Pop Stars Need To Get Older 'Cos I’m Starting To Hate Myself

Hello, I’m Ryan. I work a shitty day job and in between serving yuppies caramel macchiatos and wiping smeared ketchup off plates, I daydream and fanboy over today’s musicians. I’ll probably never get to share a milkshake with Kanye West or play dress up with Lady Gaga, but I would like to be able to ask Justin Timberlake to start "bringing sexy back".

Pop Stars Need To Get Older 'Cos I’m Starting To Hate Myself

I’ve been getting old for a while now. I wish I could put a stop to it. The older I get, the more pressure there is to have actively achieved something. Despite my arguments with my landlord, a blog post on a website doesn’t pay the rent. Adjectives aren’t legal tender. I get nostalgic and depressed whenever anyone plays that fucking Baz Luhrmann song and I can’t help but think how being young was way better. Toddlers don’t get P45s. They get someone to wipe their bum for them.

At the age of 14 I played in a band. I chose bass because it’s easy and you don’t have to do much. We were called Maths Watch!!! and we wrote a song with the lyrics – “legs like sticks, she likes the dicks”. It was about an emaciated, yet beautiful, goddess who knew about Woody Allen films and liked Bob Dylan. She made the track her profile song on MySpace and I felt like we were on our way to stardom. It felt like we were going to make it.

I was in my early teens and today felt like a lifetime away. I thought that by now, I’d be living in an apartment in Manhattan cooking paella for a young Kirsten Dunst and Cameron Diaz. I’d swap jumpers with James Franco and in the evening I’d watch Road Wars with a stoned Jake Gyllenhall. Sandy Cohen would sing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" at my wedding. Macauley Culkin would be page boy.

This never happened, of course. My band didn’t leave the garage. Instead, I make excel documents about gas payments and cry into overmicrowaved ready meals, sobbing because my parents don’t know what web 2.0 is and they can’t be proud of me.

I’m bitter and I’m going to blame it on the pop stars.

They’re so young nowadays and they’re making us all look bad.

Bieber, bless his heart, is probably still figuring out that condoms come in different flavours. Yet, he drives a $100,000 car and can say ridiculous phrases like “swaggy” without sounding like a dick. He ashes blunts whilst the rest of us cry about our overdrafts. The pop world has always been full of hair straightened twerps stealing the fun from everyone else.

Hey, Hanson, can we go rollerblading again together soon? We could braid our hair and drink slush puppies whilst listening to Len. Oh, and speaking of hair - where do you guys get your conditioner? You should start your own brand. I’d buy it. I’m a firm believer in MMMbop. It should be a hymn set to the sound of before work showers. I actually listened to this song the other morning and I nearly cried. It was SO good.

Obviously, this was 16 years ago. Now, these guys look like THIS!

Oops. I googled this picture in the hope that they did a John Travolta. Turns out they’re still hunks.

Selfish bastards.

The modern day equivalent – if we’re talking age – is Willow Smith. A young girl so successful that she makes my year 6 SATS results seem as unimpressive as opening a Capri Sun. Morally, though, should she be allowed to be so successful? Thanks to her music career the Internet is discussing the sexual orientation of a twelve year old. Pursuit of Happyness lied. Will Smith isn't a good parent.

It’s not just the Pepsi Cola David Guetta sponsored pop world, though. Somehow, everyone/everywhere is really young. The other day I learnt that Joey Bada$$ is seventeen. SEVENTEEN! When I was seventeen I was learning to drive. Meanwhile, Mr Bada$$ has been balling about huffing shotties and recording, umm, FOUR mixtapes.

Alongside Joey and Willow we’ve got the likes of Azealia, Mac Miller, Miley Cyrus, Yuck, One Direction, Angel Haze, Earl Sweatshirt, King Krule, Reijie Snow + others, who are all making the average person’s achievements look like banal grey colour swatches in Ikea.

There needs to be a referendum on the age of pop stars. I’m starting to hate myself because I haven’t got a world famous mixtape or 352,000 followers on Twitter. I've nearly finished my degree but it's hardly 12 Teen Choice Awards (Hiiiiya Justin!)

Perhaps the only shimmer of hope for perpetual teenage media types lives on in Carly Rae Jepsen. A 2013 Shania Twain, who, at the Schloer drinking age of 27 recorded the best pop song known to man. Although, I’m betting that Call Me Maybe wasn’t written about a meeting with Natwest for an ISA account.

Follow Ryan on Twitter @RyanBassil