My Summer Lair Chapter #284: The Next Time There’s An Online Opportunity…Will You Troll The Poll?
My Open Secret: I hadda google all these boy band song titles to make these show notes work
In this My Summer Lair chapter I’m going to take you Step by Step to reveal how New Kids On The Block ended up on MTV’s Total Request Live one fateful day in 1999.
By 1999 NKOTB were no longer a Cover Girl, they were an 80s Baby. And yet a chain letter was making the rounds insisting to Bring Back The Time.
On this episode is the director Yourgo Artsitas who’s Got It (The Right Stuff). His documentary screening at Hot Docs TR(ol)L: New Kids on the Block, Total Request Live and the Chain Letter that Changed the Internet reveals how fans and jokers and pranksters said to MTV hey…about New Kids On The Block? Let’s Try It Again.
When a boy band comes on the scene they’re fresh like a Valentine Girl. And fans swear to em I’ll Be Loving You (Forever). Though that’s not always true.
And even though it was Tearin’ Up My Heart MTV was all like Bye Bye Bye to the poorly named New Kids on the Block. They were Gone, replaced with all this new Pop from NSYNC to Briney to 98 Degrees.
And yet this chain letter circulating online was driving MTV (You Drive Me) Crazy, let’s all get together and pressure TRL to broadcast Hangin’ Tough.
Would MTV respect the pop culture democracy and play NKOTB? If you don’t know or can’t remember (I’ve run out of boy band song titles by now):
Total Request Live ran on MTV from September 14, 1998 to November 16, 2008.
MTV VJs (mostly Carson Daly and David Holmes) would count down the top ten music videos of the day with a studio audience. These top ten music videos were voted on by the fans.
And it was a good thing going…the youths had skin in the game and as fans could vote for their favorites from early Eminem to late ’90s boy bands. The record labels and music industry was happy because TRL could crown new music kings and help sell records. And MTV was happy because they had a hit TV show.
The only thing threatening this utopian pop music democracy was this popular “Chain Letter that Changed the Internet” pushing readers to vote for New Kids on the Block on March 10th, 1999.
The final results would air the next day on March 11th’s TRL episode.
This is the subject of this documentary playing at Hot Docs 2024: TR(ol)L: New Kids on the Block, Total Request Live and the Chain Letter that Changed the Internet.
This I Promise You is gonna be a fun episode of My Summer Lair.
TR(ol)L @ W • T • F
Host Sammy Younan
Recorded: Monday April 22, 2024 at 1:30 pm (EST)
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