In part two of my tween–obsession saga (for those of you following along, yes, I’m still listening to One Direction), I have a crush on a group of teenage–boy Vine stars. Rereading that sentence made me gag a little. Who am I?
More importantly, who are they? For those of you not in the middle school zeitgeist, there exists a thing called MAGCON (short for Meet & Greet Convention) where these “Viners” gather in cities across the country to pose, sing and dance for a 98% female audience. And if you don’t know what Vine is (hi, Mom) it’s an app that allows users to post six–second videos of whatever they please. The MAGCON family is really good at Vine. But really, they’re just good at being cute teenage boys with iPhones. Most have between 1 and 4 million followers.
What the experience of teenage–obsession has taught me is that I’m no longer a teenager. They make all sorts of references that I don’t know (can someone tell me what #NaeNae or Püma is?), they listen to music I’ve never heard, and if I were to actually attend one of their events, I would be truly out of place. I feel old.
Now I’m left wondering when this happened. When did we all grow up? When I talk to my mom I feel cool, but when I scroll through my Vine feed I wish my boyfriend wore red Vans and that I could pull off saying things like “bae.”
Then I remember that I have Street to make me feel cool. A place where I can pull off cursing and not being in high school. My boyfriend might wear loafers but he looks damn good in them. And I can stay out as late as I want. Growing up isn’t so bad.
