hmm.

[retro_geek]

When Take That originally split up nearly 12 years ago, it caused a meltdown amongst a certain sector of teenagers. Crisis hotlines had to be set up to deal with suicidal girls, and broadsheet newspapers were filled with with pictures of distraught, crying, fainting fans with messages of love scrawled on their faces. Now, the band have reformed and thier come-back album has become the biggest selling record of thier career. Yet despite them selling more records now than they have before, I bet if they were to split again tomorrow it wouldn't cause anywhere near the same scale of chaos as it originally. Why? You could argue that it''s because they're now appealing to an older, and so calmer and more grounded, market. But if a more recent boyband (say, Mcfly, for example) were to suddenly disemband, I doubt it would cause more than a small ripple through the nation. Are teens and pre-teens just less obsessive than they used to be? And if so, why?

Comments

[retro-geek.livejournal.com]

I think you may be right. The whole high school musical frenzy largly passed me by (I hadn't even really heard of it till I saw some specially themed jewelary in the window of Claire's Accesories one day), but even I've gathered that Zac Effron is a bit of a teen heart-throb. By contrast, there are so many little ways to find out about new music these days (zines, clubs, myspcae, spotify, etc etc etc) that have replaced the titans of top of the pops and smash hits that it's probably quite difficult to launch a new pop phenomenon on an increasingly media-savvy play ground audience. But films are marketed differently, hence the shift from popstars to film stars.
I have to say, I find the image of a cinema full of 11-16 yearolds squealing in unison at the sight of a pretty boy in a vampire movie quite amusing. I bet there were quite a few exasperated parents also in the audience rolling their eyes at that point...

[skellingtonjon.livejournal.com]

It already happened- remember when Busted split up?

I think that the Take That hysteria was very much a product of it's day- look at the reaction to Princess Diana dying, for example. Perhaps kids these days are just inured to misery, or perhaps they're just jaded, or perhaps they're just too thick to feel any more.

I hope to all the deities in the Multiverse that I'm wrong on all three guesses...

[retro-geek.livejournal.com]

I did consider the Busted thing when discussing this with my boyfriend! I tihnk it's interesting that you theorise that it's more to do with the kids themselves rather than the way they've been marketed to. Perhaps they are just too jaded. I tihnk the advent of reality tv has taken away a lot of the mystery and glamour and illusion that they had a decade or so ago. With regards to your poiont that they're too thick to feel any more, I tihnk it's more that they just don't see the point in summoning up feelings for things any more. After all, you can't miss what you never had in the first place.

[skellingtonjon.livejournal.com]

With regards to my point that kids are too thick to feel any more, I'd like to point out that I said I feared that was the case, and that I hoped I was wrong. I know that there's an awful lot of clever kids out there- there's just an awfully loud lot of stupid kids who tend to drown them out, terrify them and stab them to death.