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