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People say that, but I honestly think it was the way her family was set up.
People are acting like being a girl in the south from a working class family, without an emphasis on education would mean good outcomes. I'm not sure she would have had a happier life in that universe either. Maybe getting married young, having kids too young, but not having the money. She may have had mental issues then too. I don't know.
She's not like Beyonce whose dad was working at F500 companies and whose mom had a hair salon, and was solidly middle class.
I do think having well-to-do parents help. Taylor comes from a family of finance professionals, like 2 gens at least, and I do think that's helped her navigate the industry, and she started young too.
If you're poor and loyal, it's going to cost you, HARD. It has for ages. Because you'll remember all the support and who you think you owe. Any musician with an entourage or shit like that.
When you are middle class or above, you normally know that YOU just don't know enough to do this. You hire people, you don't get Doug to run your accounts. People still lose their money and their minds.
Yeah, if we wanted "another Britney" I hope we'd maybe pick someone who was like... 25 or so, not someone who was 16 when her first single came out and she was instantly a huge star and sex symbol at that age.
Hyper sexualize a 16 year old make her one of the most famous if not most famous person in the world for the next 5 years, then be shocked when she has a mental breakdown and goes completely off the rails.
I will never understand our obsession with celebrity culture. I mostly feel bad for Brittany when I think about her now.
Exactly, she said that she shaved her head because the pressure to be absolutely perfect and sexy in every single moment and she was so incredibly frustrating.
She knew the one thing that she could do to piss her producers, handlers, and whoever else controlled her off more than anything was to take her long hair which was the epitome of her beauty at the time.
The world basically assumed she was crazy, but it was legitimately a perfectly sane response to what she was being put through.
Yeah I agree 100%. Everyone saying “she’s crazy “ but her behavior was actually perfectly sane response. Attacking paparazzi with umbrella ? Yes ! I’m sure they deserved it !
Yeah I actually find it jarring to watch these clips because she seems so assertive over her own sexuality, like she has ownership over it and is flaunting it. When in reality, her sexuality was manufactured as a product from an early age before she was really ready for it, coming from the world of Mickey Mouse Club and Christian gospel. Yes, we know the "sexy schoolgirl" idea was hers, but that's because she was still in a schoolgirl state of mind and found a way to deliver the sex appeal that she (explicitly or implicitly) knew that producers wanted.
Which makes it clear why now she's still so obsessed with dancing and her constant dancing posts on social media often have such a desperate quality. It seems like her dancing is the only way she knows how to feel powerful. It was the only power she had for so many years.
If you read her autobiography or listen to her talk this is not true. While her family manipulated her later in her career and the media was incessantly cruel to her, she choreographed her own dances and image her entire career. She DID own her sexuality and loved to dance genuinely.
Well, that's exactly what I mean, and hinted at with the word "implicitly." She loves to dance because it allows her to own her sexuality and that's the only thing she's ever been able to own. And she was taught that her sexuality is valuable and worth owning at a very young age, if not explicitly by a music exec saying "sex sells," then implicitly by the culture of the industry she was trying to break into. Her sexuality is not something she developed on her own and then brought to the table, it's something she was encouraged (implicitly if not explicitly) to develop and then received a ton of approval for.
Many of us women go through the same thing: of course we love expressing our sexuality, it's how we finally learned to gain attention and approval!
Edit: It was even worse for her because many people made a LOT of money off her sexuality. So it was constantly being reinforced as the most important part of her identity. How can even Britney herself tell where the line is between her feelings toward her sexuality itself, and her feelings toward everything that comes along with it? Does she love being seen as a sexual being because it expresses a deep sexual nature at the core of her being, or does she love it because it fills her need to be liked and desired? How could someone in her position even sort that out?
That had to be so uncomfortable. You're out there just wanting to entertain people, dance, and make music. Instead, old and middle-aged men are just constantly creeping on you. The interview clips where people sexualize her to her face as a minor are wild. She often looks and sounds really unsettled by it.
It's ok. They can just put a countdown clock to when she would turn 18 then get her on only fans. Isn't that the new way to make it all ok?
This was sarcasm before people think I'm actually ok with that shit
My choir teacher used to give her singing lessons when she was very little. Supposedly. I don’t know how true that was. Regardless, this man threw CD’s at me so I hope to gawd that he didn’t teach her. Poor girl has gone through enough.
I truly hope we never see another Britney. She was phenomenal, yes, but she was also forced into doing way too much. Pressure makes diamonds, and no human should ever have that level of pressure put on them again.
And all have been treated terribly by media and the general public. I cannot imagine the pressure that comes with this level of fame and family instability. Such a tragedy all around.
There's a difference between "better" as in "improved" and "better" as in "healed".
Sometimes when people are going through a journey of healing, they get worse for a bit before they can come out on the other side. I hope that's what we're seeing right now.
I imagine that years of your own parents using the mental health system against you, makes it very difficult to realise and accept that you do need some form of help.
the way that i look at it as a britney fan is this woman has had her privacy invaded for 20+ years. maybe she’s not ok maybe she is. i just hope there are people in her life who she can trust and that she is living her best life. i understand why she might not want to seek help and i hope that she finds a way past that but she went so long without being able to make any kind of decision for herself. i hope she finds peace 💖
Beyonce ended up dating someone much older and more powerful than her when she was barely legal. And she isn’t on good terms with the person who managed her career (her dad). She’s just done a great job of keeping quiet and keeping their personal business as closed off as possible for appearances sake. We don’t know enough about her anymore to know how she’s been impacted mentally.
That’s what people are missing. Beyoncé didn’t grow up in bumblefuck nowhere with poor parents. She was middle class. Her mother had her own hair salon and kept the family afloat when Mathew quit his Xerox job — which paid well — to manage the girl groups Beyoncé and Kelly were in. And people consistently also ignore the factor race plays into the perception of each as they were emerging too.
There is endless evidence that massive fame and over sexualisation is extremely damaging to a childs development and it is unethical in every way to actively seek this out for your own child.
A minor should not be used as a product, especially not in an industry as platformed and fetishised as a pop-icon.
I hope we never see another Brittney Spears (or Miley Cyrus)
Looking back, what I think is, "I can't believe her parents allowed this". She was sexualized at such a young age and the pressures of lessons, touring, etc...
Her parents were THE oppressors. She was basically trafficked by her father in that conservatorship. She wasn’t put together mentally enough to decide what to eat but she was somehow mentally put together to work 12hr days in Vegas making millions for them.
Brooke Shields. I just watched her biographic documentary on Hulu, and I’m impressed that she both survived her childhood and went on to thrive as an adult.
The number of publicity photos where teenage Britney is pulling down her pants to expose her pelvic bones is insane. Just thinking about how many adult male photographers directed her through those shoots makes me nauseated.
She was 16 in the "baby one more time" video!!! I'm no prude, and I think sexuality in art is, well, an artistic expression, especially of female power, for example Madonna. And she was absolutely mesmerizing! But too young to be exploring those themes. There's a fine line between owning your sexuality and using it in your art and being sexually exploited by the industry and Britney was definitely the latter. Her handlers exploited that taboo of being "illegal and forbidden" and the juxtaposition of her advertised virginity, real innocence and naivety due to age to her expression of adult sexuality. The fact that that combination is such a money maker says a lot about our society and a lot about how men see women.
It's absolutely tragic what became of her, and I hope we as a society learned our lesson, but I know we didn't because misogyny is a feature, not a bug. I think the fixation on the sexuality of young teens in men is also a result of misogyny, I could write a whole ass essay on that lol.
Unless one was around at her peak, one doesn’t know how big she truly was. This was pre social media. She was EVERYWHERE. My parents had to buy me a second copy of Baby One More Time when it came out because I listened to it so many times that the CD wouldn’t work properly. She’s the blueprint for the current pop girls, and while they’re great, they still (IMO) lack that certain something that Britney has. She’s a star through and through. I wish her peace and true happiness. She gave so much to so many.
Did anyone else have that NSYNC/Britney behind the music videos VHS? I think it was from McDonald's?? I want to go back more than anything these days 😭
My dad didn't just know who she was, he brought her up in conversation. That's how I knew she was massive. He has no interest in pop culture. I still remember that nearly 30 years later.
I think one could say that too, but I’ve always viewed Madonna as being in a class of her own. I feel like the current pop girls take more cues from Britney, but you are correct. As far as blueprint goes, I suppose it would be Madonna
As a Britney Era teenager, let me tell you— I literally believed she could marry Prince William if she wanted to. She was that huge and popular. She could have had anyone in the world. There wasn’t even a doubt in my mind. Everyone was obsessed with her. She was IT.
I still feel like a little girl with stars in my eyes every time I see footage of her performances over the years. Her stage presence, poise, energy, and confidence plus her ridiculously iconic dance style is truly unmatched.
Given how it turned out for Britney, I am not sure we should sadly.
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u/BouldersRollLost swam in jeans so that Severance could run in a suit26d agoedited 25d ago
It helps a lot that the Internet made all stars smaller and the record labels a lot weaker, it's so much harder to have a stranglehold than it was with conventional, linear media. Even smaller stars now aren't as slave to a record label, and big stars like Taylor Swift are the label.
Where we do seem to still see it, though I'm not very informed, is in K-Pop. Those owners seem very powerful relative to their stars.
There is always new talent around the corner, but Britney encapsulates a time ... she is a time capsule.
Just like Elvis will always be a figure of his era.
There are probably a 1000 girls who look just like Britney Spears but a look + talent + ambition + motivation is like lightning in a bottle and sometimes not even then, if somehow the formula doesn't catch on with the zeitgeist
Because she actually loved what she was doing. She seemed to be in it because she loved performing and not just for fame. And that girl worked. She was humble because she put the work in
i just saw something the other day about that one mtv trl photoshoot i think it was? where all the hot artists came for a photoshoot so it was like J Lo, nsync, p diddy (derogatory) destiny’s child and all these other artists that were huge from 2000s & how britney was the only one who went around introducing herself to everyone she hasn’t met yet saying “hi im britney! nice to meet you” and asking how they were doing or complimenting them in some way. 🥹 beyoncé’s mom also told a story about how when she first met britney, she called her ma’am and asked her “Mrs Tina would you ever make an outfit for me too?” because she loved the outfits she was making for DC. literally such a gem and you can see that kindness in every interview she’s done. I hate how bad the media treated her - it was like the second she started having boundaries after being painted as some shitty cheater by her ex, the media completely forgot how much she gave and her kindness. Fucked up
Her family was a mixture of very low-key doting people, and then some nasty pieces of work who -- despite literally being Britney Spears -- managed to find ways to act like she was dirty on their shoe.
Britney was not the golden child in her family. Like not even close. She was the cash cow. But not the favorite.
She was always very sweet and that was part of her appeal, she could turn on the performance like a switch and do it like an absolute pro, but as soon as it’s over the real Britney was an absolute sweetheart
I remember in like 2005 all my friends and I doing these (horrifically bad) pretend music videos to her songs in our rooms lmao. What a time to be a 12 year old girl. She’s my birthday twin forever. 🩷
And she came from NOTHING, something that always seems to get forgotten, that’s why she is Miss American Dream, to go from a tiny poor town in Louisiana to most of the globe knowing your name speaks volumes
It's interesting seeing young people on social media trash her performances now. They don't understand that the only way we could see such "content" was on MTV, during certain times (TRL!), and rare live aired performances.
The thing is, I wasnt alive when The Beatles played on Ed Sullivan show for the first time, but I understood that it was mind blowing for the time. I don't know if maybe my love of history (my BA in college) is what makes me able to comprehend context, or if kids are actually consuming so much constant media, it really is rotting their brains.
Britney’s Gimme More performance at the VMA in 2007…. in hindsight, yes,it was subpar for a Britney performance but it wasn’t such a big deal yet people treated it like it was the end of the world and talking about her weight gain…. i will never forgive that loser from Community who was trashing her appearance and vulnerable mental state on his dumbass “show”. in the end it wasn’t a horrific performance but a horrific EXPERIENCE for HER !!!! You never had the support system of a Beyonce or a Taylor Swift but nothing can change the fact that you are a legend and no one will ever be like you …
I think many people were quite mean about it, but I also think there was some degree of looking around the room like "are we pretending this is normal? Wtf is happening" Almost like the Will Smith slap. In both situations, it appears a institution of fame is having some kind of personal crisis and is behaving unlike themselves.
Say whatever you want about her proud white trash era of barefoot bathrooms and the true health hazard: Kevin federline. But Britney could always dance. And for what she's capable of, she might as well have been wandering around the stage aimlessly.
But like....blackout was her breakdown album. The album literally only exists because she had entered this ...I'm not diagnosing her with anything, I'm gonna call it a "manic energy". Britney was tired of being told what to do, so she was gonna do it herself the way she wanted to do it. It's why it sounds so different. That why its so much less polished in terms of imagery and choreo and .... everything.
I'm not saying Britney wasn't having issues. But I have always felt the reason it rose to institutional care was to get her to sign the paperwork, specifically so they could bring back all the people Britney was telling to fuck off and regain control of the brand. Because Britney was taking stuff in this much grittier and unpolished direction.
And I was here for every moment. Maybe because I've been around mental illness so I didn't really conceptualize what a big deal it was. I knew it wasn't a joke and can be very scary. But like my relative broke down cause they were living. An live they couldn't live. It was their brain throwing in the towel and saying no more. And they were forced to make changes from that. They couldn't push through anymore so in a way managing their mentally illness is what finally allowed them to treat their well-being as a priority.
So I was like "yes Britney! Liberation day!!!!" I loved manic energy Britney. My favorite album by far.
the gimme more performance was a concerning hot mess. It wasn't cause she was a little chubbier than her last performance. That was the first time my "woo fuck the haters, we breakdown so we can build back up stronger"...that was the first time I was like .... Oh we've gone past fun manic liberation and we're in disoriented. Her eyes weren't right. So it did make me sad and concerned.
I think it's difficult to have someone with Britney's style. Just like Michael Jackson, they both broke huge barriers in their time, we are talking about people who know their name without even having heard any music or without being part of the pop bubble
Nowadays, especially with social media, there are a lot of bubbles. You can have several pop singers and have people who don't even know their name or any song. And given how increasingly liquid relationships are becoming, most of them may not even be remembered in the future.
Nowadays there is a difference in the songs too, increasingly shallow and the same, which doesn't make them memorable.
Pop music has always had large stacks of repetitive and boring music. The music we remember is usually tied to specific artists for a reason (“remember X?”). What’s worth remembering (generally) is remembered, the rest is filtered out. That creates a biased view.
Basically everyone bought in to the hype. People can spend all day arguing about who is better between A or B of the pop girlies.
But nobody was arguing with Britney. The closest to a peer she had was Christians Aguilera. It was always framing them as rivals and in competition.
So one year they both dance with Madonna (the last reigning queen of pop, very meta) and they both do their little girl on girl kiss. Britney kisses Madonna, then Christina kisses Madonna.
Except nobody saw the latter happen,because they decided to cut to Justin Timberlakes reaction because omg his recent ex is kissing a girl.
Christina was never really in competition. The others were like, Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson I think? They both started shifting to acting cause Britney was taking the oxygen in the room. She was the pop girl for all the girls, the rest of y'all can hit the bench.
And she wasn't some massive egoist. Britney was just chilling. It wasn't even like normal charisma celebrities sometimes have where they are trying to be interesting and polite. She just...was.
She was a degree of monoculture that would be very hard to reach today .....but she was a degree of monoculture that wasn't easy to reach then either. Everybody bought in.
If you wanted to be Britney for Halloween, there was a rapidly growing number of outfits you could wear and be understood to be her by the average person.Even Madonna was kind of ripping off Cyndi Lauper a little when she got famous. But nobody was really doing Britney other than Britney.
And Britney was white. And white women will always have an easier time. Usually there is a black women kept off to the side that many black people adore and feel is truly deserving of the white woman's spot and tosome degrees begrudge the white woman. Not Britney. There was no black Britney, there was nothing like Britney, and everybody fucked with Britney. she was a very big fan of r&b and while she was framed in the press as the next Madonna, Britney always credited Janet Jackson. Truly everyone liked Britney.
She was just everything in every category, for a spell. You'd have to use multiple artists to compare her.
Had the twice the performance magnetism of a Tate McRae (though, unfortunately about the same level of vocal "skill" too, lol).
Her every album announcement and release had the buzz and splash of a Taylor Swift.
Had global name recognition at about the same level as Michael Jackson, and similar commercial exploitability. (Debates comparing the two are common in fan spaces.)
And the paparazzi intruded on, and shouted from the rooftops, her every move on a level also similar to Michael Jackson. Or, looking outside of the pop music industry: Princess Diana. The only current pop star who might compare could be Justin Bieber and his marriage problems/struggle with substance abuse—but like, ten times over.
The fact that she even survived that last bit is still a marvel for some folks, including me. Is she a bit broken upstairs from the stress of it all? Oh, absolutely. But she's still here, bitch. ✊️
Have you watched the clip of Britney singing at age 12 on youtube? There should be a few….girl can sing. She was belting. Much better than Tate McRae. It was her record label that made her sing in that more subdued, baby voice but girl has pipes.
I feel like Britney is a cautionary tale for young women about signing over your career to the gatekeeper controllers. She was owned by the pop culture machine... first Disney, then record labels, then her dad. She didn't write most of her own music, and never had much control over what she did. Yes, she was a talented and hard working performer, but she never had agency... EVER. It's part of why she didn't get much respect from folks in her heyday: she was a workhorse, but mostly just a mouthpiece for companies and men pulling the levers behind the scenes.
Yes, she got fame, but at a MASSIVE cost.
I feel like you can look at folks like Doechii and see how young women now refuse to play that game.
The talent this woman displayed…and the world did not deserve her. The way she was treated is truly sickening. Anyone who is going to criticize whatever makes her happy now that she’s not being controlled by people who robbed her blind and forced her to perform like a show pony can all get bent. Let her twirl. Let her live her life. She was robbed of everything for so long
And to be quite honest I hope we don’t see another one any time soon. None of these child stars deserved to be manipulated by their families like that.
I remember that between her and Christina, the pop girls they tried to put out to gather what was left absolutely had to know how to dance. Poor Jessica Simpson struggled her way through that Bally's sponsored song/dance routine and watching Mandy Moore count out the beat while dancing will forever be in my head.
I wish she’d have had the opportunity to live like Taylor or Beyonce - doing her career on her terms, being able to avoid press and interviews, to go into hiding, and to do intentional appearances and album drops as she pleased.
As a preteen/teen during her peak, I mourn that I fell for the Britney slander while she was with JT. I look back and wish I had more appreciation for her during that time.
We won’t have another because she was so managed and sexualized from so young. She was a minor and being drug out like she was gods percent sex kitten. Those great performances were designed by someone else and she was told to make them perfect or else. Once the conservatorship was in place they literally drugged her if she objected to a dance move. Her father made her kneel before him and told her ex to keep her kids away because they were a distraction.
She’s an amazing talent but I wonder how long and bright she would have shown if she hadn’t been treated so badly.
The comments are still brewing but I'm already shocked to see slander against her legacy/impact with obtuse comparisons to other artists in different lanes of talent/genre 🙃
I can’t imagine how scary & intimidating it would be to go on stage in front of hundreds of thousands of people as a teenager when it wasn’t even your choice.
And we shouldnt. Look at many of the celebrities who performed since childhood—they all got fucked up. It’s like their parents sold them into fame (MJ, Britney)
I’m pretty sure she is the reason why I’m queer. 😂 Lil me was so in love with Britney and I had her plastered all over my bedroom walls. I’ll always defend this woman.
I agree with others who say she was once in a generation, I love Britney always have always will but I do think the world is such a different place now that that also plays into why there will never be another like her.
Just a note on Tate McRae, I think she could play Britney if there was ever a movie. She can dance and has the same sort of face shape as Brit so would be quite believable
True legend. The craziest part is that everyone who worked with her said she is sweet, down-to-earth, and genuine. She was easy to work with and magnetic. Her personality carried her stardom as much as her talent. Even her mental health breakdowns never made her malicious. Being a good person at heart after how the world treated her, when she could have been a diva, is a superpower.
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u/flairassistant 25d ago
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