PeerIndex’s chart of Britain’s most influential Twitter users in 2013. Currently, the band’s official Twitter account boasts 18.6 million followers while followers of the boys’ personal accounts range from 12.4 million ( to 20.2 million ( Last year, the boys’ popularity on the social networking site earned them titles as “Britain’s most influential Twitter users, ahead of British Prime Minister.
The amount of followers One Direction’s official social media accounts, as well as the boys’ individual ones, have amassed indicate just how connected fans are with the boy bands they admire. The heyday of *NSYNC’s generation of boy bands ended before social media truly exploded and became everyone’s newest addiction. Their predecessors, however, emerged and skyrocketed to superstardom during this era of widespread online, social interaction, allowing them to leverage it for their bands’ successes.
The song, while very sexually suggestive and clearly about cybersex ( Baby, baby we can do more than just talk / Cause I can hear ya, hear ya, and I can see ya, see ya), anticipated just how much the then-fledgling technology would effect interpersonal relationships and usher-in an era of constant connectivity. *NSYNC, with their 2000 song “Digital Get Down,” was perhaps the first boy band to publicly embrace the Internet as more than a forum for hosting websites. However, the topic of boy bands and social media deserves its own in-depth post, for the Internet truly has impacted most aspects of boy band culture, from fan interaction to individual members’ personal branding. Previous Boy Bands 101 posts have mentioned how social media has changed the ways in which boy band fans express and carry out their fandom. Furthermore, their actions will positively influence boy bands to come and further engrain such ideals in pop culture. One Direction has made strides in some of these realms, but as figures to whom millions of young fans look up, it is their duty to further convey messages of acceptance and tolerance, for their influence will trickle down and hopefully eventually become internalized in younger generations’ psyche. Additionally, boy band culture needs to continue accepting and supporting members and fans of non-heteronormative orientations, expressions, and identities. Boy bands and their songwriting and marketing teams should, for example, eradicate the use of problematic, suggestive lyrics in favor of promoting positive, healthy of love, relationships, and sex.
In Boy Bands 101, we’ve covered a variety of topics under the umbrella of boy bands, fandom, and sexuality, including homosexual boy band fans’ experiences and the important role boy bands play in girls’ development of sexuality.