MTV has recently re-released this banger of a performance by *NSYNC that reminded me how Spring Break always made me feel less American when I was growing up. I was never in Cancun in a drunk tank during college. Or at some grimy hotel’s bikini contest where all the drooling dudes were waiting for the girl wearing neon dental floss (she always wins). I was at home getting free laundry done and sleeping in the childhood bed with Transformers sheets that I outgrew. But isn’t that just as American? I dunno. It’s how I used to feel.
I couldn’t really afford to travel in college. And by the looks of the party-goers in this *NSYNC Spring Break performance, neither could many Asian Americans. Or are they in the way back of this performance? Either way, I wasn’t there. And neither were most of my Asian American friends. But was I supposed to be at Spring Break and missing out? Or was I made to feel like I was missing out by the media? Maybe this open thought process in this article right now is what actually makes us any of us Americans. We question things we don’t feel included in, and wonder if it’s because of the system or our own choices and circumstances. And then we freely talk about it, and maybe find a solution down the road. Perhaps, I’m starting the dialogue here. An important one about Spring Break? I guess the act of talking about how MTV Spring Break made me feel less American actually makes me feel American now. Meta.
All that said, this video is also particularly alarming because one of these girls at this performance was likely standing beside me at a cafe recently, dressed like a tired mom in sweats, watching her kid tip over the paper straw display.
Me: “Hey, you look so familiar… Were you freaked by an underage Justin Timberlake on MTV back in 1999?”
Mom: “….”
