College Tweeny Boppers

Picking Up Your J-14 At Age 20

By Alyssa Grossman

OMG, Nick and Miley totes make the cutest couple ever!!!

It’s a state of obsession. Seemingly normal college girls now morph into Twi-hards and Jobro fans. They spend their days reading what Taylor Lautner and Rpatz look for in a girl, and they plan their wardrobe to mimic their favorite celebs’ style. This mindset seems suitable for the boy-crazy 13-year-old, but not for the 20-something woman, sneaking her copy of Tiger Beat to the register, buried under issues of Cosmopolitan and Vogue.

I've seen it first hand; the retail store manager who goes home each night and scours the internet for Twilight interviews, or the college sophomore who hangs Jonas Brothers posters in the dorm room with pride.

Perhaps some find college life so stressful they feel a need to revert back to the mindset of tweens. Or perhaps they live in complete denial. These misguided souls actually think it’s possible to mimic the lifestyle of a 16-year-old Disney Channel actress and country singer, when in reality, they’re just 21-year-old biology majors who work part time in the dining halls.

But before any of you closet Jobro fans take offense, I’ll ackowledge that the problem goes both ways. Most of these “celebs” are closer in age to college freshmen than to tween audience they target. It's a constant web of mixed messages. Robert Pattinson graced the cover of Teen Magazine in January 2009, posing innocently with costar Kristen Stewart. Just three months later, the April cover of GQ showed RPatz with an anything-but-innocent glare and a teaser reading “Robert Pattinson is here, hide your daughters!” No doubt said daughters will see this cover as they mosey over to the teen section at the local bookstore. God forbid they actually grab a copy and flip through, for they'll see their hero smoking a cigarette in one shot and posing provocatively in the next.

Sure, the concept of teen vampire love sells at the box office, but that's no surprise. Sex sells. Even to 12-year-olds who overlook the fact that if a 23-year-old was hot for them in real life, the result would look more like a jail cell than a fairytale ending. I love a man with an accent as much as the next girl, but this is just plain ridiculous. Image from Flickr by netmen! licensed under Creative Commons