BY NINA LARBI ’22
When boy bands are mentioned, most conjure the mental image of pubescent boys with over-styled hair, wearing ASOS catalogue clothes and singing vapid, conventional pop music.
Boy bands have been a constant in the modern music industry. From The Beatles to Boyz II Men and now BTS, the boy band is an essential component of modern pop music, even though it has also been an object of constant criticism.
Members of these groups are not considered “true artists” and their fans are reduced to insipid fan girls who only care about looks.
Photo courtesy of WikiMedia Commons
The bias against boy bands is a result of hatred toward teenage girls. Boy bands offer short-term empowerment for their female fan base, working within the constraints of heteronormative and sexist ideals of love that these young girls are constantly exposed to.
People love to hate 13-year-old girls.
Teenage girls are “vain and naive. They are the ultimate consumer, influenced by everything from social media to what their friends are wearing,” Jessica Pishko said in an article on Medium, adding that “they place their fingers in the makeup samples and smear too much on their eyelids. But we can’t keep our eyes off of them.”
Teenage girls, she argues, exist at a crossroads of capitalism and sexuality; they are objects of both the male gaze and advertising. Boy bands are marketed as the perfect heterosexual fantasy package for teen girls: It is the musical equivalent of the boyfriend experience and men cannot stand it, even as they profit off of it.
Boy band lyrics often employ concerning heterosexual tropes about love, like One Direction’s “Stockholm Syndrome,” which romanticizes kidnapping, they represent a female-dominated power dynamic. Within the boy band canon, there is an entire subset of songs about how they “would treat you better,” and another dedicated to making their audience realize how beautiful they are.
Big Time Rush’s hit song “Any Kind of Guy” spells it out: “Any kind of guy you want, girl, that’s the guy I’ll be, turn myself upside down.”
Boy groups are not about the boys — they are about their largely female fan base.
There are set archetypes for each member of boy bands, and corresponding music to match the tropes. The aloof bad boy, the sweet and innocent type, the obligatory member of color and the all-around dream boy are the most prominent archetypes.
Compared to solo artists, boy bands appeal to a wider audience. They, as a medium, have also explored other avenues to sell themselves to their audiences, with TV shows and documentaries starring them and, now, social media. In addition, boy bands are now being formed through TV shows. Fans are often given more agency as the consumers, vote to pick certain members and are given a highly contrived inner perspective into the lives of their idols. The boy band member has become humanized. They have transitioned from posters and quizzes in trashy teen magazines to post notifications and Instagram stories, presenting them selves within all spheres of the consumer’s life.
Ultimately, boy bands are innocuous. Boy bands eventually grow up. They will inevitably lose their clean cut image, whether through secretly smoking marijuana or an overly publicized bad breakup. Likewise, boy bands will eventually separate. Their fleeting existence in a fan’s life provides a form of empowerment within heterosexual and patriarchal constraints — but also, just provides some fun pop music.