While watching Mtv's Video Music Awards (hereafter reffered to as VMA, for the sake of my poor fingers), I was sure that every other award was going to go to a boy group. Every single time N'Sync and The Backstreet Boys were up for nomitations, I crossed my fingers and prayed to every god I could think of that they wouldn't win. And as the night pressed on, things were looking great. So far, neither group had won a single award. I was completely tickled pink when TLC's 'No Scrubs' beat both of them out for Best Group, despite the fact that I hated that video and the song was just as bad. (Word to the scrubs out there. We know it ain't your fault you can't affoard a new Porche every year.) When the Viewer's Choice Award came up, I rooted for Korn, for lack of a lesser evil in the situation (because I sure as hell didn't want Ricky Martin to win, either).
The Backstreet Boys won. I nearly fainted.
I was so sure that all the thirteen-year-old chickadees out there must have begged their parents to let them call that 900 number and gotten the response I would have gotten.
"A 900 number? To vote for an award for a music video? And it costs how much? I don't think so."
Oh, the agony of it all. Every single teenybopper in the US must have called that number and mashed the button to vote for them so hard that their Lisa Frank Press-On nails broke off. In that moment, my confidence in my fellow viewers dropped to the floor so hard that it shattered into a million, tiny, unsalvagable pieces. I will never again respect anyone under 17 years of age, because I know no one 17 or older actually likes the Backstreet Boys (Or N' Sync for that matter) unless they have some sort of mental incapacity.
As the boys walked up to accept that award and I sat there with my jaw on my bedroom floor, my first thought was: "No, NO, NO!" My second thought was: "My God - girls are so dumb!". My third thought was: "I hate that man.".
For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, let me explain. Both The Backstreet Boys and N'Sync are groups put together by the same diabolical man. I don't remember his name, and if I did I would have a picture of him posted here by now so that every teenybopper in the country could come and pray to his image. All I remember is that he's fat, wears glasses, and is probably making a shitload of money off of those boys. So by now he's probably gotten liposuction and contact lenses - if not laser surgery.
Any group of guys can get together and croon and sing songs that consist of a verse for each one to sing and a fairly harmonious refrain. All you have to do is find pretty boys. And N'Sync, in my opinion, isn't even a group of pretty boys. And what's with their hair, anyway? The Backstreet Boys are a decided improvement, though it looks as though the decision stopped with the youngest one, whose face resembles Odo's from Deep Space Nine.
I can just picture the groups of girls watching this with their friends, weeping because their favorite little boy groups didn't win any awards and then screeching in sheer glee because their vote helped them win one. It probably made them feel really great when they got up there and thanked their fans.
"Ohmygod, the fans - that's totally us!"
I don't really know what to make of the whole boy group thing except to say that they unnerve me. I muted it the instant both groups got up to perform, and I must say that I was never more thankful for that little button. All of them up there, singing in unison....and the girls screaming and singing along with them...it smacks of cult behavior.
The outfits was the whole thing that perplexed me as far as The Backstreet Boys were concerned. They were dressed completely in leather and one of them (I don't know any of their names) was wearing a shirt that probably came out of Brittany Spears' wardrobe. A guy.....? Wearing a mid-driff...? What?
People have compared them to The Beatles. NO! The Beatles were not a force of pure evil. The Beatles kicked ass. The Backstreet Boys and N'Sync are just pansies who sing fairly brainless songs that happen to be about squishy subjects. At least The Beatles sang about drugs. "I Want It That Way" sounds like the theme song for Burger King. And who gives a crap what way you want it? The only way you're getting it is up the ass* - with my platform shoe.
*The author DOES NOT allude to homosexuality or anal sex.