MMMBye: Breaking Up with My Favorite Childhood Band

No matter how much you love someone—whether it be a romantic partner, an actor, or a musician— never, ever get a tattoo of their name or face. Even in my most consuming moments of fangirl fervor, of which there have been many throughout the years, I knew that there was wisdom in heeding that advice. People are fallible, after all.

I was nevertheless quite surprised to find myself thanking my lucky stars that I had managed to avoid inking myself with the Hanson logo at some point between ages 18 and 34. Laugh all you want (I’ve been dealing with that reaction for 25 years), but I truly thought that they were the one absolute, enduring constant in my life. That as friendships faded, relationships ended and new ones began, jobs changed, and I got older, I’d always have them. But then, 2020 happened. It was a year that laid everything bare, when nothing was certain, nobody was safe, and people you swore you knew showed you who they really were. It was a theme that, apparently, even extended to ‘90s pop groups.

Before we talk about that, though, I need to go back to the beginning to explain just how deep my relationship with Hanson ran. It all started in 1997, as I sat in front of the stereo in my lilac purple bedroom on a random afternoon in April, listening to KISS 108, a longstanding Boston-area Top 40 station. “This is a brand new song from a group of brothers named Hanson. They’re like the new Jackson 5!” the DJ’s voice cheerfully crackled through the speakers as the opening notes of “MMMBop” began to play. I was immediately and totally captivated by its unapologetic shiny-happiness, especially since I was deep in the throes of a somewhat unlikely infatuation with British post-grunge band Bush — and its lead singer Gavin Rossdale. I’m sure that my parents, whom I regaled with a dramatic reading of a SPIN cover story that described Rossdale’s stoned antics in detail, and the poor fellow 10-year girls whom I forced to listen to Sixteen Stone and dissect the lyrics of “Little Things” with me at a sleepover were quite pleased that I now had reason to move in a less morose direction.

Anyway, I needed more Hanson and I needed it immediately. Sadly, since the internet was still in its infancy, there weren’t yet many places to get my fix on the web. No, unlike the incredibly lucky kids and tweens of the aughts, we in the ‘mid-90s were still forced to listen to the radio all day and night to hear our favorite song unless we bought the CD (or called the station to request it) and create absolutely psychotic homemade VHS tapes that contained every single interview, MTV news feature, and music video so we could swoon and obsess on demand. Being a teenybopper in the pre-YouTube era was hard and thankless work, man.

Within just a few weeks of these towheaded brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma barreling into my life at warp speed, I memorized their birthdays (I even used Taylor’s on my fake ID in college because I knew I’d never forget it: March 14, 1983), owned a custom, mall-airbrushed t-shirt bearing Zac’s candy-corn-colored face from the Middle of Nowhere album cover (in addition to an ugly chocolate brown band shirt that was three sizes too big), and had created an Angelfire fan site called “Hippie’s Hanson Page.” What can I say? It has yet to happen in my love life, but with bands? When I know, I know, and this lightning strike has only occurred for me with two other bands: The Strokes and Greta Van Fleet. At some point, I forced a group of classmates to write a parody of “Where’s The Love?” for a science assignment about endangered wetlands — called “Where’s the Swamps?” obviously. It was complete and total immersion.

For reasons that I, nor my parents, nor any of my four friends who attended and whom I’ve mercilessly interrogated can remember now, I was not at the first Boston-area Hanson concert at Great Woods in 1998. But from 2000 to 2019, I saw Hanson 10 (yes, TEN) times in concert, across three different states. Experiences included:

• Walking barefoot with them for charity around Gillette Stadium
• Lining up at Macy’s at the ass-crack of dawn with my friend and my mom to get tickets, back in the days when Macy’s inexplicably doubled as a Ticketmaster outlet
• Taking a 2.5-hour mini-road trip with another friend to see them in Connecticut
• Going by myself to see them perform with an orchestra, getting drunk on white wine, and crying multiple times
• Attending a dog festival in rural Florida where they were performing (neither my friend nor I owned a dog, but the setting provided the perfect photo op when we nudged our way up to where Taylor was signing autographs and I forced him into a picture with us):

Beyond the music, part of the band’s appeal was that they seemed so genuine and passionate about what they were doing, especially when they performed. I’ve seen a lot, a lot, a LOT of bands in my 35 years (I think the current tally is 315ish?), and I could always rely on their shows to be consistently fantastic not only in terms of the musicianship, but the positive energy and pure, happy electricity that was created in the venue at each of their concerts. This is the best example and I haven’t watched it in years, but Taylor is still making my ovaries do somersaults and I hate myself a little bit for that. I’ve always said that my only true addiction in life is live music, and they gave me my fix without fail every time.

Of course, there were also the silly, fun little parts of fandom. The joyful rush of meeting a fellow fan—ask any Hanson girl and they’ll tell you that we somehow always managed to sense each other in the wild and become friends. Playing a recent Hanson song for someone who either dismissed them as a superficial boy band or didn’t realize they were still making music, not telling them who it was, and cackling wickedly when they inevitably commented, “This is great. Who is this?” Being jokingly jealous of the Hanson wives, who were all fans that the brothers met at their own concerts(!). Trying to keep track of their zillion children as they kept multiplying like the loaves and the fishes. Getting excited whenever the live bootleg recording of them covering Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” came on. Though I do still love that this is a thing that really happened.

And then, it all came crashing down. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the final Hanson show I would attend was in December 2019 at the House of Blues in Boston. It was a completely cheesy holiday concert that featured songs from their two Christmas albums, which will always hold a special place in my heart. I still smile when I think about how my dad, who bought Snowed In for me, surprised me with it on Thanksgiving of 1997 by saying, “I think something is wrong with our CD player. Can you press play and check?” I was puzzled at first when I heard a crackling record sound, but quickly realized his scheme as their cover of “Merry Christmas, Baby” began to play; I started squealing and jumping up and down, wrapping him in the biggest bear hug.

My friend, another longtime “Fanson” who had attended at least a couple of their shows with me in the past, came along. We stood in the line outside, shivering and giggling and marveling at the fact that all of these 22 years later, we could still be just as giddy and excited about our 10th and some-teenth Hanson concerts, respectively, as we were about our first ones. As always, the show was wonderful, even featuring a cameo from their younger brother Mac, who I had only seen photos of in the ’90s and who now resembled a slightly younger Jack Black. We were officially old.

The next day, when texting with my show companion as we basked in the familiar post-Hanson-concert depression/afterglow, I made it a point to say that one of my favorite things about the band was that they were and had always been just about the music — unproblematic, unpolitical, and uncontroversial. Though I assumed that, growing up as Christians in Oklahoma, they probably had views that differed from mine, they never talked about it, and I was happy to be blissfully ignorant. Welp.

Fast forward to the end of May 2020, when George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis and police protests broke out across the country in response. On May 28 (I remember because it was my birthday), many of us were just finding out about the tragedy but hadn’t fully grasped the magnitude of the situation or what was happening on a wider scale — but by the following day, reality set in. So, on May 30, when Hanson shared an Instagram post about the rocket launch taking place without a word about George Floyd or Black lives, I emphatically raised an eyebrow during my scrolling session. Not only because of the tone-deaf nature of the post, but also because this was a band that had quite literally made their living for decades through the influence of Black musicians; they even frequently covered Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” and Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want),” among others. And they’d had a fucking Black bassist in their touring band for their entire career! My stomach started to sink, hoping it was just a misunderstanding or oversight or…SOMETHING that didn’t mean what I thought it might mean.

Fans called them out in the comments, but everything after that was too little, too late: a probably-prescheduled post advertising their annual island vacation that was swiftly deleted after more people went apeshit, a thinly-veiled “All Lives Matter” post that caused more controversy, and finally an “oh shit, that didn’t cut it” post on June 8 with comments turned off that concluded “There is no question we believe Black lives matter,” more than a week after all this began. But there WAS a question, my dudes, and there shouldn’t have been! I was feeling disappointed and disillusioned, to say the least. Why were they having such a hard time taking a stand?

From there, it was a seemingly never-ending avalanche of disappointment: one of Zac’s private Pinterest boards, filled with racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and transphobic memes, leaked; the band held in-person, maskless concerts; Isaac went on an unhinged Instagram story rant about the government canceling Christmas and how he won’t comply. Taylor, whom I’d always suspected was the best egg of the bunch and whom I still hold out hope for, made some anti-racism statements on his personal Instagram, but it still bothered me immensely that he was clearly tiptoeing around the issue for the sake of his bigoted brothers. I won’t go into the most recent event because it’s honestly too disgusting for me to even type, but it was the last and final straw that forced me to accept the truth and completely cut the cord for good.

I felt betrayed, duped, and dumb. This band that I’d spent well over half of my life supporting, adoring, and vehemently defending, were quite plainly demonstrating that, at least now, they were full of shit. It made me question everything they’d done, especially their album and tour for The Walk back in 2007, which was supposedly about raising awareness and money for the HIV/AIDS crisis and poverty in Africa. Considering that now, at least two of the three were clearly not walking their talk, I wondered if they always felt this way, or if something changed? Was it all a white savior PR move? The image of loving, humanitarian Hanson I’d composed over the past 24 years was defaced and ripped to shreds in a matter of months. When they announced a new album and tour the other day—events which, in the past, I’d be totally ecstatic about—I felt absolutely nothing, and it was honestly heartbreaking.

It sounds silly and dramatic, but it was (and still is!) as painful as the dissolution of a long-term romantic relationship — and it somehow hurts even more because I obviously never knew them personally, but felt like I did. Like, really felt like I did! I soon discovered that I wasn’t alone in my grief through the “Post Hanson” Reddit community, which has been helpful to lurk as I move through the stages of the most bizarre breakup of my life.

Still, I don’t regret the nearly quarter-century of joy, comfort, friendships, concerts, and unforgettable memories—musical and otherwise—that Hanson brought into my life. We had a good run, and while I never expected things to end the way they did, life is funny that way. I guess, to put things in perspective, I need only to refer back to the song that started it all for them…and for me:

You have so many relationships in this life
Only one or two will last
You go through all the pain and strife
Then you turn your back and they’re gone so fast

In an MMMbop, they’re gone.