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So today we're going to be discussing a topic that positively makes me want to scream
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and fall into crying fits of hysterics. That's right, we're talking boy bands, bands of
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boys, groupings of young men...well you get what I'm trying to say here. It's boy
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band mania at Origin of Everything and I'll be telling you everything (or at least a lot)
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about the history of how these scream slash dream machines got their start, a little bit
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of some of the markers that make up the classic boy ensemble and some of the science behind
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what makes us lose our collective minds when we see them grace the stage. Also this is
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a video with 10 plus minutes of b-roll of boy bands. Come on, you know you wanna watch it!
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So before we start the incoherent screaming and fan adoration, let's get to the heart
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and soul of where these teenage dreams originated.
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According to NPR's “All Things Considered” some of the distinctive markers of the boy
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band (as opposed to the “man band”) are:
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Boy bands tend to be factory produced, meaning that a record executive or talent manager
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assembles the band and is responsible for casting a group of lads in their teens or
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twenties. Second, they also tend to play more catchy,
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bubble gum pop music with simple messaging and sounds (although the range of styles of
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music can vary widely from band to band). Third, boy bands usually don't play their
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own instruments or write their own songs. And lastly, boy bands tend to have a fanbase
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that is heavily comprised of young girls and young women.
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Now before you get ready to fight me in the comments section, many folks including Billboard
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trace some of the earliest prototypes of the boy band to a British crew that's often
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not associated with the genre: that's right I'm talking about The Beatles. Early Beatlemania,
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more so than their later work, became the blueprint for some of the distinctive markers
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of boy bands, namely a crew of clean cut looking young boys playing pop music to hordes of
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screaming teenage girls. But John, Paul, Ringo and George weren't a factory product and
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they quickly moved on to other genres of music and are now more heavily associated with rock
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n roll over anything else. Still, the blueprint for boy bands did start to spring up in the
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1960s and 1970s with groups like The Osmonds, The Jackson 5, and TV sitcom sensation The
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Monkees.
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But the modern boy band seems to really kick off in the early 1980s with groups like Menudo
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and New Edition. These singing, dancing, harmonizing young heartthrobs encapsulated the signature
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style that other boy bands would follow for decades, including the singing sensations
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we all know and love like the Backstreet Boys, B2K, NSync, One Direction, New Kids on the
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Block, Boyz II Men and 98 degrees. And don't be upset if I left your faves off the list.
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Because if we're just going to list off all of the acts that have risen to (and fallen
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from) glory in the past decades I'd be here all day. And that's because the boy band
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went from being a few well placed ensembles to a veritable explosion in the late 1990s
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as teen fandom and teen culture (particularly teen girl culture) dominated the airwaves.
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Music critic Jon Pareles even wrote for the New York Times in 1999:
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“Applause is passe; the reaction most eagerly sought by pop culture right now, from music
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to television to movies, is a high-pitched squeal from a mob of young girls...The mass
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market has been voting with its dollars for kiddie-friendly hits with pinup potential.”
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But the success and failure of certain acts wasn't entirely dependent on the sharpness
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of their attire or the beauty of their barbershop harmonies. It was also dependent on the group's
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ability to find success as crossover artists in multiple genres of popular music, reaching
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audiences often times on the basis of race. The harmonizing and vocal stylings of many
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boy bands from the early 1980s to the early 2000s trace their roots back to the vocalizations
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of black a cappella barbershop quartets from the first half of the 20th century. And yet
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by the late 90s many of the most commercially successful boy bands either had all white
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members or were coded as white (even with the presence of members from other races).
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And that's in part because these all white ensembles found greater crossover success
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in the pop world. And in the 1980s and 90s the proven crossover potential of artists
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like Whitney Houston, Prince and Michael Jackson defined the era as one where racially coded
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performances of music that were previously considered “niche” markets (like R&B and
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Soul music) were suddenly finding mainstream success as pop infused sensations. But non-white
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boy bands (with exceptions for groups like Boyz II Men) largely did not have the same
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mainstream success of their all white counterparts, leading many to consider the boy band archetype
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to be groups like Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block, even though they were proceed
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by acts like New Edition and Menudo.
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This may be changing though. In 2017, Korean pop band BTS exploded in popularity in the
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United States with multiple milestones including two songs on the Billboard Hot 100. K-Pop's
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origins can be traced back to 1992 to a band called Seo Taiji and Boys, then three music
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studios popped up in the mid- to late-90s that created groups which continued the wave.
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Another big component of boy bands, heck some could even argue that the biggest component
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of boy bands, is their hordes of screaming (largely) female fans. Because without their
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consistent fandom, boy bands wouldn't be the cultural phenomenon we love to love and
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rag on in equal measure. But part of the consistent consternation around teenybopper music could
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be derived from the way we view the culture of teenage girls. Professor Gayle Wald notes
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in her article on boy bands and teen girl culture that part of the friction in the way
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we narrate boy bands is that they're often gendered as specifically the interest of teenage
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girls. Even the members themselves are often cast as “girlish” or sexually ambiguous
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in ways meant to make them read as sexual but ultimately non threatening. Additionally
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Wald notes that boy bands, which are often industry creations, don't have the same
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“authenticating” origin stories of other genres of music that are considered masculine
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or masculine centric. She notes that for rock stars this “authenticating” origin story
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often focuses on the bands roots in dive bars and small gigs whereas in hip hop the site
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of authenticity is rooted in concepts of “the street” or urban life. But boy bands put
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together by scouts and talent managers often lack this origin authenticity story, instead
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following a tightly crafted and honed music industry image.
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And that's not just exclusive to American bands like the Backstreet Boys. The South
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Korean music studio system is another example of having bands put together by scouts and
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talent managers. In the past, studios regulated things like rehearsal hours, curfews, and
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even cell phone usage, in addition to typical oversight of lyrical direction and PR training.
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But BTS is one of a few K-pop bands that has helped break the mold. Culture writer Aja
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Romano notes that it makes sense BTS has become globally popular given that they've been given
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more freedom to talk about things like mental health, self-love, and cultural pressure.
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But although it may all seem glossy, sleek and manufactured on the outside there's
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actually a little bit of science behind how and why these record company products become
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so irresistible to their teenaged fans.
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To figure out why we find ourselves so invested in boy bands, we can look to some theories
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from psychology and sociology.
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Idolizing celebrities might help young people develop into independent adults. This idolization
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is sometimes considered a type of “secondary attachment.” Basically, an adolescent can
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become emotionally invested in a fantasy relationship with someone they don't know, like say AJ
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from the Backstreet Boys in my case. Just an example. I definitely did not have a poster
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of AJ hanging in my childhood bedroom... Ugh, anyway, in one study of around 150 adolescents
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with an average age of about 15, over 57% of them idolized a celebrity in such a way
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that they considered it to be a relationship.
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And, the vast majority of the time, that's a good thing! By taking inspiration from others,
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like celebrity idols and peers, a child can form their own personality and preferences.
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It's sort of like a one-sided mentorship. Secondary attachments allow children to move
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on from dependent family life, in which their parents are their primary role models, and
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into an independent adult life.
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Secondary attachments can be formed with all sorts of celebrities, including athletes,
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actors, and historical figures. Boy band members just happen to be super popular! One study
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published in 2001 surveyed 75 people, between the ages of 17 and 35, about their celebrity
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idols. 85% had male idols and about 34% chose musicians or singers.
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Music itself is relevant to the transition into adulthood, too. As psychologist Amiram
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Raviv and his team explained in their research, adolescents often prefer to listen to music
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separately from their parents. So, similar to secondary attachments, music can cause
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them to form their own preferences and identities. That overlap between mostly male musician
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idol and enjoyable music gives many adolescents the opportunity to grow as people.
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The relationship with a celebrity is known as a “parasocial relationship.” And it
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isn't just something that young people experience. Researchers Donald Horton and Richard Wohl
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actually came up with this term in 1956 to describe a new phenomenon they were noticing
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thanks to mass media: adults were feeling a sense of intimacy with TV hosts and newscasters
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who they watched regularly.
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But as a reminder, we're talking about psychological theories here and there has been criticism
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of these concepts. Sometimes scholars who use these terms imply that fans have trouble
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distinguishing between real relationships and fandom, which isn't fair. And as professor
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of Media Studies Dr. Joli Jensen has noted, it seems imperfect to characterize celebrity
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fandom as a completely a more intense or potentially unhealthy thing than sports fandom, or even
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a passion for fishing, gardening, academic endeavors, and so on.
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There are also so many aspects to being a fan besides just liking a celebrity (or group
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of celebrities in the case of boy bands). Often some of the allure is the idea of being
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a part of something. We know that people who feel as though they belong to a group tend
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to be more happy, connected, and secure. The sense of belonging is so important that experts
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often consider it to be an intrinsic human need. There's a lot of research out there
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about how this pertains to sports team affiliation. People who support local teams have been observed
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as more confident, less depressed, and less alienated. They're just generally better
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off.
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A good way to seek out this sense of belonging is to gather with like-minded fans. French
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sociologist Émile Durkheim invented the term “collective effervescence” to describe
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the feeling of excitement and connection that comes out of being in enthusiastic groups
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at say football games, political rallies, church, or One Direction concerts. Research
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has shown that people who regularly experience collective effervescence have a higher sense
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of belonging and connection to others, which presumably results in all the great side effects
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I just listed. So yay fandom!
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Concerts can also bring catharsis. Let's be honest, it's nice to be able to let loose
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and scream every once in a while. Author Rachel Simmons, whose research focuses on female
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leadership, has observed that women are typically expected to behave a certain way: which is
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quiet, polite, and unassuming. But while attending concerts, they're allowed to do everything
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they're discouraged from doing in regular life: mainly scream, dance, and go wild. It
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makes total sense that this would feel freeing.
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Screaming isn't just an aimless behavior by the way. We evolved to scream as a method
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of communication. So according to Simmons, we scream when J-Hope starts dancing to express
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something to the people around us. By verbalizing this passion, we can connect with the other
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BTS fans. And hey maybe even get the attention of J-Hope himself. . . which never hurts.
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So what do you think? Well it seems like the ultimate story of the boy band is that they
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are both culturally and scientifically irresistible to their masses of screaming fans. But part
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of the disproportionate disdain that boy bands get over other pop sensations who sing, dance
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and don't write their own music could be their heavy focus on recruiting and maintaining
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a young female audience base. Because as much as we all love to chastise these acts as musical
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frivolity, I can't help but wonder if the heat would be quite so hot if the bands had
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a mixed or primarily male audience base. And let's face it, there are equally frivolous
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things and kitschy music crazes associated with teenage boy culture that don't get
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nearly as much finger wagging. And as boy bander extraordinaire Harry Styles once said:
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"How can you say young girls don't get it? They're our future. Our future doctors,
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lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they
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don't lie. If they like you, they're there. They don't act 'too cool.' They like
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you, and they tell you. Which is sick.”
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That's probably the first and last time I'll get to quote Harry Styles in an Origin
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episode but something about it just felt...right, you know? And as long as culture and science
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align to make these bands the apples of teenage girls' eyes, it looks like the boy band
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is likely here to stay, in one iteration or another.