My $.02

22 years ago I was an overweight, insecure young teenage girl. I wasn't popular & I was pretty sure that I was either invisible to boys or a source of material for their cruel jokes.
One day I turned on the TV, saw a pop group performing on a kids show and fell instantly in love. These guys were everything that I thought a boy should be.  Many of the girls in my class agreed with me and I suddenly had a way to relate to people and make new friends. We spent hours and hours clipping pictures out of magazines, reading interviews, watching videos & analyzing every single move those 5 boys made and every word they spoke. Several months after that fateful performance on TV I had the opportunity to attend one of their concerts. I had lawn seats & I was completely ecstatic just to be in the same stadium with them.
As their popularity grew, so did my desire to get as close to them as possible. Unfortunately, just about every other teenage girl on the planet felt the same way. Getting close to them was about as likely to happen as me taking a rocket ship to the moon. That didn't stop us from trying though. The next time I went to a concert, I spent HOURS standing outside in the snow just hoping for a glimpse, and maybe, just MAYBE if I was really lucky...a wave. This time I was in the nosebleeds. At the end of the show I was jumping up & down acting like a complete maniac and Joe looked up in my direction, laughed, and waved. I may have cried. I know I talked about it for days.
Those boys and my friends helped me feel good about myself. They gave me something to do besides sitting in front of the TV feeling sorry for myself. The concerts were the best things ever. Going to New Kids concerts made me feel alive in a way I had never experienced before. They were just pure fun.
Unfortunately as time went on, girls got more & more competitive about things. People started asking their parents to call in favors just to have the opportunity to look one of the guys in the eye and say hello. Friendships ended simply because two girls weren't allowed to like the same guy. People wanted MORE. The venues got larger, the merchandise got more plentiful (and more expensive), and things became a lot LESS fun.
Eventually it became too much and the group broke up. I grew up & moved onto other things. So did my friends.


3 years ago I was an overweight, insecure & lonely wife and mother. I spent my days going to work, looking after my family and watching TV and blogging. I rarely went out and I had no close friends to speak of. One day I opened an email and discovered that the pop group that I had seen on that TV show 20 years before was getting back together. I wasn't sure what to think. I decided to give it a chance and I began following their progress. When their tour was announced I knew that it was something that I had to experience. I got tickets to their show and when I got to the venue, I was ecstatic just to be in the same arena with them.  My seats were directly opposite the stage at the other end of the floor. The guys looked tiny- but I was having the time of my life. When the group popped up on the B-Stage right in front of me I thought that I might pee my pants. I felt like I was 14 again.
This time I didn't have any classmates to giggle and gossip with. What I DID have was the internet. I logged onto the New Kids fan forum & discovered that nothing had really changed in 20 years. We still loved to look at pictures, read interviews, watch videos, and analyze every move and every word out of their mouths.
Except that some things HAD changed. This time we were older. We had our own bank accounts and access to things that were out of our reach 20 years ago.  We also had the internet...a way to interact that was beyond our wildest teenage dreams. We had TWITTER.


Again, I came out of my shell and made friends. I started to feel good about myself again. I became more & more confident and stopped feeling so lonely and depressed. Once again the guys, and my new friends helped me to find myself and grow as a person.

And now, as time goes on things are starting to change again. People want MORE. Simply going to a concert is not enough any more. Now it's all about how many shows you can get to, how close to the stage you can get, how many 5* experiences you can afford. It's about getting a follow, or getting "eye sex" during a show. People are more concerned with competing for recognition than they are with enjoying the show.

I get it. I understand where it comes from. Getting those few seconds of recognition- it's an amazing feeling. It's like a drug and one hit is never enough. But it's also like a drug in that it's poison. That all consuming need takes over and ruins everything. It makes everything LESS fun.


I'm sure that there are people who will call me a hypocrite for what I am saying. People that will think "Oh yes Shannon, that's all fine and dandy because you have HAD the recognition"...and I get that too. Yes. I have been unbelievably fortunate. I do not take that for granted. I know exactly how much people want to experience some of the things that I have experienced. I know, because I have been there.


What too many people don't understand is that getting those things- the smile, the look, the hug, the follow...it doesn't change anything. I'm not saying it doesn't feel good. It does. It feels wonderful. But at the end of the day, I am still JUST a fan like anyone else. I still wait with butterflies in my stomach wondering what is going to come next. I still get nervous before tickets go on sale hoping to get the best seats possible. I still wonder if any of my tweets are even seen. I don't get special treatment. I'm not jetting around the country hanging out backstage chatting with the guys in the dressing room. Hell, I've never even seen backstage and I doubt I ever will. I don't even think I want to. Not if it means that I have to give up the friendships.


Yes, I adore those 5 goofy guys from Boston. They help me escape from the stresses of my every day life and they remind me not to take things too seriously...that life should be FUN.  They also remind me that family and friends are more important than anything else in this world. THAT is what I want to hang onto.
The rest? Well...it's just supposed to be entertaining. So please, can we stop taking things so seriously? Stop turning it all into some manic competition? Start appreciating it for what it is and showing respect for the gift that we have been given?


Remember that first intro- the lasers tracing out NKOTB, the smoke, the screams, the anticipation...and then FINALLY that platform coming up out of the floor. Hang onto that feeling because THAT my friends is what it's all about.