Should you go to BSB for NYE?
An elder Millennial thinkpiece + a miniseries I missed in 2018 + what I'm re-reading on purpose...
This is a highlight reel time of year. (How old are you on Spotify?) And while we all reflect on the past twelve months, there is one highlight that stands out among all others:
Backstreet Boys at the Sphere.
Their revival residency was a phenomenon—for Millennials culturally, and for my girlfriends specifically. For me and my high school best friends, it was a whirlwind 24 hours of scream-singing, probiotic-popping and hamstring-pulling (which still hasn’t fully recovered, by the way).
The Backstreet Boys have extended their ex-Sphere-ience into the New Year, their summer run was that successful. And if you’re thinking of going—or better yet, if you already have tickets!—then I’m not exaggerating when I say it will be, ahem…larger than life.
The magic of it all lies, I think, in the uncoolness of it all.
Because, hear me out, Howie: the Backstreet Boys are not cool. We have had many spirited debates (including on my friend Jessi’s Phone a Friend podcast at the 20 minute mark) about whether the Boys think what they’re making is cool. And it is, in the Sphere experience sense.
But the Boys are hallmarks of Millennial culture. And if you ask anyone in Gen Z or Gen Alpha, they’ll tell you Millennials are not cool. We’re cringe. We’re awkward. We’re secondhand-embarrassing. We’re all Katy Perry.
I’ve come to believe that’s a gift. Because cringe is unselfconscious. It’s freeing. It’s fun.
By being the kings of cringe themselves, the Backstreet Boys liberate their fans to be their most embarrassing selves. Every single one of us inside the Sphere transformed into our inner tween. And I’m not talking about the chic 2025 kind of tween who knows how to contour; I’m talking about the mid-90s VHS music video-making kind of tween who has Anne Geddes posters and a moustache.
Contrast that, if you will, with former tween phenomenon Justin Bieber who will soon be headlining Coachella. Grownup Beliebers probably won’t roll up to the polo fields in turbo moron mode. Because he is now cool. And it is not cool to be uncool.
Unless you’re a BSB fan, in which case uncool is fun.
The poet Ocean Vuong’s take on young people’s fear of being cringe went mega-viral this summer. It was a conversation specific to art and writing, but I think it could also apply to having fun.
After spending one hour and 40 minutes in the beautiful Millennial bubble that was the BS(phere)B, my friends and I went to XS Nightclub at the Wynn, which was like time travelling from an era dominated by the Spice Girls to one dominated by Taylor Swift (who, as you of course remember, went to XS with Travis Kelce when they were in Vegas).
In the wee hours of the morning, in between flames and smoke machines and confetti, Dillon Francis (a DJ, producer and Millennial) played the Macarena and my friends and I watched, baffled, as today’s youth danced to the Macarena without doing the Macarena. Were they too afraid of being caught on someone’s phone? Do they not even know the moves? Has our generation utterly failed to pass down cultural milestones to the next? I have so many questions!
And to answer one of yours: were we doing the Macarena? No, we were not. We were sitting down because it was around 3am and we were quite fatigued. But that’s not the point!
The point is: to be cringe is to be fun.
So go forth! Embarrass yourselves! Spend more time in turbo cringe mode at your personal version of the BSB at the Sphere! (Or the actual BSB at the Sphere!) Just make sure you stretch your hamstrings first.
Worth the Wait
I’m not a re-reader. Except for the time I got halfway through a book before realizing I’d already read it—I wish I could remember which book it was but I can’t (don’t know if that’s more of an indictment of it or me). But right now I’m re-reading two books:
The Island of Forgetting by Jasmine Sealy
Which I first read for my bookclub en route to Vegas, in fact. And I’m re-reading it now because I loved it and am going to be speaking with Jasmine next week.
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
I’ve started working on my second novel and I now finally understand what every author has ever said about their second book: the expectations around it are a whole thing. I don’t even remember what my expectations were when I started my first book—it’s not even published yet and already I’m trying to figure out how to follow it up.
I somehow missed HBO’s miniseries Sharp Objects when it first came out in 2018 and am now making up for lost time. It is dark and creepy AF.
Stay cringe, friends!
Kelsey
P.S. You know who was cool, though?