Fandom at it's prime

Picture 1999. How old were you? What music did you listen to? If you're a girl, and you're now 19, in 1999 you were most likely an obsessed 11 year-old girl that blared nothing but Backstreet Boys and NSYNC on your Casio Boombox. Welcome to the lives of Cheryl Brooks and Kylee Bryan.

Now, there were the fans of the music, and then there were the fans of the music. You know what we mean, the fans listened and knew some of the words. They would dance to the beat if it happened to be on the radio. The fans (we're admitting we're guilty right now) of the music knew every word and could recall it 8 years later when they pulled out the old CD's from the childhood and still to this day, know the dance moves from the particular lines of the songs. Not only this, but can remember the music videos and they play in our, I mean their, heads every time the song is played to this day.

Most of these two bands songs focused on love and relationships, inspiring dreams to develop in the minds of every pre-teen to not only find the man of her dreams, but to want the artists themselves. This got to the point where a girl claimed her man (in the words of Kerri Pomarolli, our chapel speaker a couple of weeks ago, "Name it and claim it ladies!") and fought anyone trying to take him. It was survival of the fittest, only the certain girls were worthy enough to really claim the best members of the group.

And not only claim, but yes, scenarios were formed in the minds of these girls. We, I mean they, pictured ourselves as the girls in the music videos and knew that one day, we would be the ones that "God must have spent a little more time on" in the eyes of Joey, JC, Justin, Lance, and Chris. And we would be the ones that Nick, Kevin, Brian, Howie, and AJ would give "all they had to give to."

There were times when one of us would watch the "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" music video and see Brian Littrell do a back flip off the wall and tried every day to complete this feat. And even sometimes now, experiments with this action in the hallway of Fox 2 East, returning to the wishful desires to be a sweet dancer like Brian from BSB.