Pixelated Space Girl

A frame-by-frame analysis of NSYNC’s 1997 “I Want You Back” music video

This piece was first published on my Substack, TMI — Too Much Internet on June 29, 2023. For more posts like these in your inbox, please consider subscribing here.

The year is 1997.

I am 12 years old. I am in 7th grade, and desperately want to be perceived as cool. I have a large Beanie Baby collection that is growing by the day. I have listened to a Spice Girls CD once when I borrowed it from a friend during a weekend soccer tournament. I am obsessed with Friends, and spend my free time in computer class reading transcribed episodes online. I am trying to keep my Tamagotchi alive.

Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Justin Timberlake, and Lance Bass are in Germany, touring and celebrating the successful European launch of their first album, as well as their first-ever music video.

In a short time, I will become aware of their existence. In fact, every girl in my grade will become aware of their existence, and will be pressured into selecting which member of NSYNC is “theirs”. (There was, of course, also the option of choosing someone from Backstreet Boys, or 98 Degrees, if you’re nasty¹.) But right now, they are Schrödinger’s boy band — NSYNC both exists, and does not exist.