The single most important question you ever had to answer in 1995, the question that would forever define you, the question that would characterize you as “one of us” or “one of them” was this: “Backstreet Boys or N*SYNC?” Personally, I was too busy being caught up in the Spice Girls to truly pledge my allegiance to either, but if I had to pick, it would have been N*SYNC, because chia pet Justin was so dreamy.
No matter to whom you were loyal, One Direction has taught me one thing: we were annoying. We were fawning over possibly gay douchebags, and we found every excuse possible to bring them up in every day conversation. We were totally overwhelmed, and much like the young girls today who lost their shit when Tay Tay dated Harry Styles, we literally lived in envy of Britney Spears. As if, by some stroke of luck, Justin would have fallen in love with a 9-year-old had the pop princess not been standing in the way. I totally get Generation X’s distaste for the boy bands we grew up on. It wasn’t really about the subpar music. It was the petulant way we obsessed over it.
Recently, a One Direction fan (or more likely, a 25-year-old girl who was dragged to a One Direction concert by her little cousin, because no “real” adults felt like torturing themselves through such an evening, tweeted the boy band to play Backstreet Boys’ “I Want it That Way.” The overly cocky, yet effeminate singers ran their fingers through their overly groomed hair, tugged on their “high-fashion” jackets with two hands, and obliged, thus awarding the audience one brief moment’s respite from the shrieks of young girls who were blissfully unaware that the feelings in their loins were a precursor to what would later be known as “horny.”
Actually, no. The over-excited, yelping teenagers are still annoying, even when the objects of their affection are rocking a ’90s jam.
BSB, themselves commented over Twitter. They complimented One Direction on their rendition of “I Want It That Way.”
Heard @OneDirection did an impromtu performance of "I Want It That Way" in Sweden last night. Well done bros! http://t.co/rtDcHRpQcc
— Backstreet Boys (@backstreetboys) May 9, 2013
What they wanted to say was “Enjoy the 2013 version of our fan base now. Soon they’ll grow up and you’ll be rendered irrelevant, barring the occasional attempt at a comeback via reunion tour,” but that was over 140 characters.
[via E!]
Image via Youtube