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[RokofAges75]

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just adding my two cents on social media.  It's definitely changed things.  I think it's a good change for the most part just because I feel more connected to them during those down times when they're not touring or making appearances, but I can see your point.    There was a certain age of innocence before social media that was nice.

[mare]

I do sometimes wish I can go back to the time when I just really loved their songs too. I think knowing so much about them is what killed my love of writing about them in the end. Isn't that ironic? lol

As a whole I think twitter in particular has made celebrities seem so much more human and normal but it also hasn't helped people who feed into feeling like they are BFFs with some of these celebrities too. Sometimes all it takes is a response or a follow to make some of the more unbalanced people feed into the fantasy that they have some kind of special relationship with these guys.

I could never be famous. I hate people too much lol

[Rose]

Yeah in some ways I miss the pre-social media era. We were able to think the best and not have those bubbles burst completely even in our post-Teenybopper mindset.

[RokofAges75]

I do sometimes wish I can go back to the time when I just really loved their songs too. I think knowing so much about them is what killed my love of writing about them in the end. Isn't that ironic? lol

As a whole I think twitter in particular has made celebrities seem so much more human and normal but it also hasn't helped people who feed into feeling like they are BFFs with some of these celebrities too. Sometimes all it takes is a response or a follow to make some of the more unbalanced people feed into the fantasy that they have some kind of special relationship with these guys.

I could never be famous. I hate people too much lol

That is interesting.  Anyone else feel that way?  I personally don't, but then, I was also that teenybopper who memorized all of their favorite colors and favorite foods and other "facts" about them after I started liking their music, so to me, liking the music and liking them as people always went hand in hand.

I think the only way social media has hurt my writing is by distracting me from actually doing it LOL.  I had to remove Facebook from my bookmarks bar on my laptop so I wouldn't be tempted to randomly click on it while I'm writing.  Twitter I'm not as bad about these days, but I can waste hours on Facebook.

I agree with what you said about making the delusional fans feel like they are really friends with the boys.  Like I said earlier in this thread, the guys need to watch what they post and who they respond to sometimes because even though I feel the fanbase as a whole has matured and calmed down quite a bit over the years, there are still those creepy ones out there.

[KeepThisSecret]

I was also the crazy teeybopper who could tell you what they all loved to eat for breakfast without having to think twice about it. LOL I think liking their music and liking them as people have always been one in the same for me. I think growing older and gaining my own opinions and life experiences is what has made the boys more human for me; in combination with social media of course. When I was younger, I took everything that was handed to me at face value - OH, Brian is the good, sweet one?? Okay! I don't think it ever occurred to me that he could be anything but what he was presented to the world as being. The same rings true for the other guys too; whatever I was told, I believd. It wasn't until I was old enough to read between the lines that I started to realize that my pre-conceived notions of the boys were incorrect. Now, I kind of like having those "Christ, AJ is dumb" or the "Wtf was Nick thinking?" moments. They keep me grounded in my "infatuation" in a way that I never was when I was a teenager.

No matter how the guys handle their social media, there are always going to be a few who believe that they have some kind of "special" relationship with the boy/boys who have responded to them. You wouldn't really know from my social media pages that I like the boys at all. Of course I follow them, but I've never even tried to get them to comment on a post or to reply to me. But for some fans, it seems like the boys are the only reason why they have social media at all - all of their posts are designed to get that "like" from a certain boy/boys. I find it concerning when the boys respond to that. I know they are probably trying to be nice, but to the fan on the other side of the screen their niceness is taken out of proportion. What happens when the comments from the boys stop?? For some fans that might be all it would take to send them into depression or something even worse.

[FrickingKaos]

I used to buy the teeny bopper
 magazines and take the quizzes in them telling you who your soul mate was based on your favorite color and food lol.. I would get Nick every time and I think that's how he ended up being my favorite.... Which i kind of related to him anyway. My 14 year old logic said hey he likes pizza and so do you.. Totally meant to be!  But now I'm more of a Brian girl. There was a period of two years however where I didn't have a favorite and it was a very strange time.

[RokofAges75]

I was also the crazy teeybopper who could tell you what they all loved to eat for breakfast without having to think twice about it. LOL I think liking their music and liking them as people have always been one in the same for me. I think growing older and gaining my own opinions and life experiences is what has made the boys more human for me; in combination with social media of course. When I was younger, I took everything that was handed to me at face value - OH, Brian is the good, sweet one?? Okay! I don't think it ever occurred to me that he could be anything but what he was presented to the world as being. The same rings true for the other guys too; whatever I was told, I believd. It wasn't until I was old enough to read between the lines that I started to realize that my pre-conceived notions of the boys were incorrect. Now, I kind of like having those "Christ, AJ is dumb" or the "Wtf was Nick thinking?" moments. They keep me grounded in my "infatuation" in a way that I never was when I was a teenager.

That's a great point!  I think that's probably true for most of us who became fans when we were kids or teenagers.  I like seeing them as real people who aren't perfect, rather than these pre-packaged boyband stereotypes.

[RokofAges75]

I used to buy the teeny bopper
 magazines and take the quizzes in them telling you who your soul mate was based on your favorite color and food lol.. I would get Nick every time and I think that's how he ended up being my favorite.... Which i kind of related to him anyway. My 14 year old logic said hey he likes pizza and so do you.. Totally meant to be!  But now I'm more of a Brian girl. There was a period of two years however where I didn't have a favorite and it was a very strange time.

I loved those teenybopper magazines.  I still have a bunch of the early books about BSB too.

I'll probably always consider myself a "Brian girl" because I always have been, but I don't really have favorites anymore.  I used to have a definitive ranking... I think it was originally 1) Brian 2) AJ 3) Kevin 4) Howie 5) Nick, and then Nick started rising up the ranks to my #2, but now I have a better appreciation for Kevin and Howie, and it's hard to call any of them my "least favorite."  I love them all.  (Though I do still tend to pay the most attention to and take the most pictures of Brian and Nick at shows, so I guess Frick & Frack are still my top 2. )

[mare]

Maybe if I had become a fan right when they started, I would have had the same experience as you guys, but I'm also older than you so not sure I would have had the teenybopper mindset, but I'm sure looks would have come before the music for me lol

I loved IWITW so much, I felt the need to find out more about the people who sang the song. It's rare I will take that next step when I get into something, but when I do it generally means I become hooked. I still believe if the age differences didn't mirror real siblings and their personalities didn't completely gel with that, I would have moved along and never taken it to the next level. I never really had a favorite either. From the start, I thought of them more as musicians but personality wise, Kevin became the guy I could relate to most, followed by Nick. To me it was always more about their personalities than their looks.

The younger me would have completely fallen for Kevin. I've always been more of a tall, dark and handsome person.

[FrickingKaos]

Hm it's funny how our order changes. I used to actually really not like Kevin. I thought he was stuck up, bossy and kind of arrogant but when I finally met him in 2013 and saw a after party for the IAWLT tour I realized how funny and laid back he was. My order used to be Nick, Brian, Howie, AJ and Kevin. Now it's Brian, Nick, Kevin, AJ and Howie. Kevin has moved up over the years from meeting him on the cruises. He blew me away on the European one when he made a beeline to me to tell me he loved my hat and kissed me on the cheek. I got lots of love from him. AJ changed my opinion too. He was so sweet to the fans. So I don't really think I have a "least favorite"  anymore per se.

[mare]

AJ and Brian have always been my bottom two although, I think AJ is a great guy, I just couldn't ever really relate to him. It is hard to really judge how they are in real life. I know I've said this a billion times, but when most of us meet them it's because we have paid to do so. It's kind of their job to be super nice to us. Even if you don't meet them at a meet and greet and instead at a charity event or something BSB related, it's their job to make us feel special. Some of them are better at it then others. It's when you catch them during off times. How they act at that time is probably closest to the real them you'll see. I do think our fandom is luckier than most because some people are downright horrible to their fans, I think most of the boys appreciate and realize that without us they wouldn't be who they are today.

[RokofAges75]

I didn't fully appreciate Kevin until he left and came back.  Now he would probably be my #3 after Brian and Nick, as far as who I watch in concerts and who I want to stand by at VIP and that sort of thing.  I agree with what you said about him, Tracy - he seems a lot more laidback now than he did before he left, and he's got a great sense of humor.  I think it was harder for his real personality to show in the early days because he was always in the background, and the others stole the spotlight, not just on stage but also in interviews and stuff.  Kevin likes to talk, but he was never the one goofing around like Brian, Nick, and AJ.

Howie has grown on me a lot in the last few years as well.  And I agree about AJ being super nice.  I know they're all supposed to be nice at meet and greets, and I've never experienced any of them being "not nice," but I will say, having met them quite a few times, AJ, Howie, and Kevin have always seemed the most personable to me.  I don't know if that's just my perception because Nick and Brian make me more nervous because they're the ones I'm attracted to, or if it's true, but those three always seem genuinely happy to meet you.  Not that the other two aren't, but I feel like it varies with them.

[RokofAges75]

Do any of you have any other favorite celebrities that you've gone that extra step to find out more about and follow their personal life, not just their career?

BSB are my number ones, obviously, since I don't write fanfic about anyone else.  The only other celebrity I've really invested a lot of time in over the years is Leo DiCaprio.  I used to buy the books and memorize facts about him, and I've seen pretty much all of his movies.  I'm not as obsessed with him as I used to be in the Titanic era, but he's still my favorite actor.

It's funny because I became a fan of both in the same year, early 1998, right after Titanic came out and the Boys were becoming popular in the U.S.  I was 12 at the time, and I don't know if 12 is just an important year for developing tastes and interests that will last until adulthood or what, but several of my favorite things came out in 1997:  BSB's U.S. debut album, Titanic (favorite movie/favorite actor), and South Park (still one of my favorite shows).  I read a BuzzFeed article not long ago about what an epic year 1997 was: https://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/reminder-this-was-life-in-1997?utm_term=.pjB8bnM7J#.aclqGAJ2X  Crazy that it's been 20 years since all that stuff!

[mare]

The only other people I have obsessed about was Duran Duran and Adrian Paul (pauses for a who?) lol he played Highlander on the TV series. I LOVED him! At the height of my Highlander obsession,I was even considering a trip to Paris and the set in hopes of meeting him. Never happened, obviously.


 I was a Durannie to an embarrassing degree. I have yet to meet them even though I've actually known and went to college with two of their replacement players when sone of the originals went on hiatus. I always tell my students about the time I was waiting online to meet them in Boston and ended up being trampled on and in the end was the cut off person. The one right before me was the last one to meet them. After I was trampled on, they gave me tickets to their concert the next night where I once again was trampled on and lost my shoe. Still didn't get to meet them. I call November 2nd my bad luck day because of that. It's pretty hilarious now but not at the time. Lmao

[RokofAges75]

Wow, that's terrible!  You have some luck LOL.