcast with a listener email,
Hold onto your hats, folks. So we got this email
(00:27):
recently from Emma and she's nineteen and in college, and
she wrote us with a request. She says, first the backstory,
My roommate and I discovered the popular band One Direction
at the beginning of the school year. Neither of us
had ever been huge boy band fans, but now we
have more than twenty five posters of these five boys
(00:49):
up in our dorm room. We have tickets to a
concert of theirs over the summer, and we have wasted
countless hours watching videos of them and looking at their faces.
We we also managed to get a few more of
our friends to enthuse about them. What I'd like to
know it's why boy bands such as One Direction get
to be so popular. Back in the nineties, we had
(01:11):
Backstreet Boys and in Sync, and there have been many
that have popped up and disappear through time. But why
what makes sense so appealing? Why don't they last very long,
and what is it about them that pulls girls and
guys in so much? I usually pride myself and being
level headed, immature, but put a picture of one d
in front of me and I turned to a squealing
twelve year old girl. What's up with that? Oh, Emma,
(01:35):
I don't know. Short answer soft masculinity and comfortable homo eroticism.
But we'll get to that and the podcast is over. Yeah.
First of all, Emma, thank you for your email. This
episode is dedicated to you and your roommate and Harry
Styles of One Direction and his hair and his hair
and his very large hair. So um, we're not gonna
(01:56):
be able to talk about all of the boy bands. Sorry,
We're gonna go ahead and apologize and say please don't
key our cars. Yeah. Well, I was live tweeting some
of the research, and thanks to everyone who tweeted some
boy band suggestions for me to listen to. But we're
gonna hit on the big names out there, and unfortunately
we can't even get into the entire history of boy bands.
(02:19):
I mean, obviously we will hit on the Beatles and such,
but we really want to get into the more modern
boy band era. But first let's talk about how boy
bands are totally bad, Caroline, Yeah, and how we even
knew this was happening. Um, I'm perpetually out of the
loop as far as music goes, particularly if it is
(02:41):
pop music and boy bands. So back in uh Spring twelve,
One Direction became the first British group to top the
Billboard two hundred charts, a feat that not even the
Beatles could pull off. They sold a hundred and seventy
six thousand copies of their album Up All Night and
its first week of release. Meanwhile, The Wanted I'm learning
(03:05):
so much from all this research. The Wanted had a
top ten hit single and the group Mindless Behavior's album
debut in the top ten. Yeah. Speaking to The New
York Times in about the Wanted in One Direction, Sharon
dats Or, who was the program director of Z one
hundred in New York, said, quote, boy bands are so
back in such a big way. I've been saying it
(03:27):
for about a month now. Music is always very cyclical.
We had the New Kids on the Block time and
the instinct Backstreet Boys time, and now it's that time again.
And some people also attribute the popularity of Justin Bieber
for getting producers thinking again about oh wait, young females
listen to young boys singing and they buy lots of things.
(03:51):
And one of those music moguls who had a big
hand and bringing the boy band back in such a
big way is Simon Cowell from formerly from American Idol
and now with The X Factor over in the UK.
And what he did was take these five boys who
competed on The X Factor and he was like, you
(04:13):
sheld be in a bun together and put them all together.
And they competed but only came in third, I believe.
But he was like, it doesn't matter, Harry Styles, your
hair is going to take you straight the top of
the Billboard charts. And so he signed them to his
music label and it's been pandemonium ever since. Right. But
they came on the scene a little differently than did
(04:34):
Lou Pearlman's masterminding of Backstreet Boys in Sync. It's the
reversal of that pattern, you know, of releasing a single
on the radio first then taking them to the US. Instead,
the label mounted a four month marketing campaign to build
a fan base through social media. They were very sneaky.
They asked fans to sign petitions and inner video competitions
(04:57):
to win a concert in their town, and I believe
Dallas one the One Direction concert. But yeah, it worked.
Facebook followers shot up requests, poured into radio stations to
play the songs before they even had the albums. So yeah,
not not quite the same as the nineties band. So
even though One Direction, you know, is using social media
(05:17):
obviously in a way that wouldn't have even been possible
for in Sync and Backstreet Boys, the One Direction songwriter
Carl Falk admits that he stole the one D sound
from Backstreet Boys, claiming the new generation of boy band
fans is too young to even remember. Which, wait a second,
I feel so old. I do have gray hairs coming
(05:38):
in and I think that I sprouted a few more
when I read that way. Yeah, because Emma, I think,
even as she is a college student, she's old enough
to remember Backstreet Boys. Well, sure she might remember Backstreet
Boys and in Sync, and of course everyone knows who
Justin Timberlake is, But does she know all the words
to Backstreets back like this podcast co host does I know?
(05:59):
I've had Backstreet Boys longs in my huddle week. One
more similar thing that still persists is racial dynamics Christen
in one direction, the ethnic bad boy role that managers
have crafted over the years is filled by Zane ma Lead. Yeah,
this was something that was posted about on the blog
(06:19):
racial Issious, talking about how Saying actually pulled his Twitter
feed for I think it was only a day, but
still he took it down because he said that he
had received so many racial slurs. He's hat Pakistani and Muslim,
and they've never tried to hide that fact at all,
but people, you know, have made a horrible comments to
(06:41):
him to the point that he took his stuff down.
But this is something the whole thing of having the
darker skinned boy band member being cast as the mysterious
one is the same kind of thing that happened with
say a j Who's Latino in Backstreet Boys. Okay, I
was gonna I'm glad you said that because I was
going to cite that example, but I wasn't sure which
(07:01):
band he was in, Patreet Fron Okay. Well, so then
we have a whole issue of whether these new bands
are edgier, whether they're whether they're living on the edge more,
or whether there may be a little bit softer or
a story from Reuter's in A argued that yes, they
are edgier because the Wanted is trying to set themselves
(07:21):
apart by being uncensored about their drinking and partying. And
of course they use the wheel play instruments argument. And
they actually are managed by Bieber's manager. Yeah, and I
will say watching the Wanted video for Glad You came,
and yes, that is a double entendre Uh, that's showing
them just partying on a beach. I believe in Abisa
(07:43):
and just you know, being just really young and rowdy.
I was obviously they're going for that bad boy image,
but with one direction. Though Amanda Hess from Slate and
Alyssa Rosenberg it think progress and also the Antic would
argue that not so much. Yeah. Amanda has this theory
(08:06):
is that boy bands nowadays are less explicitly sexual because
today's young women are free to see sex, love, and
friendship as more interconnected. She says, post hookup culture, young
women's relationships with men are more fun and casual and equitable. Yeah.
And on her Slate posts she has all these screenshots
to compare of videos from in Sync and Backstreet where
(08:31):
they're all, you know, clenching their fists and looking very
pained and anguish because their love is so intense, whereas
One Direction, you know, they're just bebopping around and bepping around.
You know, I'm suddenly and where podcast? Where's your butter?
Scotch candy? Um Melyssa Rosenberg every the Atlantic does argue
(08:52):
that they are less edgy and more lovey Debbie. She
says one d in the Wanted espouse a love beats
all philosophy that's actually squeakier, cleaner, and simpler than that
of the generation of manufactured male teen idols that preceded
them a decade ago. Yeah, she says, even for the Wanted,
you know who are going for the whole bad boy thing.
I just want to get home to the girlfriends at
(09:13):
the end of the day. And she makes a good
point about how One Direction's biggest hit, What makes You Beautiful,
is quote so worshipful that it feels smothering, And I
do agree. I Mean, I could see though, if I
were twelve and watching these boys frolic around on a
beach telling me that I'm prettier than I actually know
that I am, that I would totally get on board
(09:36):
with all of that. But it is kind of funny.
I mean to the point to where they're like, you're
the way you flip your hair drives me Bonkas my quote,
not theirs, and then you just start obsessively flipping your hair. Yeah.
And they would say that that nineties bands, in a
very nineties kind of way, were more earnest. Yeah. She
said that their songs were full of doubt about the
(09:58):
possibility of lasting relationships, hence the clinched fists and anguished
faces versus the more casual Devil may care. I have
big hair attitude of Harry styles. But at the same time,
though we can't talk about boy bands and not mentioned
that some of the songs and some of the lyrics
(10:18):
are a tad not so amazing and uplifting when you
really listen to them, and not just for the more
modern ones. Even going back to the Monkeys day dream Believer,
which I love, yeah and yeah. Rosenberg Over in her
post on think progress dot org talks about the Monkeys
(10:39):
using condescending dismissiveness and daydream believers, something that had never
occurred to me, but she cites the quote daydream Believer
in a homecoming Queen. She doesn't have any real concerns
does she monkeys? Yeah. She also says that the Jackson
five songs Stop, They'll Love You Save is sluge shaming
that instincts girlfriend is textbook negging with Eric, such as
(11:00):
does he even know You're alive? And on a factories back,
the song that I Can't get out of my head
right now is odd and needy in the inverse of
wooing and I had a couple of more examples too.
To me, the one that stands out the most from
my personal boy band experience as from the band five,
(11:21):
and they had one hit Baby when the Lights go out,
and I can sing all of the chorus, I will
not do it, but it's maybe I should do it,
but it's it's so creepy. It's talking about how when
they're at a party and all the lights go out, Babe,
I swear you will succumb to me. So Baby, come
to me when the lights go out, where it's like
(11:43):
whoa five hey take a step back and then even
one direction. In their song little Things, they say you
never want to know how much you weigh. You still
have to squeeze into your jeans, but you're perfect to me,
which is kind of backhand it as well. And then
of course in the wanted Glad you came, I mean
(12:05):
kind of everything about it, but also the standout line
is I'll hand you another drink. Drink it if you can.
Oh my god. So just daring young women to get wasted.
These are their audiences, such young girls, though I know
the scandalized five year old sitting across from you, and
maybe I should bring my hard candy to the next episode.
(12:25):
But okay, so let's you know, we mentioned the monkeys.
Let's look back at some of the history briefly of
boy bands and where they came from. One major aspect
of boy bands from the beginning has been dancing. They
all had a piece on this in May. They talked
about how dancing among boy groups was introduced by Motown
(12:45):
genius Barry Gordy, who hired vaudeville performer Cholie Atkins to
teach his top acts like the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and
the Four Tops some dance moves. Yeah, and right there
with the mentions of Temptations four Top, Smokey rob said,
we have the first kind of tie into where these
mostly all white boy bands of today take a lot
(13:08):
of cues from black male groups of not only Motown,
but then moving up into R and B, which we'll
touch on in a minute. But yeah, the dancing has
always been a big thing up until though these most
modern boy bands, which I mean to me like, yeah,
it was it kind of cheesy, all of the chorey
graph dance moves and dance outfits dance up that the
(13:30):
boy the boy bands of our day would always do. Yeah,
but no more for one direction, what do they do
on stage than if they because I know, like the
Wanted plays instruments, but well, on stage they might have
more chorey graph numbers, but in their videos they're just
prancing around. They're pouring you know, they're doing keg stands,
(13:51):
not actually keg stands, but they're drinking out of solo cups,
going it's lemonade. Well, actually, I don't think they Wanted
even wants you to think that it's limited because they
are just such bad boys. But going back though to
the dance moves, all of that motown dancing, so the
(14:11):
president that carried into the seventies when even boy bands
that played instruments such as the Osman's and Jackson five
incorporated dancing into live sets and TV appearances. And speaking
of TV appearances, Caroline Yeah, February nine, nineteen sixty four,
The Beatles perform on Ed Sullivan and oh my god,
the internet will yell at us so much for saying
(14:32):
that the Beatles are a boy band because they weren't
formed by some mastermind like Simon cow You know, they
met organically playing instruments at school and in clubs. But
they did have those mop tops and dressed the same
and we're you know, coordinated on stage. And they inspired
(14:53):
subsequent boy bands such as The Monkeys that were straight
up assembled for a television show around owned Davy Jones
who recently passed away, alright, p Davy Jones, and that
became a blueprint for future boy bands have a more
manufactured sort that we would think of today. And then
in the seventies we have bands like Jackson five that
(15:15):
in nineteen seventy had four number one hit singles, And
then in the seventies we also have the very take
home to Mom Osmond's. Uh, they were a clean cup
Mormon quintet believe Donny Osmond was a part of the
Osmond's in in nineteen seventies seven. I think this has
to be the longest running boy band of all time.
(15:35):
Get started. Yeah, Minudo starts. It's thirty two year stint
in Puerto Rico. And of course their most famous member
to me anyway, as Ricky Martin. He joined in the eighties,
I believe when he was thirteen, and he beat out
Howie who ended up in the Backstreet Boys for a gig.
Now who got the better deal, I don't know, I
say Martin's. Well, okay, So we mentioned how you know
(15:58):
African American groups, uh do wop groups, Berry Gordy, and
we mentioned how these groups really kind of paved the
way for these white boy bands to come along. Well,
one of those trailblazers in three is New Addition. It's
a Boston R and B group credited with the boy
band crazes of the next twenty years. Yeah Candy Girl,
(16:20):
I wish you could be playing right now in the
background because it is such a good song. But they
were groomed by this guy named Maurice Starr, who later
developed another Boston group you might have heard of called
New Kids on the Blocks. Swoon Jordan was my favorite.
In four Star basically takes the New edition model and
(16:40):
it's like, hey, I'm gonna do this with a group
of Boston white kids. And so he puts together in
Ko TV with Jordan, Joey, Donny, Danny, and John. And
I was too young to be a real die hard
New Kids fan. But my old one, I'm only year
older than you, I well, I just didn't. I was
He wasn't in your sphere. It was not in my sphere,
but wasn't my older sister's sphere. And I remember she
(17:02):
got this Coke brand New Kids poster in the mail
and she was so excited about it. It It was her
prize possession. And I can't remember who her favorite was.
But anyway, it took a little while though for New
Kids to ascend to stardom. It wasn't until their second
album was released, Hanging Tough, Hanging Tough. Oh my god,
(17:28):
I'm sorry I totally interrupted you to sing that, But
it was released that year and it's sold. It's sold
seventeen million copies, and album step by Step went triple platinum.
But a year later we have the first album released
from another very influential boy band, Boys two Men. They're
released Cooley High Harmony, and they would go on to
(17:49):
win four Grammys and it released more than ten multi
platinum albums and get a star on the Hollywood Walk
of Fame. Yeah. So, in skipping forward a little bit,
Lou Pearlman, famous manager and con man, formed the Backstreet Boys,
which I never knew. They were named after a flea
market in Orlando, so he held auditions in Orlando, and
(18:13):
this pretty much sets off our modern era of crazy
boy band fans and everything. Yeah, because Pearlman essentially saw
what Starr was doing and all the money that he
was making from new addition and then new kids, and
was like, hey, I could totally do this, which he
also said later in his career when he started a
Ponzi scheme. That's for another podcast made right. Yeah, the
(18:36):
story about Lou Perelman goes on forever, and it's fascinating
and creepy. But um in a song that I could
not get out of my head for approximately three years,
uh debut at number one. That's R and B group
All for One. I swear I like couldn't listen to
it for the rest of the nineties because they would
get in my head. Um. So in Perelman turns around
(18:59):
and worms in Sync and sent them on a European
tour to get all of that promotion before he brought
them over to the US. And let me tell you,
the Germans love from justin timber Lake. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Um in we have Atlanta Quartet one twelve, who got
their start on Diddy's Bad Boy records. And really, I
mean you'll you'll notice it's very apparent that these are
(19:21):
just that's one of just a few African American groups
listed in all this. Well yeah, because basically the you know,
the these white boy bands just took the blueprint established
by these earlier R and B groups and we're like, oh,
well we will, we will sing to these legions of
young girls. Um Now, though this one has a special
(19:43):
place in my heart, and it was Hanson. Hanson came out.
They're less traditional because their three brothers, they're like the
early Jonas brothers. And of course their song was Bob
and I thought that they were so cool because they
were home schooled, and I was like, wow, that's they're
they're just like me. They're weird, just like me. That
(20:06):
they're millionaires. But by this point, this is when backstreets
blowing up. The instinct rivalry with Backstreet is picking up
because you know, they're starting to blow up. Degrees comes
out and releases its first album, which was signed to
Motown Records. Interestingly, in a throwback there, um and so yeah.
(20:27):
In the late nineties, we have the reign of the
boy bands, and all the music critics are subsequently pulling
their hair out because all of the hit songs are
these kind of bubblegum pop, super produced pieces of well,
they would say music trash because it's like, oh, Backstreet,
that's not music, whereas a lot of these you know,
(20:49):
very talented vocal performers are saying, hey, we're doing you know,
we're making We're making good music. Right, Yeah, just because
Luke Pearlman is pulling the strings doesn't mean that we're
not good musicians. Well, and that's a question though. The
the whole uh dismissal immediate dismissal of boy bands is
something that Gayle Wald looked into and her paper teeny
(21:10):
Bopper Music and the Girling of boy Bands was published
in the journal Genders in two thousand two, and she
raises a question of whether we think that boy bands
are automatically just kind of stupid because their fans are girls. Yeah.
She talks about a definite gendered hierarchy of high and
low popular culture that specifically devalues the music consumed by
(21:35):
teenage girls, and she says it's based on the notions
of fickleness, superficiality, and aesthetic bankruptcy of the material forms
that girls desires take in popular culture, you know, because
we're buying sleeping bags with the new kids on the
block on them, and we're buying all these posters of
the Jonas Brothers and things like that. Well, she also
points out, too, with this whole girling of the boy band,
(21:57):
that they symbolically feminize the male vocal groups that have
the special appeal for young female consumers. We think of
them as something for girls. And in driving home this
point about how dismissive we are of boy bands, she
cites a piece by New York Times music writer John
(22:18):
Pariella's and this was back from the backstreet days, he wrote.
When it's directed at males, that squeal signifies romantic fantasy
while it tests out some newly active hormonal responses Directed
at females, it's a squeal of sisterly solidarity and fashion
approval and it's surrounding out anything more mature audiences had
in mind. I have to give an eye roll. I understand,
(22:43):
I'm not a big boy band person. I never was,
aside from new kids on the block or and boys
to men, let's be real, but I mean, we've always
had these bands, and it just seems like rehashing old
grapes when music critics are just like gross little girls
like it. It's like, all right, come on, we've always
had boy band well, and then it gets into, you know,
the bigger questions of the whole, you know, selling out
(23:05):
of the music if it's really music. I mean the
fact you know today with the Wanted that they and
with One Direction, that they have a stronger hand in
the music that they play and produce, even though all
the songs that One Direction has written among themselves none
of them have been released as singles. But it is
it is kind of interesting when you step back and
(23:25):
think about why we tend to dislike boy band music
so much, and then also this idea of the girl
ish type of masculinity. It's like it takes all of
this sexuality that they're obviously exhibiting and somehow making it
quote unquote safe, right, Well they are. She writes that
(23:47):
they're taking black performance styles of the eighties, which were
more frank and staunchly heterosexual, and makes it, yeah, like
you said, softer and safer, and fans use that as
a way to negotiate their own fluid gender and sexual
desires well, And that also brings up this racial question
as well that some critics have brought up in terms
(24:08):
of how white these crazy popular boy band empires are
in that you know, well, are we are they quote
unquote safer or more sellable to these legions of female
fans because they are white, Because we still are uncomfortable
with that black masculinity because it would inherently be too
(24:30):
frank or too strong. So that's something also to think
about in all of this. Yeah, and kind of how
like with which we brought up at the top of
the podcast with one direction, how a lot of times
the darker skin members of groups are characterized as the
mysterious bad boy. Why is that? Why does that have
to be? I don't know. Well, so we mentioned that,
(24:52):
you know, fans are using this the softer version of
masculinity to kind of figure out their own raging hormones
sociologist Mark mccore mic for the Oxford University Press blog
in July, wrote about One Direction, in particular redefining modern masculinity,
saying that they're open displays of emotion actually helped to
make them famous. He said, there's no homophobia among these
(25:15):
young guys. They actively thank their gay fans and even
performed at a gay club in London. He said that
these kids model and mirror the gendered behaviors of today's youth,
and they're part of a significant change in attitudes towards homosexuality. Yeah,
and in the same way that you know, a lot
of times when we think about girls crushes on boy bands,
they're assumed to be kind of a way for girls
(25:36):
to negotiate their these first feelings of their their blossoming sexuality.
But in you know, and that's in a very kind
of heteronormative box. But in the same way, boy bands
have always had gay boy fans as well. There was
a two thousand article in The Advocate talking about this
and they cited Mike Glass, at the time was the
(25:57):
managing editor of the magazine x Y, which was for
gay youth, and he said, all these bands have always
had young gay admirers. Now there are media outlets that
represent young gay culture and provide an opportunity for young
gay people to be more vocal and um. Some say
too that since everything is driven so much on social
(26:17):
media now and all of these websites, that that facilitates
even more um. I guess adoration among gay fans that
can you know, access not just the music, but also
you know, all of the different kind of rituals that
girls have with boy bands, including fan fiic, poops, slash
(26:38):
fiction is apparently huge and apparently a lot with One Direction,
to the point that one girl who wrote a one
story about a love triangle between her and two members
of One Direction got a book deal from it from
like Penguin Books. M man, you can make money off
of these boy bands? That you can? I had no
(27:00):
idea well. Jennifer Margaret smith over at a blog from
the University of Wisconsin in April wrote about what she
called comfortable homo eroticism and called the interpersonal relationships the
interactions between the guys of bands like One Direction as
a variation on the bromance trend, which we've talked about,
very very browy. And yet these guys are a lot
(27:22):
more comfortable exhibiting their affection for each other. She said
that quote they can play with their queerness because their
heterosexuality is constantly reinforced both in the reports of their
personal lives, like when Harry Styles dated Taylor Swift and
and they're aggressively heteronormative song lyrics. Yeah, she talks about
how they hug, grope, fall asleep on each other, constantly
(27:43):
pretend to kiss each other for laughs, and even joke
about queer relationships between them. So, um, you know, this
is another way that you know, I kind of like
the idea, though, of one direction at least being more
open about all of that as being kind of that
bridge between childhood and sexual maturity, not just for female fans,
(28:05):
but for male fans as well. I think that's great
that they openly thank they're gay fans and know that
they're a strong part of their their fan base. So
even though songs like what Makes You Beautiful might not
have the most lyrical depth, there's obviously a lot within
boy band history and you know why they exist and
(28:28):
why they do hold such appeal that you know that
we can kind of learned about I don't know, like
girlhood boyhood. Well, yeah, I mean, I honestly never I
mean because I just don't think about boy bands, but
I never thought about the gendered aspects, the racial aspects,
the fact that you know, just like they repackaged Elvis
(28:49):
as a white version of black music back in the day,
they're doing the same thing and they have been doing
the same thing for decades with these boy groups. But
my only question though, is that in the same way
that you know, boy bands seem to facilitate this kind
of opening of girl girl ish sexuality, if that makes sense,
I want to know how music or if music facilitates
(29:11):
the same thing in boys and not just s gay boys.
I'm talking about like when we think of more boy music,
you know, or is quote unquote boy music considered neutral
and therefore has no effect on boys. But because boy
bands are for girls, then it has this effect and
the boy bands themselves are feminized because of that gendered
(29:31):
hierarchy and pop culture astute observation. Caroline, Well, I think
it's now time to turn it over to our listeners
and see what they think about boy bands. Who's your favorite? Um,
do you find any other creepy lyrics as well? We
would be happy to hear about. Do you have any
(29:52):
any boy band feedback? In particular, you'd like Caroline, who
is your favorite in any of them? In any of
them at all? Who is your favorite boy bander? And
if you're in the boy beend Harry Styles. If you're listening,
you can go ahead and write in how heavy is
your Hair? Dot com is where you can send your email.
(30:14):
And now we got a couple of letters in responds
to our episode Tampons and Toxic Shock Syndrome. This one's
from Jamie. She said, When I started using tampons, my
mom frequently warned me not to wear them to bed
because I would get toxic shock and die. I know,
aren't Mom's the worst. I never asked any questions about
(30:34):
what it was or why I would die. These warnings
didn't stop me from wearing them to bed, but rather
scared me into thinking that I would die in my sleep.
I'm twenty five now and sometimes still worry about this
silent killer as I saw it. But now thanks to
you gals, I think I can sleep a bit easier.
I think it's craziness, but I never researched this on
my own or even ask questions before thank goodness for
(30:57):
you girls. Great job. Thanks and thank you Jamie. I'm
glad we could help, and I hope you're sleeping better
after all these years. Well, I've got one hair from
Allison about a bit of a tampon horror story as well,
and she says, like Caroline, my mom never gave me
the talk, and instead I got to read her romance novels.
So I was on vacation with a friend and her
(31:19):
mom was at the beach. Of course, periods have perfect timing,
and I started right then, and I was all in
a tizzy what to do, because you can't wear a
pat in a bathing suit. So I decided it was
time to use a tampon. As you might imagine, since
we didn't talk about sex, my mom never talked to
me about tampons, so I had no clue how to
use them. Que me in a porta potty in the
(31:40):
parking lot by the beach, trying to insert my first
tampon for twenty agonizing minutes. I'm in tears because I
can't figure out this labyrinth called a vagina, and I'm
shaking because I'm nervous and embarrassed that my friend and
her mom are waiting on me? Oh, it was terrible.
I finally made myself calm down and reread the instructions
for the twelfth time in figured out that I wasn't
(32:01):
doing the whole angle thing and just basically stabbing myself
repeatedly trying to shove this piece of cardboard into me
at a ninety degree angle to the ground and searching complete,
I finally exited that porta potty of terror and went
and had fun at the beach. Ya happy ending. Sorry
if this was a little more info than you wanted.
Love the show and I loved that story. I'm glad
(32:22):
you've figured it out. Oh I sympathize, Yeah, me too.
It that the first time is usually a memorable talk
of the wrong reasons. So if you have any tamp
on horror stories or boy band love stories to send
our way. Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is our
email address. You can also message us on Facebook, tweet
(32:43):
us at Mom's Stuff podcast, and while you're at it,
you can follow us on tumbler stuff mom Never told
You dot tumblr dot com, And as always, you can
make yourself smarter by heading over to our website, It's
how Stuff Works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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