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If Young Musicians Didn’t Become Rebels, We Wouldn’t Buy Their Records

Miley Cyrus

The well-trodden path to stardom that begins in the depths of Disney and Nickelodeon-style kid culture and meanders its way to a fully-fledged adult career is one that has been traveled many times. But not everyone makes it. Plenty of child stars that were once household names have in later years failed to retain the same interest from audiences. Leading to less work, or even no work, and a guaranteed place on an internet list of “Child Stars That Never Made It”.

Despite making a fortune before growing a single pubic hair, most of these kids would prefer to stay in a similar line of work for most of their lives even if they don’t need the money. A chance to have your name among the greatest and most long-standing entertainers of all time is seductive. There are few who spend their early years in front of the cameras who would turn it down.

Miley Cyrus played her character and dual persona, Hannah Montana, for years in a popular program that was watched mostly by children and pre-teens. The same young people who begged their parents for tickets to her shows and put her merchandise in their letter to Santa. But what 11, 12 and 13-year-olds like when it comes to music is almost never the same when they’re 14, 15, 16 or older. For anyone in their adolescence, the passage of only a few years is a transformative time that comes with it’s own unique soundtrack, and the discovery of artists that will “change your life” or something along the same lines. You’ll taste adulthood and a big part of you will want that in your music, even if it’s the superficial kind.

At some point in the journey from childhood to adulthood for most of her fans, Hannah Montana ends up in the trash. Anybody who knows a teenager (particularly someone in their late teens) knows that a picture or a video from their pre-teen days is enough to send most of them into a mental breakdown. Somewhere along the line, the version of themselves that existed only a few years ago becomes repulsive. Being a Hannah Montana fan, or a fan of anything similarly child-like, is not a good look for later teen years.

Re-invention is what’s needed if you’re to stay in the game as a performer in your twenties and beyond. Since stopping the Hannah Montana franchise in 2011 and releasing singles like “Party In The USA” in 2010, Miley Cyrus has been on a PR campaign to become the naughtiest motherfucking thing in pop. That’s probably how she’d describe it anyway. The big shift in how the world saw the tween idol came in 2013 when she gyrated herself against Robin Thicke and single-handedly put “twerking” in the Dictionary. In the following months, she would come out as a strong advocate for weed, both politically and recreationally, and established a reputation as a party girl, one woman moral-panic. And by doing so secured herself a career.

Justin Bieber has done much the same. For years, most of us would’ve thought something along the lines of “Yeah, he’s fine now but once his voice breaks he is f-u-c-k-e-d”. But we were wrong. His notoriously loud defenders who wipe their presence across the internet like a sheet of dirty toilet paper have remained consistently loyal, despite their hero being the whipping boy of the internet. And thanks to him dumping the fluffy-haired pretty boy persona that we found him as, his fans will be comfortable taking him along their journey to adulthood too.

In our culture, breaking the rules is something that’s ingrained in the experience of being an adolescent. So becoming the poster-kid for a demographic that at its heart just wants to kick out against the system is a pretty smart move. Not all teenagers will jump to the likes of Miley, Bieber, Lovato or Jayden Smith to soundtrack their wilderness years. Plenty will see it as a vacuous PR move. But as long as they keep being someone’s idea of a badass, someone will.

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