But Bilodeau, like Nancy, is wary of the parasocial relationship that’s taken hold among a contingent of boygenius fans. “I’ve seen Phoebe and Lucy live, and even when I watch interviews or watch videos of their performances on YouTube, there’s a giddiness I feel that I felt when I was younger and into Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and *NSYNC,” says Jess Bilodeau, 32. It’s a distinction that’s key to the version of teen love we’re having as adults. My tender-hearted, straight best friend is completely obsessed with them - he’s just less embarrassing about it than I am.) (The boys-as they call themselves, or sometimes “brothers”-certainly have crazed appeal beyond the desperate screams of aging queer women like me. Women like me who humiliatingly spend hours on TikTok watching tour videos every single night, who refresh YouTube daily for new interviews, who screenshot and save the band’s pictures in some desperate need to hold them close, who dig for secret messages and easter eggs on Reddit forums.
I now find myself in a community of queer women far beyond our teenage years who-for the first time-are experiencing that deeply youthful obsession of band idol worship. The shape of my obsession with supergroup boygenius-which started with the 2018 EP but reached a fever pitch when their album, the record, dropped in March-is embarrassing, maniacal, and distinctly teenage. That is, until a new set of “boys in the band” came around in the form of Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, and Phoebe Bridgers. That desperate, teen obsession bordering on madness for boys with guitars-the forums, LiveJournal communities, memorizing the lyrics, writing them on binders, knowing every fact that ever exists-it didn’t do it for me. I’ll never forget my friend practically rending her garments over the All-American Rejects before they made it big, saying she would desperately miss them between tiny venue shows and dream about them at night. I could play the part without even realizing I was acting, but I couldn’t muster the bone-deep cravings my friends seemed to have, especially when it came to boys in bands. As a teen girl in the early aughts in Los Angeles, I did what I was supposed to do: hang pictures of Josh Hartnett on my walls and sob in the theater while Ryan Gosling kissed Rachel McAdams in the rain.
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