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These are the current teen heartthrobs, according to adolescents of the Internet
What is Musical.ly?
by Amanda Ross
Every single day, I feel more and more like the actual embodiment of this 30 Rock sceencap-turned-meme:
What’s the hot gossip? Who are the cool bands? Ugh, you girls keep me young. Well, Instagram does anyway.
In the interest of recapturing my childhood and seeing what the #youths of today are up to, I social media stalked the hot young teens of 2018 to see what their deal was — and what 00s celebrity I could compare them to:
WHO: Jacob Sartorius, 14
00s EQUIVALENT: One Time-era Justin Bieber, who found fame recording covers on YouTube or being Usher’s nephew or something.
CLAIM TO FAME: Lip-syncing Young Money songs while on a hoverboard. He amassed a mega following and eventually began releasing his own music, including the iconic smash hit song “Sweatshirt.” The video, in which a sweatshirt magically comes to life, can be found here.
TYPICAL INSTAGRAM COMMENTS:
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WHO: Baby Ariel, 16
00s EQUIVALENT: Ashlee Simpson, fellow lip-syncer
CLAIM TO FAME: Like Jacob Sartorius, Baby Ariel (not her birth name) struck gold on the lip-sync app Musical.ly. She’s the subject of about 10,000 fan fictions, and also makes money through Instagram #sponcon. Her ad for jalapeño Chicken Fries is my favorite — they’re so good. #notanad
TYPICAL INSTAGRAM COMMENTS:
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WHO: Union J
00s EQUIVALENT: *NSYNC. Boyband, highlights, some leave to go solo. It’s a tale as old as time, really. A more modern comparison could be made to One Direction as they’re also British and blessed with gravity-defying quiffs, but *NSYNC will always be the OG predecessor. I mean, Timberlake is literally a verb (ex: Harry Styles is so gonna Timberlake).
CLAIM TO FAME: How do all popular British boybands form? Say it with me now! X-FACTOR! Even though they came in fourth, they were still signed to RCA (participation trophy generation much? JK, I love rewards for losing) and immediately started producing “Hey girl, I love you smile!”-style earworms your little sister loves.
TYPICAL INSTAGRAM COMMENTS:
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WHO: Bella Thorne, 19. Also goes by “Yung Smurf” for reasons unknown.
00s EQUIVALENT: Lindsay Lohan, right before everything started to go downhill. So her golden years, basically! A good thing.
CLAIM TO FAME: Got her start on Disney (classic), has since parlayed her tween queen clout into supporting roles in movies like The Duff. Also known for her ever-changing hair, penchant for the word “dude” and Snapchatting her bikini waxes, as one does.
TYPICAL INSTAGRAM COMMENTS:
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WHO: Blake Gray, 16
00s EQUIVALENT: Zac Efron. He came into our lives as a teenager, made his name playing a typical albeit exceptionally good looking high schooler, and was the forefather of this sweepy-haired bang look.
CLAIM TO FAME: Musical.ly — the lip-syncing app — though now he’s mostly about making that coin on Instagram. Along with some of the other teen app stars, he occasionally goes on tour where he plays question games with the audience and hypes them up. Must be nice.
TYPICAL INSTAGRAM COMMENTS:
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WHO: Sabrina Carpenter, 18
00s EQUIVALENT: Miley Cyrus. They’re both doing the Disney Channel thing, but Sabrina seems to lean towards Miley’s hippy-like I’m-different-let-me-live tendencies.
CLAIM TO FAME: Disney Channel triple-threating. She’s cited Christina Aguilera as an inspiration, which makes sense.
TYPICAL INSTAGRAM COMMENTS: