Why do females go crazy about boy bands in their youth?
I don’t know, since my friends and I liked proper bands. We didn’t take much interest in the boy bands and junior heartthrobs that were being touted so heavily by the teen magazines; it would have been embarrassing and juvenile. My daughter and her friends are the same; they don’t like feeling manipulated by the media marketed at “tweens.” They might like a song or two but they’d never buy a poster. I never paid much attention to all this until I found out that a man I know is an editor at a magazine aimed at young girls. I don’t know if the fact that he’s gay makes it more or less creepy, but I do find it irksome that someone so far removed from the reality of teenage girls’ lives is playing such a big role in trying to define their likes and dislikes. He’s a perfectly nice man and a good editor, but it certainly pointed up the media/life disconnect for me when he told me what he does. So returning to your question, I think the media play a big role and it’s mostly about marketing. An
