Life of an Intern

As I've mentioned in previous posts and videos, I'm a intern this summer! I'm not sure I want to entirely disclose all the details about where I work, etc, but I still want to share as much of my experience as I can.

My Return to the Online World

So, it's been a while. I have unfortunately left this blog vacant for far too long (has it really been more than three weeks?) and I apologize greatly for that. Stuff has really been going crazy in my life since I posted my April fashion blog favourites, including leaving school and moving to Toronto for the summer (!!). But, now that I am getting more settled in my new life as a fashion intern (more on that later) I feel able to return to blogging at a somewhat normal pace.

New Year, Same Blog

Happy New Year! 

Buffer Festival

Ottawa

My family just arrived home from our trip to Ottawa. Overall it was a very standard touristy trip, so I don't have much to say about it. But, I took a couple nice photos that I wanted to share with you. Enjoy!

One Direction

So, as previously stated many a time on this blog, I recently went to see One Direction in concert. It was a pretty good time.

The show started (after much waiting through commercials played on the jumbo-tron) with Five Seconds of Summer, a new boy band from Australia. They have a very Jonas Brothers circa A Little Bit Longer sound about them. They were decent enough, but honestly, I have enough bands to fan girl over, so I'm not in the market to pick up another one. But I appreciated them none the less.

Finally, after more and more waiting, the main attraction hit the stage and AHHH HARRY WAS SO CUTE and AAHH LOOK AT NIALL DID YOU SEE THAT but mostly just AHHHHH.

That concert was so unbelievably loud. I have been to many a boy band concert but I don't think I have ever attended one so loud. I mean, usually fans at least make an effort to listen instead of scream the entire time, but, whatever. It was a good show.

One of the most impressive parts of the concert was the set. They had these amazingly huge screen backdrops to the stage which played either live clips of the boys, or really nice typography of lyrics, or animated backgrounds. For example, the London sky line, or the boys as cartoon super heroes! It was really cool.

Camping

I believe the verdict is in. I am terrible at blogging everyday. In my defence, I have been quite busy. For example, this past weekend, I went camping.

So on Friday evening myself, my boyfriend and our five friends stuffed ourselves into a van and headed west, to the beach. We camped at Point Farms provincial park, on Lake Huron, and it was a grand old time.

History of the Boy Band

So this is an article I wrote for my school newspaper a while back. I really enjoyed the topic and thought the piece turned out pretty well so, naturally, I thought I'd share it on the internet! So, without further ado, a brief history of the boy band! 

             The boy band is one of the most famous archetypes of western pop culture in the twentieth century. From The Beatles to The Backstreet Boys, boy bands have made a huge impact on our society over the years. Their music, (sometimes painful,) and their fans (always painful) define them as the trend-setting, scream-inducing young boys that they are.

            These boys have been a huge influence on youth since the early 1960’s making teen girls squeal at their very sight, and annoying, and baffling teen boys, until their fifteen minutes are up.

            The influences that boy bands have on society have changed over the years, as well as their longevity and quality of music, but a few things have stayed the same. Surprisingly, the differences between the fan girls of the 1960s and the ones that exist today, (i.e myself) are minimal. Consequently, the boy bands, despite the change in trends do remain relatively similar. To fully understand this, we need to go back to the beginning. The point in time when the boy band climbed out of the primordial ooze and began it’s evolution into the billion dollar industry it is today. This journey began in a city in northern England, where a young John Lennon suggested the idea of starting a band to his friends. After several years and a few rejections, (such as the infamous one from Decca records) The Beatles were formed and became the most popular musicians in the world. These four lads from Liverpool drew young girls from all around, their popularity sky-rocketing, re-creating the buzz that Elvis once did, and re-introducing the world to the fan girl. Ever since this historic time period, the hype around boy bands has been labelled Beatlemaina, after the legendary band, and the craziness they brought about.

            The next time this mania hit the world was in the early 1970s when singing and dancing groups such as the Jackson 5, The Partridge Family and The Bay City Rollers took the eyes off The Mother Country and the invasion of boy bands that hailed from there, and onto the talent that America yielded. These groups became fabulously popular, all thanks to the hoards of teenage girls that loved them.

Bands throughout the following decades were met with the same teenage enthusiasm, which only grew stronger through the popularity of television and eventually, the internet. Pop acts such as Menudo, N`Sync, and The Backstreet Boys were next to follow in the long line of teen idols.

With their catchy tunes and cute hair-dos, these boys made teen hearts melt -and records sell- thus marking the point in time where boy bands turned into a billion-dollar industry.

Since then our society has been graced with the presence of musical artists such as The Jonas Brothers, Cody Simpson, Justin Bieber, and most recently, the modern British Invasion that includes the likes of Ed Sheeran, JLS and One Direction.

Throughout the past half century though fashions have changed and music styles have evolved, the dedication of the fans has been constant, and so has the ability of the boy bands to make their fans swoon (and buy concert tickets).

So what have we learned from this history lesson? That cute boys, hyper-emotional teenage girls, a catchy tune, and clever management is the recipe for a whole lot of influence, and even more money.