Please, The River, Teach Young Girls to Give It Up to Musicians

I was listening to 107.5 The River. Why? I'm not really that sure. I probably was focusing on the asshole who cut in front of me or something of that nature. But there I was, with my radio dial turned to one of two major Nashville pop stations. By the time I had started paying attention, it was on a commercial break, and something about the JoBro came on. At first, I couldn't tell you what the hell a JoBro was, but I guess that shows you how big a rock I've been under. I thought it was an ad for a new brand of fashionable boxers or whatever. It became abundantly clear within a few seconds that is was actually an advert for the Jonas Brothers.

First of all, let me clarify. I only know a few scant details about this new tween craze. I know that they are boys, that they are a "band," that a lot of people think they suck, one of them dated and may still be dating Miley Cyrus and/or Taylor Swift, and that one of them danced and lip synced to Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies."



But other than that, I'm totally out of the loop. But this absurd apparent dedication of preteen and early teen girls irritates me, akin to the rabid fixation that I've read and heard about in terms of Robert Pattison (or whatever his name is) and the whole Twilight silliness. When I was growing up, I followed the trends of picking a Backstreet Boy or N*Sync member to fawn over, but it was mainly because all of my friends were involved with this. If it were up to me, I would have been harboring my severe crush on Fyodor Dostoevsky or Johnny Depp in the open, but alas, I had not developed a backbone at that point in my life.

Anyway, back to The River. As this commercial continued, it sounded harmless. Girls were instructed how to respond if they ran into a "JoBro," repeating, "I love you" ad nauseum. Which, you know, teen girls use the word "love" in regards to their favorite leggings, so I wasn't really concerned here. But unfortunately for me, I listened to the very end of this, mainly out of curiosity. Well, the final recitation from the girls at this "How to Speak to Famous Boys" academy was, "Yes, I will go back to your hotel room with you."

I turned off my radio and sat in silence for a minute. Seriously???? It's bad enough if you are an adult woman to do this, because you don't know how many other women and diseases they've slept with out of opportunity, but to encourage that behavior to a member of the demographic that listens to the Jonas Brothers? Irresponsible. I got angrier and angrier as my drive continued.

Working in DHS as I do now, I understand that girls are having sex (and getting pregnant) at very young ages, so the idea that someone as young as 13 would offer herself is not really that shocking. Well, on a personal level, it is, because at 13, I was like, ew, penises are gross, but statistically, it isn't that uncommon. I suppose what is so disturbing is that it was a sort of subliminal message that they just tagged on at the end. In marketing terms, brilliant mode, but what exactly are they marketing? Was it really necessary?

Okay, before I go on a diatribe, because I'm still seriously angry about this, I'm going to go hop on the treadmill to work out some angst.