In Which I Break Boy Band Synonyms

An Important Announcement Regarding Boy Bands on Flâneur in the City:

Sorry to disappoint you, new readers, but this is not a Backstreet Boys Blog. Even though seven out of ten of my keyword searches for today alone have been for the Astern Avenue Adolescents.

And only ONE for Bowie? Really?

Despite what Google may lead you to believe, I have all of one post on the Ol' Rear Road Rousers, and the fellows are mostly used as a metaphor for communication on the Internet. (Oh! And said post also brought me my very first troll! Memmmmories!)

There's this post on Forgotten Boy Bands of the '90s that I need to follow-up on, but since many of you so ardently, lovingly Google the Young Bucks of Posterior Boulevard, I don't think they're really forgotten.

But now that we're talking about them, I suppose I do have something to say.

This right here? This is "As Long As You Love Me."

 And this? This is Justin Bieber?

 What do you mean it's not a Lads of the Rearmost Lane tribute cover? Image via Wikipedia.

Honestly? I don't WTF the Justin Bieber kid is singing when he crones, "As Long As You Love Me" on the radio. Perhaps it's because of the lone gray hair that sticks out of my scalp like a planted flag on Mt. Brunette, but I do not understand why this song exists. There can be only one boy band/boy bander with this song title. It's like Highlander, but much more deadly.

This is not a bad picture; the '90s were just that fuzzy.

The Bairns of the Hindmost Trail are five and the Biebs is one. And Bieb-a-roo, that doesn't mean you are THE one.

Anyway, this has been your FitC Important Boy Band Announcement of the Day.

You Find Me

Every so often I check my blog's stats to see how people came to FitC. Here are 10 things Google believes FitC is about, accurate or not.

1.) Dirty Cat:

Bagheera is not amused.

 Despite the "FUN" arrows, Bagheera is not having any of your shenanigans.

2.) Serious Research:

Do your own homework. Don't copy mine.

3.) Pervy Fangirls:

You. You GTFO. Now. Because I don't know whether to be offended or turned on.

4.) Do What Now?

I don't know what you want. You want David Bowie? Here's some David Bowie.

When in doubt, you can never go wrong with David Bowie.

How to Get Blog Hits, FitC Style

I'm not a successful blogger by any means (I'd never win America's Next Top Blogger, no matter how often Tyra Banks told me to use SEO phrases and smile with my eyes) but here are a few things I've learned from having Flâneur in the City these past few years. Follow my lead and you too can have tens of blog hits from people who aren't even related to you! Tens, I tell you!

1.) Katy Perry's boobs. Never mind the feminist critique that accompanies the photo of KP's candy cleavage and the clear preference for Lady Gaga. Pictures! Boobs!

Lesson: Pop stars can be used to teach anything. Feminism, economics, quantum physics. If you're writing about a subject that isn't spicy enough to draw in readers who aren't your friends and family, throw in some pop stars.

Two for the price of one!

2.) Backstreet Boys! Clearly I underestimated the draw. The 1990s are alive and well in the hearts of Internet users and damn it they will have their Backstreet's Back, all right!

Lesson: Nostalgia = Blog hits.

3.) Quotation marks around the phrase "David Bowie's Penis." There's half my Google hits right there.

Lesson: This lesson really only applies to FitC. But if you have a celeb (or author or musician or congresswoman, but not a real person in your life) you love, write about him/her. Avoid being creepy about it. There's a difference between jest and stalking. And if there's one thing I am absolutely certain of is that everyone loves David Bowie and his spider from Mars.

4.) Obscure hits come from the phrase "fishing lures London." One photo of shining fishing lures near South Kensington mean a few readers have found FitC in hopes of improving their fishing. Sorry, mates.

Lesson: The more obscure, the better. Any topic you know that no one else knows? Write about it. And use keywords that pertain to the subject. Frequently, but not obnoxiously.

5.) Friends with blogs. A lot of my hits come from Shakesville and Feministe; both sport open forums that encourage readers to share what they've been bloggity-blogging about. When I write something related to social justice, feminism, politics, or 90s pop stars, I share. I have a whole Reading List of blogs and sites that I am in touch with, and I want to add more.

Lesson: Make friends with benefits! Also with blogs.

What the Backstreet Boys Taught Me About Internet Politics

Bastions of Internet knowledge.

When I was young'in, I attended 4 different high schools before graduating. In the states, high school is 4 years of study and jumping schools isn't the norm. The first school was an arts school that combined junior high with the first year of high school (7th through 9th grade). The second school was the local high school I was assigned to by location (10th grade), and the third was a brand new high school built to manage overcrowding that my district re-assigned me and half my classmates to (11th and 12th grade). In this shuffling about, I managed to miss a required math class and found myself in my last term of my senior year missing a credit that I would need to graduate come Spring with the rest of my classmates.

In came high school number four: a night school that offered the missed class I needed that I would attend after my regular full day of classes. The night school was alternative schooling for an eclectic mix of students who didn't fit the traditional mold; young mothers, working students, students who were not up to speed for their grade level, older students, students who spoke English as a second language (like the French-Arabic guy who I would sometimes make-out with in the parking lot, but that's another story), and students who missed a class (like me). 

One night I made it class a little bit early and took a seat next to two friendly looking girls. We started talking. They were younger than me, both around 15. Let's call them Girl A and Girl B. What followed was an encounter that I still think about, years later.

"He called me again last night," Girl A said to Girl B.
"For real?" Girl B replied.
"Yeah, he says he's really into me," Girl A said.
Girl B looked at me and excitedly said, "She knows the Backstreet Boys."
My reaction was naturally skeptical. "How?" I asked.
"I know a girl who knows them," Girl A explained. "She gave them my number and we talk."
"But, how do you know it's them?" I said.
"I talk to Kevin. He knows things only the Backstreet Boys would know," Girl A earnestly replied.

But, how would you know what only they would know? I wanted to ask, but stopped myself. I weighed the possibility that this was a stupid joke. A really stupid joke. Or was it possible that Kevin was actually calling this girl every night? That would be some serious dedication to the fans, or worth a call to the police, since 15-year-old girls are underage and Kevin was grown man. But after listening to her talk a few more minutes it was obviously not the case. Too many details didn't add up. Could this girl really believe that the Backstreet Boys, who were at the height of their late '90s popularity, would be calling a 15-year-old girl they've never met before just to chat for hours?

Forgotten Boy Bands Of The '90s

Tonight's jam?

Canadian white boys, Soul Decision, playing that song you may inexplicably know all the words to, Faded!

The frosty-tipped Tyler Durden lead singer has a stipulation in his contract to raise his eyebrows every four words. Note the requisite playing-basketball-in-a-vague-warehouse-type-building. See, Boys, The Backstreet for further reference.

In Which I Gush Over Early 90's Teen Dreams

Won't You Join Me?

Last month, Hairpin has an awe-inspiring collection of poems and diary entries written to Johnathan Taylor Thomas, circa 1995, all of which are hilarious and concurrently heart-breaking and heart-warming.

One of the comments?

"Maybe it's cause I wasn't fourteen until 2007, but who the hell is JTT?"

I don't know how to wrap my 90's-girl head around this question.

Granted, JTT was not "my" boyfriend; he belonged solely to my best friend Stephanie. Once her relationship with JTT was established, I never gave him a glance. My early-90s boyfriend was the far superior Rider Strong.

 Why? Glad you asked.

Rider Strong, ladies.

1.) Because his name is RIDER STRONG. Ride. Her. Strong.
His name is the single greatest pick-up line dream of hipsters everywhere.

2.) Because his favorite song (according to Tiger Beat) was Pachelbel's Canon in D minor.  Internet friends, believe me when I tell you that I already loved that piece of music prior to reading it as his fav in my teeny-bopper mag. The real kicker was how it was all so very deep and meaningful to 12-year-old me; Rider liking it (or his publicist claiming he liked it) separated him from the pack and shunned anything modern that played on The Edge 95.1 FM every single day. Any stupid boy could claim Nirvana as their favorite music, because, hello, Nirvana in the early 90s. But Rider? Rider was DEEP and SOULFUL. He liked classical music.

3.) On the way to school every morning our carpool would pass the van rental company Ryder, which was an utter sign from God that only I could interpret that Rider was waiting for me to be my forever boyfriend, who would totally slow dance with me in the school cafeteria on dance night and maybe fly in on a magic carpet and I dunno what else, but it would make everyone else super jealous in ways no one had ever been jealous before.

Logical reasons. He was also on a telly show called Boy Meets World, but that's beside the point.

As for JTT,  random-Internet-commenter-who-really-didn't-ask-me, he was the little beat-off from the misogynist-mother-load Home Improvement with really bouncy blond hair. (And The Lion King's Simba, but only talking Simba. Singing Simba was Jason Weaver, or J-Weav.)

JTT. You're welcome, Stephanie.

Other contenders for my Imaginary Boyfriends circa the early 90s were: Will Smith, Tommy Page, Jonathan Brandis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jared Leto and Keanu Reeves. (My attraction to men older than me is a habit that seems to have held over into adulthood.)

So, who was your Imaginary Significant Other? No worries, if you call dibs, I'll keep my hands off.