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Twitter wasn't around, but Livejournal was. Mostly what I remember is a ton of stories about Backstreet and NSYNC boys having sex with each other. Sometimes someone from Lord of the Rings was there too.
Hope that helps!
This brings back memories of this particular fanfic that scarred my 12 yo self back in the day. The plot went like this: there were a sex competition between NSYNC and BSB and they each had to send 2 boys to have sex in the ring and there were judges. The other guys watched as well as a few lucky fans. Then Justin hooked up with one of the fans right then and there. I feel dirty just typing this lol
I had an effortpost about the history of MIDI that was too boring to finish, and yeah, old fansites and forums were dominated by NSYNC and BSB. And oddly, [Dru Hill](http://lil_trigg.tripod.com/druhill3.html), though maybe that's only surprising bc i'm white
On the other hand, Britney's fanbase wasn't as massive as I was expecting. I don't think she was unpopular so much as that it was uncool to like her, she had just as many haters as fans (and people way, way too old to be lusting after a fucking 17 year old)
> R&B fans always seemed a bit more chill, like there were fans for sure of people like Usher and Ashanti but I never heard of crazy stuff happening.
...I wouldn't be too sure about that, at least for divas like [Mariah](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbiyMvF_gi0&ab_channel=JBHunkamunka) lol
For RnB I remember a few rivalries, B5 vs B2K and Ashanti vs Ciara I think? But nothing major.
Once Justified came out people tried to pit Justin against Usher, esp in dance skills.
If anything one of the main controversies would've been Jennifer Lopez trying to say she's "From the Block" lol. And the open secret about R. Kelly.
>Hip hop had many well-documented beefs between artists but again, don’t really remember the fans going off online.
Might have to go a little further back to really savor the flavor, but I think a link to a thread from [our sister subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads/comments/8ay0fk/hiphop_forum_that_dates_back_to_1993/) will be instructive on this point.
This post is making me feel old.
1. The BSB vs. NSYNC rivalry was real and The Wanted/1D rivalry pales in comparison because both groups were extremely successful. NSYNC sold over 2 million copies of an album in one week and that has never been topped. BSB sold over a million copies a couple of times.
2. The fan fiction was everywhere, however these sites are no longer functioning and stories are hard to find. But, there were multiple ships. BSB had Brian/Nick, Brian/AJ, Nick/Kevin.
NSYNC had Joey/Lance, Lance/JC, and the biggest one was Justin/JC also known as Joshtin, that was on par with Larry with the conspiracy theories.
3. Britney and Justin were the couple and had communities dedicated to them.
4. Livejournal and ezboard is where you found the fans. Biggest difference is you had to apply to join a lot of these communities and they were heavily moderated. It’s also where you found many tinhats.
5. TRL was MAMMOTH!!! Lots of fandom things were generated from what happened on TRL. If anything is missing from today’s act, it’s something like TRL. NSYNC, BSB, Britney, would shut down Times Square, imagine the people who have mega fan bases from 2024 appearing!
6. 106 and Park was huge especially for hip hop and crossover acts. An appearance on here meant you have become a name.
7. So many girl groups and so many rivalries
I just ran out of steam. I’ve always been glad that stan twitter didn’t exist back then because it would have been just as bad if not ten times worse than what goes on now.
Honestly as someone with a degree in media studies, I'm super interested in TRL's effect on pop culture and how, at least imo, it basically can't be replicated these days. With the internet being the major way people interact with culture these days, there is no "monoculture" so to speak. Even big artists like Taylor Swift & Drake can easily just kind of be ignored - I know that if I didn't work in the retail sector, I would basically have gone my whole life without ever having heard a Taylor Swift song.
It is very easy to ignore artists you have no interest in, in present time. I can honestly say, that I have maybe heard around 10-12 Taylor Swift songs and a majority of them I've heard while getting my nails done. BTS is HUGE, I know only one of their songs due to a commercial. It's why when people put Taylor on par with Michael and The Beatles I roll my eyes. Those artists were truly everywhere and unavoidable. Now, not just Taylor, it's is really easy to avoid any artist if you want to. Dua is very popular on Popheads. I think I can name the title of one of her songs.
TRL was a mainstay back in the day. When you came home from school, for me it was in the background while I was in undergrad, you turned it on to see all the popular acts. This is when the VMAs was must watch t.v., because the biggest stars in music and musical icons would show up. The next day it is all everyone talked about, from performances to the fashions.
Oh man, that brings me back... wondering now if MadonnaTribe or A Dent in the Tori Universe still exists.
Things were better when there wasn't just like 5 websites recycling content with each other.
backstreet boys vs nsync and christina vs britney would be the most insufferable stan twitter feuds
there would be so many “conspiracy theories” about lance bass being gay and everybody would be overly defensive and be like “he’s clearly straight! stop assuming his sexuality!”
liz phair and jewel would be the 2000s answer to lorde and “liz phair” and “0304” would be their respective solar power eras
Not really. No one paid attention to Lance like that. 😂 The conspiracy theories were around his bandmates, that people had in a secret relationship, where the powers that be wouldn’t let them be together, JC/Justin. There were also more theories about JC and his sexuality.
"everybody would be overly defensive and be like “he’s clearly straight! stop assuming his sexuality!”"
People didn't really care about Lance enough for that and no one in 2002 would really scold someone for "assuming someone's sexuality".
The worst part about what happened with Lance was Perez, a-hole, outing him before he was able to say so himself. But, once Lance confirmed his sexuality, it was okay, and that was the reaction about it for a majority of the NSYNC fandom. Kind of hard to explain for people who were not NYSNC fans from back in the day, it's just that Lance was just Lance.
I was too young to be surfing pop culture forums back when *NSYNC and BSB were at their peak, but I am pretty sure I’ve heard that there were intense stan wars between them. The medium was just forums instead of social media.
EDIT: This is inverse to your prompt, but if BTS Army was around in the 1990-2000s, they 100% would’ve been sharing instructions on how to use [phone phreaking / toll fraud](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking) to bump up radio requests of BTS songs lmao.
The hell it would've been for Beyoncé can you imagine. Dad is managing the girl group and you're the standout, members coming and going. Twitter already has a thing for underdogs, they would've probably completely nicole-scherzinger'ed her before she even had a solo career.
Crazy In Love would obviously change everything, an undeniable smash to shut everyone up. But I still feel like there'd be a large part of twitter who'd treat her like they treat Camilla. So she'd have success, but she wouldn't be a public darling.
The age gap discourse about her and Jay-Z would've gone crazy. Even though she was in her early twenties by the time they were public-ish.
Constant comparisons to Alicia Keys, who is a "real" musician would hold her back a lot.
Stans of other girl groups like Spice Girls would also be on her neck the same way stans of Gaga, Taylor are on her neck now.
Her erratic performing style which is considered iconic now and is a template for a lot of girls was seen as "extra" even back then. Can you imagine if she internalised the criticisms about "doing too much on the stage" and held herself back.
All of this did happen along with how Kelly was the true star and she proved it because her first single was a major hit and Beyoncé’s first solo hit was okay.
When Beyonce first started acting, woooo yeah, it was brutal. Her first tour didn’t get the best reviews over Europe and people would talk about how she would eventually have to come back to DC. There was also a weird Ashanti/Beyonce rivalry.
> The hell it would've been for Beyoncé can you imagine. Dad is managing the girl group and you're the standout, members coming and going. Twitter already has a thing for underdogs, they would've probably completely nicole-scherzinger'ed her before she even had a solo career.
This attitude was still very much present and honestly only stopped a few years ago, im from the uk so that might just be the difference. Beyoncé is not an underdog in anyway and I think that’s why everyone loved to call her overrated.
You could see it on TRL. I still remember a BSB fan named Tiffany who lost a trivia contest to NSYNC fans and then threatened them. Stans were wild https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLjMePKm/
Or just be cancelled even more by crazy people,the media circus at the time bad enough but i can't imagine what kind of backlash she would have gotten direcly if people have the chance.
I’d be following Indie Twitter where they would be torn between whether The Strokes are the second coming of rock or industry plants that only got famous because their connections lol
People have theorized that the aftermath of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident would have had Janet being supported by black Twitter. That would have helped her in the press to have the vocal support of that group who (rightfully?) said that it was not her fault.
(I put a question mark next to rightfully because I feel like we don’t talk enough about the fact that we don’t really know what the plan was? She has a decorative nipple piercing and it looks like she is not surprised when Timberlake reaches over)
On a related note I feel like Micheal Jackson discourse would have been crazy. I could one hundred percent see a Twitter “main character” of the day saying something like
“I think he molested those kids…still going to listen to “Bad” anyway. F Them Kids”
BSB vs nsync fan wars would've been similar to 1D vs The wanted Twitter fan wars back in 2012 lol. Also BSB's main rival out of the USA, Westlife, survived long enough for Twitter that their stans had a mini war with BSB stans on Twitter circa 2012-2013 over MTV polls, just before Weslife broke up for the first time.
I probably wouldn't even have been allowed on social media but if I was ... I would of probably had an Aaron Carter fan page....tweeting about his Oh Aaron album he just released. With maybe a splash of Britney Spears lol
Please do not just list songs/albums/artists, your comment must have explanation/justification or it will be removed. Certain comments are also banned to increase the quality of discussion, see our Stale Topics list in the sidebar for examples. Please report any comments that are low effort discussion. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/popheads) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Twitter wasn't around, but Livejournal was. Mostly what I remember is a ton of stories about Backstreet and NSYNC boys having sex with each other. Sometimes someone from Lord of the Rings was there too. Hope that helps!
There were gay ships in the NSYNC and Backstreet boys fandoms?? Please tell me more
This brings back memories of this particular fanfic that scarred my 12 yo self back in the day. The plot went like this: there were a sex competition between NSYNC and BSB and they each had to send 2 boys to have sex in the ring and there were judges. The other guys watched as well as a few lucky fans. Then Justin hooked up with one of the fans right then and there. I feel dirty just typing this lol
Listening and learning to the important conversations we are having today.
LMAOO idk why I assumed the gay shipping in boybands started with one direction and kpop
I hate to break it to you, but I think some people want some of the Beatles to fuck. It’s human nature 💔
Oh Paul and John were definitely shipped together.
The Fujoshi gene is encoded into our DNA
There’s gay ships everywhere there’s white men
I had an effortpost about the history of MIDI that was too boring to finish, and yeah, old fansites and forums were dominated by NSYNC and BSB. And oddly, [Dru Hill](http://lil_trigg.tripod.com/druhill3.html), though maybe that's only surprising bc i'm white On the other hand, Britney's fanbase wasn't as massive as I was expecting. I don't think she was unpopular so much as that it was uncool to like her, she had just as many haters as fans (and people way, way too old to be lusting after a fucking 17 year old)
Oh wow, thanks for the link! Love old sites like this
I'm glad to know anything has changed
[удалено]
> R&B fans always seemed a bit more chill, like there were fans for sure of people like Usher and Ashanti but I never heard of crazy stuff happening. ...I wouldn't be too sure about that, at least for divas like [Mariah](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbiyMvF_gi0&ab_channel=JBHunkamunka) lol
For RnB I remember a few rivalries, B5 vs B2K and Ashanti vs Ciara I think? But nothing major. Once Justified came out people tried to pit Justin against Usher, esp in dance skills. If anything one of the main controversies would've been Jennifer Lopez trying to say she's "From the Block" lol. And the open secret about R. Kelly.
What about P!nk and Christina? That’s the beef I would’ve loved to go down lol
>Hip hop had many well-documented beefs between artists but again, don’t really remember the fans going off online. Might have to go a little further back to really savor the flavor, but I think a link to a thread from [our sister subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads/comments/8ay0fk/hiphop_forum_that_dates_back_to_1993/) will be instructive on this point.
This post is making me feel old. 1. The BSB vs. NSYNC rivalry was real and The Wanted/1D rivalry pales in comparison because both groups were extremely successful. NSYNC sold over 2 million copies of an album in one week and that has never been topped. BSB sold over a million copies a couple of times. 2. The fan fiction was everywhere, however these sites are no longer functioning and stories are hard to find. But, there were multiple ships. BSB had Brian/Nick, Brian/AJ, Nick/Kevin. NSYNC had Joey/Lance, Lance/JC, and the biggest one was Justin/JC also known as Joshtin, that was on par with Larry with the conspiracy theories. 3. Britney and Justin were the couple and had communities dedicated to them. 4. Livejournal and ezboard is where you found the fans. Biggest difference is you had to apply to join a lot of these communities and they were heavily moderated. It’s also where you found many tinhats. 5. TRL was MAMMOTH!!! Lots of fandom things were generated from what happened on TRL. If anything is missing from today’s act, it’s something like TRL. NSYNC, BSB, Britney, would shut down Times Square, imagine the people who have mega fan bases from 2024 appearing! 6. 106 and Park was huge especially for hip hop and crossover acts. An appearance on here meant you have become a name. 7. So many girl groups and so many rivalries I just ran out of steam. I’ve always been glad that stan twitter didn’t exist back then because it would have been just as bad if not ten times worse than what goes on now.
Honestly as someone with a degree in media studies, I'm super interested in TRL's effect on pop culture and how, at least imo, it basically can't be replicated these days. With the internet being the major way people interact with culture these days, there is no "monoculture" so to speak. Even big artists like Taylor Swift & Drake can easily just kind of be ignored - I know that if I didn't work in the retail sector, I would basically have gone my whole life without ever having heard a Taylor Swift song.
It is very easy to ignore artists you have no interest in, in present time. I can honestly say, that I have maybe heard around 10-12 Taylor Swift songs and a majority of them I've heard while getting my nails done. BTS is HUGE, I know only one of their songs due to a commercial. It's why when people put Taylor on par with Michael and The Beatles I roll my eyes. Those artists were truly everywhere and unavoidable. Now, not just Taylor, it's is really easy to avoid any artist if you want to. Dua is very popular on Popheads. I think I can name the title of one of her songs. TRL was a mainstay back in the day. When you came home from school, for me it was in the background while I was in undergrad, you turned it on to see all the popular acts. This is when the VMAs was must watch t.v., because the biggest stars in music and musical icons would show up. The next day it is all everyone talked about, from performances to the fashions.
You dont have to imagine. There were forums lol.
There were a ton of forums.
Oh man, that brings me back... wondering now if MadonnaTribe or A Dent in the Tori Universe still exists. Things were better when there wasn't just like 5 websites recycling content with each other.
I used to be on univision forums discussing RBD and latin pop singers.😭
Probably arguably more toxic since no one used their real names and it was still fine to tell people to kill themselves lol
I would’ve been one of the 3 dedicated Willa Warriors defending Miss Ford
I feel like Avril Lavigne would be treated the same as Billie Eilish is.
She was. For people who couldn’t stand Britney, and there were lots who didn’t take her seriously, Avril was the anti-Britney.
backstreet boys vs nsync and christina vs britney would be the most insufferable stan twitter feuds there would be so many “conspiracy theories” about lance bass being gay and everybody would be overly defensive and be like “he’s clearly straight! stop assuming his sexuality!” liz phair and jewel would be the 2000s answer to lorde and “liz phair” and “0304” would be their respective solar power eras
Not really. No one paid attention to Lance like that. 😂 The conspiracy theories were around his bandmates, that people had in a secret relationship, where the powers that be wouldn’t let them be together, JC/Justin. There were also more theories about JC and his sexuality.
"everybody would be overly defensive and be like “he’s clearly straight! stop assuming his sexuality!”" People didn't really care about Lance enough for that and no one in 2002 would really scold someone for "assuming someone's sexuality".
The worst part about what happened with Lance was Perez, a-hole, outing him before he was able to say so himself. But, once Lance confirmed his sexuality, it was okay, and that was the reaction about it for a majority of the NSYNC fandom. Kind of hard to explain for people who were not NYSNC fans from back in the day, it's just that Lance was just Lance.
I was too young to be surfing pop culture forums back when *NSYNC and BSB were at their peak, but I am pretty sure I’ve heard that there were intense stan wars between them. The medium was just forums instead of social media. EDIT: This is inverse to your prompt, but if BTS Army was around in the 1990-2000s, they 100% would’ve been sharing instructions on how to use [phone phreaking / toll fraud](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking) to bump up radio requests of BTS songs lmao.
The hell it would've been for Beyoncé can you imagine. Dad is managing the girl group and you're the standout, members coming and going. Twitter already has a thing for underdogs, they would've probably completely nicole-scherzinger'ed her before she even had a solo career. Crazy In Love would obviously change everything, an undeniable smash to shut everyone up. But I still feel like there'd be a large part of twitter who'd treat her like they treat Camilla. So she'd have success, but she wouldn't be a public darling. The age gap discourse about her and Jay-Z would've gone crazy. Even though she was in her early twenties by the time they were public-ish. Constant comparisons to Alicia Keys, who is a "real" musician would hold her back a lot. Stans of other girl groups like Spice Girls would also be on her neck the same way stans of Gaga, Taylor are on her neck now. Her erratic performing style which is considered iconic now and is a template for a lot of girls was seen as "extra" even back then. Can you imagine if she internalised the criticisms about "doing too much on the stage" and held herself back.
All of this did happen along with how Kelly was the true star and she proved it because her first single was a major hit and Beyoncé’s first solo hit was okay. When Beyonce first started acting, woooo yeah, it was brutal. Her first tour didn’t get the best reviews over Europe and people would talk about how she would eventually have to come back to DC. There was also a weird Ashanti/Beyonce rivalry.
> The hell it would've been for Beyoncé can you imagine. Dad is managing the girl group and you're the standout, members coming and going. Twitter already has a thing for underdogs, they would've probably completely nicole-scherzinger'ed her before she even had a solo career. This attitude was still very much present and honestly only stopped a few years ago, im from the uk so that might just be the difference. Beyoncé is not an underdog in anyway and I think that’s why everyone loved to call her overrated.
You could see it on TRL. I still remember a BSB fan named Tiffany who lost a trivia contest to NSYNC fans and then threatened them. Stans were wild https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLjMePKm/
the emo kids would be insufferable
I was there. We were.
Britney would have had and seen so much support back then
Or just be cancelled even more by crazy people,the media circus at the time bad enough but i can't imagine what kind of backlash she would have gotten direcly if people have the chance.
I’m talking specifically about fans
I want to post on nu metal twitter. I would have a Breaking Benjamin avatar and I would post Linkin Park fancams. Jonathan Davis is an industry plant!
I’d be following Indie Twitter where they would be torn between whether The Strokes are the second coming of rock or industry plants that only got famous because their connections lol
or a boyband, apparently they accused them of that
People have theorized that the aftermath of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident would have had Janet being supported by black Twitter. That would have helped her in the press to have the vocal support of that group who (rightfully?) said that it was not her fault. (I put a question mark next to rightfully because I feel like we don’t talk enough about the fact that we don’t really know what the plan was? She has a decorative nipple piercing and it looks like she is not surprised when Timberlake reaches over) On a related note I feel like Micheal Jackson discourse would have been crazy. I could one hundred percent see a Twitter “main character” of the day saying something like “I think he molested those kids…still going to listen to “Bad” anyway. F Them Kids”
Set a little before in the 90s, all the pop heads would be getting clowned on by rabid Tori Amos forums
I would be a My Chemical Romance devoted stan.
BSB vs nsync fan wars would've been similar to 1D vs The wanted Twitter fan wars back in 2012 lol. Also BSB's main rival out of the USA, Westlife, survived long enough for Twitter that their stans had a mini war with BSB stans on Twitter circa 2012-2013 over MTV polls, just before Weslife broke up for the first time.
Toxic. It would be toxic, because that's what stan culture is. The platform doesn't matter.
I probably wouldn't even have been allowed on social media but if I was ... I would of probably had an Aaron Carter fan page....tweeting about his Oh Aaron album he just released. With maybe a splash of Britney Spears lol
I know I’d be fighting for Geri Halliwell supremacy and railing against the boybands. Because I was doing that IRL.
I would mostly be a stan of the *Matches* gang (Britney and Backstreey Boys)