Are You Even Old Enough to Appreciate the References in This Fall Out Boy Vid?

By Kate Dries | January 5, 2016 | 7:20pm

Entertainment

Bear with me, fetuses. It’s story time.

Here’s a description for the new Fall Out Boy video for the song “Irresistible” (not the 2001 Jessica Simpson track) featuring Demi Lovato, which also stars Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone.

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What if in the NSYNC video for “It’s Gonna Be Me” there was an analog to the story? Where in the same store there was a dollar bin full of toys that no one really wanted that would band together like the misfit, offbrand little outsiders they were. “Irresistible” is the video for that story, it’s about the toys no one ever wanted come to life. It was directed by Wayne Isham, the director who did the original NSYNC video and features Demi Lovato and special cameos by Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick.

I know, that’s a lot of words you don’t understand. It’s okay! Let’s start at the beginning.

“It’s Gonna Be Me” is an NSYNC song from 2000 off their album No Strings Attached. It was an incredibly popular song, and the video is definitely part of the canon of early aughts music video culture. It primarily features the band members as dolls in a toy store who eventually break free of their packaging to live free as real men.

The video only vaguely mirrored the lyrics to the track—though it was a direct reference to the album title—but some argue that it was an allegory for NSYNC trying to break free of their boy band creator/Svengali Lou Pearlman.

Fall Out Boy’s reimagining of this classic vid stars only two of NSYNC’s original members, and the two in question are quite obvious to those in the know. It was again directed by Wayne Isham (whose lengthy credit list includes classics like “Try Again” by Aaliyah and “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi) and features the members of Fall Out Boy [Ed. Note: What’s his name who was married to Ashlee Simpson and the other blonde one?] as said dolls, who are being handled by Lovato/the former *NSYNC members. The lyrics to the song are semi-similar to “It’s Gonna Be Me”’s, bemoaning a girl who just doesn’t get how good she’s got it.

Eventually, the dolls “band together like the misfit, off-brand little outsiders they were.” A reminder: while “It’s Gonna Be Me” featured the Ken Barbie-esque figurines of NSYNC, this video is “about the toys no one ever wanted come to life.” That’s Fall Out Boy and Demi Lovato: the toys no one ever wanted.

“It’s Gonna Be Me” made it to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Totally incomparably, “Irresistible” (again, not the Jessica Simpson song) “has more than 60 million streams on Spotify and YouTube and 30 million Pandora plays to date.”

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