I am a Hanson fan, old school. Yeah, I thought Taylor (the middle one) was a girl originally, but I though Zac (the little one) was hella cute. The summer “Mmmbop” came out I was 13, and it was quite the adventurous time. My sister and I ate, slept, and breathed Hanson. We taped every TV appearance and watched them on loop and we knew every lyric to every song they ever wrote, sang, or sat next to. We recorded our lives everyday as an ongoing video message for us to send to Hanson so they could get to know us. We saw them live in huge stadiums of screaming girls, twice, which furnished some of my favorite adventures of my childhood. In fact some of my favorite moments in my childhood were results of my sister and I bonding through Hanson fandom.
When I was 17 my best friend and I saw Hanson perform again, this time in the much smaller Taft theater in downtown Cincinnati. We rushed the stage and I totally shook Taylor’s hand. It was a crowing achievement in my life. When I was 19 I MET Hanson after they performed in the even smaller venue, Bogarts. Turns out Taylor is the only one with a good personality. He was kind and attentive to fans, friendly and warm. When I met Issac for the 1st time, a sexually empowered 17 year old virgin that I had been standing with said she wanted to make out with him. He said with a smile “Um, there is a word for girls like that and it starts with an S.” So that wasn’t cool at all, super misogynistic. Then I met Zac, my favorite, and I asked if I could kiss him on the cheek. He squinted his eyes and said, “No, sorry.” like I was asking for his virginity or something. Pissh, burn on me. And I was cute too, so WTF? I guess I should respect him as a human who doesn’t want random creeper girls kissing him, but no, I’m not gonna go that way. I’m gonna stick with it being about ME. And then the next time I met Hanson, when I was 20, Zac didn’t even come out to meet the fans so my show poster to this day is missing an autograph. (ITS ALL ABOUT ME!)
Clearly, they felt bad about theses incidents and wanted to make up for it (its five years late, but I’m willing to overlook it). Taylor turned to his brothers and said, “Hey Ike, Zac, I’m think we should make a music video with dance moves that are so gay and so awkward that NO ONE on this earth would ever doubt that they were made specifically for JAC McFaggin’.” This is what they came up with.
That’s right, this video is nothing but a gift for me (notice the cowbell? That was for me too). Their music career? The rest of the world? Irrelevant. This is all for me. But because I am nice, I will continue to allow Hanson to share the joyful ridiculousness of this video. Your Welcome.
DID YOU SEE how gay Zac’s jump was at the very end? His feet were at his ass. That’s how I jump, and I am pretty fucking gay. And clearly Issac did not get the same dance gene that Taylor and Zac have, even to where, apparently, he had to get cut out of the shot at the end. And I don’t wanna be ‘that guy’, but the Motown borrowings were just a little weird to me. I know they were raised on Motown and get a lot of inspiration from that (every good fan has Hanson’s history memorized), and that is why its there, but I donno… I will have to get more opinions on this. I feel there is something to be said for aspiring towards the music they love so much. And did you see Zac in that leather jacket? I WISH I had a chest like that, shit. That was sexy. I wasn’t down with Taylor’s shadowy facial-hair… but he has such a cute face its enough to make up for it. Plus Taylor is pretty fabulous in general, you can tell he’s totally rockin’ it the whole video. I really wish the Hansons were queer. Can you even imagine how out of control that would be?
[image: JAC with brown hair and brown eyes, looking into the camera with mouth open. Holding open a red shirt revealing a black Hanson t-shirt]
Me in 2006 – and yes I still have this shirt, and yes I still wear it, and yes I still think the Hansons are hot. And apparently they have an activist side to them focusing on HIV/AIDS in Africa. Shit, who knew? Good for you, Hanson. I wonder how they feel about queers. UPDATE: Zac interviewed by the Advocate, holy shit! Yay! Now I can like them minus guilt cause they aren’t homophobes! He does say “chooses” in reference to sexuality, but it might just be semantics.
And I want to give a shout out to my beloved sister who gave me a heads up about this video. You’re the best. I haven’t heard any new Hanson music since 2007 (reference myspace blog) so I guess I should get back into it and see what other treasures are awaiting me. Keep an eye out for this number coming to a drag show near you. Oh and Black Mondays, get ready, cause I’m gonna need some back up dancers.