Teen idol

For other uses, see Teen idol (disambiguation).

A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or musicians but some sports figures also have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors. The idol's popularity may be limited to teens, or may extend to all age groups. Many teen idols are targeted for adults for nostalgia purposes.

There were teen idols before there were teen magazines, but idols have always been a permanent feature in magazines such as 16 magazine, Tiger Beat and Right On! in the United States, and in similar magazines elsewhere. With the advent of television, teen idols were also promoted through programs such as American Bandstand, The Ed Sullivan Show, Soul Train and in the UK Top of the Pops. Some contemporary teen idols include Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, One Direction. Many American teen idols achieve "cross-over" success internationally, however this list is not limited to American artists alone with some people like German popstar Bill Kaulitz of the pop-rock band Tokio Hotel. In Asia, idols range from Japanese pop megastars Ayumi Hamasaki and Namie Amuro as well as Kana Nishino and Japanese music groups such as Morning Musume, AKB48, and Perfume and Johnny & Associates boy bands Arashi, NEWS, KAT-TUN, and Hey! Say! JUMP among others while Chinese pop icon Jay Chou and South Korean singers BoA and Rain and music groups TVXQ, Beast, Shinee, Super Junior, 2NE1, Big Bang, Wonder Girls, T-ara, Kara and Girls' Generation are examples. In Latin America, idols ranges from Mexican pop stars Anahi, Dulce Maria, Belinda, PeeWee and RBD.

It is the essence of the teen idol to appeal to the burgeoning sexuality of the young without in any way threatening it.^{[citation needed]} As recently as the 1970s, some stars were asked to shave their chests because it was perceived that chest hair was threatening to young girls.^{[citation needed]} In previous eras, because teen idols were supposed to have an aura of approachability, they often needed to keep their romantic relationships and marriages a secret for fear of decreased popularity.^{[citation needed]} In recent times, the concept of a teen idol has changed. Today's idols include film and television stars, pop singers, and supermodels. Celebrities' private lives are no longer taboo; to the contrary, they have spawned an entire industry of gossip magazines, television shows, and whole television channels such as E!.

Young sports icons and Olympic athletes during their competitive times were considered teen idols like Jean-Claude Killy, Peggy Fleming, Bruce Jenner, Joe Namath, Dorothy Hamill, Mark Spitz, Nadia Comăneci, Mary Lou Retton, Michael Jordan, Dominique Moceanu, Michelle Kwan, Carly Patterson, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Mia Hamm, Ryan Lochte, Michael Phelps, Missy Franklin, Shaun White, Apolo Ohno, Tom Daley, McKayla Maroney, and Gabby Douglas.

Early teen idols

Rudolph Valentino, one of the first "teen idols" of the 20th century

The teen idol is primarily a phenomenon of 20th century mass communication. Its first manifestation (often referred to as matinee idol) may have been Rudolph Valentino, whose good looks and winning way with women featured heavily in such silent films as The Sheik. Valentino was so popular with young women, many of them went into mass hysteria after he died at the age of 31 in 1926. Judy Garland's pin-ups adorned many a high school male's locker after her sudden rise to fame. But it was probably Frank Sinatra, whose early career is often linked to his appeal to bobby soxers, who is generally regarded as being the first true 'teen idol'.

1950-1960s

The great success of young rock stars like Elvis Presley and Pat Boone, film stars like James Dean and Sal Mineo in the 1950s, as well as the wider emergence of youth subcultures, led promoters to the deliberate creation of teen idols such as Frankie Avalon and Fabian — and to artists who deliberately cultivated a (safer) idol image, like Paul Anka.

Anka initially modelled himself on a particular generic type, the teen idol [who] carried on the process ... of changing the image of male youth ... from wild to mild, by providing a cleaner, more wholesome image of masculinity than that of the previous era's rebellious rockabilly heroes [and (working-class) so-called juvenile delinquents, like those in West Side Story]....

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Portable phonograph

Post-war teens were able to buy relatively inexpensive phonographs — including portable models that could be carried to friends' houses — and the new 45-rpm singles. Rock music played on 45s became the soundtrack to the 1960s as people bought what they heard on the radio. The great majority of the music being marketed to 1950s teens was being written by adults, but 1960s teens were increasingly appreciating and emulating artists closer to their own age, to teen fashion, and to lyrics which addressed their own concerns. Their parents worried about their attraction to artists (and DJs) who were edgy and rebellious. Faces on magazines fed fans; fans buy records, see films, watch TV and buy fashions.

Marketing of the teen idol generally focuses on the image.... The teen idol is structured to appeal to the pre-teen and young teen female pop audience member and children in general.... [They] are commodified in forms and images that are relatively non-threatening to this young audience and to the ancillary market of parents... The teen idol never appears to be autonomous and therefore never appears to be threatening as an adult; he remains, as long as he is popular, perpetually childlike and dependent.

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Some marketers turned to film and TV for fresh, attractive, 'safe' faces. Tommy Sands's debut in a television film about the phenomenon, The Idol, made a teen idol out of Sands himself. Ricky Nelson, a performer of rockabilly music, also became a teen idol through his parents' television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Some young TV stars were being hustled into studios to make recordings; for example, ex-Mousketeer Annette Funicello became one of the first big female idols as well as The Lennon Sisters whom had cut out dolls and were always on the covers of the gossip magazines; another, Johnny Crawford of The Rifleman, had five Top-40 hits. In 1963, Luke Halpin made a big splash as a teen idol in the television program Flipper. After Bye Bye Birdie was released in 1963, Bobby Rydell became an instant teen tdol.

In the 1960s as situation comedies and dramas on television using child actors became more popular, actors Paul Petersen and Shelley Fabares from The Donna Reed Show, Sally Field of Gidget, Jon Provost of Lassie, Jay North from Dennis the Menace, Billy Mumy of Lost in Space, Sajid Khan of Maya, and Keith and Kevin Schultz known as the "Schultz Twins" on The Monroes all became younger preteen idols and grew into being teen idols.

Likewise, Tommy Steele, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys were teen idols, especially during the earlier part of their careers, although they quickly grew out of that status. The Rolling Stones did it through a more rebellious image, The Beatles did it through their more developed (or "grown up") music. Similarly, Neil Sedaka had two distinct eras of his career, with about a decade in between: one as a teen idol in the 1960s (in which many of his songs note his attraction to 16-year-old girls), and a later career in adult contemporary music. The family band The Cowsills, especially Susan Cowsill, John Cowsill and Barry Cowsill were all teen idols and on every teen magazine cover for many years as well as the TV show The Partridge Family that was written in their likeness.

All of The Monkees became instant teen idols in the late 1960s after their TV show became an over night success, especially Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones. The British born member of The Monkees Davy Jones was regularly featured in all time teen idol lists. In 2008, Yahoo Music named Jones the number one teen idol of all time, and in 2009 he was ranked second in a list compiled by Fox News. Davy Jones still to this day tends to win many number one's and the top of the list in best teen idol contests.

1970s

After Davy Jones came Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy, who held the title of Teen Idols from the late 1960s until the mid-1970s. Both Sherman and Cassidy were actors on television and chart topping musicians in the pop-rock category at the time. Sherman was on hit TV shows Shindig! and Here Come the Brides among many others. Musical series such as Cassidy's The Partridge Family, the animated series The Archie Show, and (to a lesser extent) The Brady Bunch integrated television and teen-pop music to significant success during this time frame. The Brady Bunch's Barry Williams and Christopher Knight were always in the fan magazines at the time. Actors Robby Benson, Peter Barton, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Jack Wild were the talk of the teenagers in the 1970s as well. Musicians The Hudson Brothers were on many teen magazine covers for a number of years as teen idols. They had two shows on TV during the 1970s and recorded many albums.

One of the features of many teen idols is that their fans (and, in some cases, the musicians themselves) tend to develop a distaste for the music once they become adults, and it is not much listened to by adults, except for nostalgia: the legacy of bubblegum pop. Teen idol performers in this category would include Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Marie Osmond, Donny Osmond/The Osmond Brothers, Andy Gibb, Tony DeFranco, and The Bay City Rollers. Even modern classic hits and oldies outlets, which cover this time period, rarely play cuts from the teen idols of the era, with the exception of Michael Jackson of The Jackson Five, who began his career as a teen idol along with his brothers, but whose individual career eventually evolved far beyond the limitations of that description and into superstardom.

1980s

In the mid-1980s there was a group of young actors called The Brat Pack; the whole group collectively and separately became teen idols. They were Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy. They starred in many coming of age films together in some fashion and became incredibly popular without being musicians.

Actors Corey Feldman and Corey Haim also became teen idols during the later part of the 1980s with films The Goonies and together The Lost Boys and License to Drive among other films. They were dubbed "the two Coreys". Before Corey Haim's death in 2010, they did a reality TV show for two seasons (2007–08) on A&E named The Two Coreys after their 1980s moniker. Actor River Phoenix during his teen years became a teen idol during the later part of the 1980s with films such as Stand By Me, Mosquito Coast, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon.

Australian-American singer-actor Rick Springfield was regarded as the teen idol in the 1980s with such hits as "Jessie's Girl" and "Don't Talk to Strangers". The Grammy Award-winning musician Springfield was known for playing Dr. Noah Drake on the daytime drama General Hospital. He originated the character from 1981 to 1983. He left acting after his music career took off.

At the end of the 1980s, actor Kirk Cameron became a major teen idol teenage heartthrob. Cameron was best known for his role as Mike Seaver on the television situation comedy Growing Pains from 1985 to 1992. Also Scott Baio and Willie Aames of Charles in Charge fame found themselves regulars in teen magazines.

In popular music, the late 1980s was the boom of teenagers dominating the music charts. Debbie Gibson became the youngest person to write, perform and produce a number-one single, "Foolish Beat", and also had many hits from her first two albums. Tiffany, another teen icon, became a pop sensation at 15 years old thanks to an aggressive marketing strategy. She promoted her debut album in shopping malls of the US. She is also the youngest person to have a debut album hit number one and have multiple number one singles from that album ("I Think We're Alone Now and Could've Been"). Having become a household name, she had then-unknown band New Kids on the Block as an opening act for her shows. However, the sudden popularity of the New Kids caused their roles to be reversed. Gibson and Tiffany's careers had stalled by the early 1990s; so had NKOTB by the mid-nineties.

1990s

The manufacturing of teen idols has been marketed more aggressively and with greater sophistication since the 1980s. The rise of MTV in the 1980s and the success of the boy bands of the 1990s and 2000s has continued to fuel the phenomenon. Besides a combination of good, clean-cut looks and a ubiquitous marketing campaign, such bands typically include a variety of personality types (e.g. "the shy one", "the smart one", etc.) Classic examples of "boy bands" include Menudo, New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys, and 'N Sync, all becoming the best selling pop groups of the decade. Female Teen Pop stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson and The Spice Girls also became very popular at the end of the decade. Hanson was initially marketed as such a band, but eventually outgrew this label to become a successful indie band. Other notable examples from the 1990s are female R&B singers Aaliyah, Brandy and Monica. Brothers Nick Carter from Backstreet Boys and pop star Aaron Carter were both teen idols in their heyday. Robbie Williams of boy band Take That had teen idol status as was Ricky Martin during the Latin music explosion of the late 1990s.

Most of the major teen idols in the 1990s were from boy bands and musical acts. One major exception was the situation comedy Home Improvement 's Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who played Randy Taylor from 1991–1998; "JTT" (as he would come to be known during this time), uncomfortable with his teen idol status, left the show (and, for the most part, the entire acting scene) one year shy of the show's last year on the air.

Other Teen Idol's from TV at around the same time were most of the cast of Saved by the Bell, Rider Strong of Boy Meets World, Joseph Gordon-Levitt of 3rd Rock From the Sun, late actor Jonathan Brandis of seaQuest DSV, Jared Leto of My So-Called Life, Joey Lawrence of Blossom (and to a lesser extent, Joey's brothers, Matthew and Andrew), Jason Priestley and Luke Perry of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame, and Erik Von Detten of various TGIF shows. These actors were often found on the covers and pages of teen magazines during the 1990s as teen idols as well. Fraternal twin sisters and TV actresses Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen were major tween idols and as they grew up they later became teen idols during the 1990s. The comedy duo of Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell were major teen idols in 1990s, due to their fame on Nickelodeon they were known for starring in the sketch comedy series All That, their own comedy sitcom Kenan & Kel and their movie Good Burger. They became the biggest stars in 90s Nickelodeon.

2000s and beyond

Hilary Duff (left) and Lindsay Lohan (right) were both popular teen idols in the 2000s.

The Walt Disney Company and its numerous outlets (e.g. Disney Channel, Radio Disney and Walt Disney Pictures) have successfully developed a new generation of teen idols. In the early 2000s, the company developed the careers of Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan, initially targeting youth and female teen audiences. The success of this marketing led to further development of the genre, including new teen idols such as Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, Raven-Symoné, Dylan and Cole Sprouse known as the Sprouse Twins, and the Jonas Brothers. Along with Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez and Bridgit Mendler. Disney also has used the acquisition of ABC Family to develop shows and stars popular among teen girls. Not to be outdone, rival Nickelodeon has developed its own slate of stars for its television shows, including Miranda Cosgrove, Victoria Justice, Jennette McCurdy, Ariana Grande, Jamie Lynn Spears and the group Big Time Rush, all of whom have not only starred in TV shows, but recorded albums as well.

The 2000s saw many new teen idols emerge from popular feature films such as the casts of Harry Potter (e.g. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson), The Twilight Saga (e.g. Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner), and The Hunger Games (e.g. Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth); television series such as Glee have also developed stars who are popular among younger viewers.

Since their rise to fame in recent years, singer Justin Bieber, country-pop musician Taylor Swift, and boy band One Direction have become recent examples of modern-day teen idols who have achieved international success, known for their devoted teen and tween fan base. Of note is that many of the modern-day teen idols are females marketed as "role-models" to teen and tween girls, a departure from the traditional role of the male teen idol marketed as the idealized teen "heart-throb".

Elvis is considered the greatest teen idol of all time per people magazine and time magazine .

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1853419_1853382_1853376,00.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=people+magazine+biggest+teen+idols+cover&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dRaSUa7VMNTK4APyzYCAAw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=320&bih=444#biv=i%7C19%3Bd%7CZpXSY2srTQyT0M%3A

See also

• K-Pop idol
• Matinee idol
• Sex symbol
• Pin-up
• Jailbait
• Celebrity Worship Syndrome
• Boy band
• Girl group
• Junior idol
• Japanese idol

External links

• The Top 25 Teen Idols of All-Time at Yahoo.com208.54.36.190 (talk) 10:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)