What the Hell is a Hannah Montana?

For everyone that doesn't have an eight, nine or ten-year old daughter or doesn't work at either paper or any of the local television stations or at Key Arena, Hannah Montana is some Disney television thing that toured through Seattle yesterday to a storm of coverage and over-inflated ticket prices. The show's pretext is that this teenager leads a double life: everyday anonymous jerk by day, rock star Hannah Montana by night.

It looked like this in Seattle (turn your sound down):

Now, if Seattlest can pull our waistband up a little higher than usual, stoop over, and adjust our bifocals, can we ask how the hell eight and nine-year-olds are even aware enough to know that a Hannah Montana concert is happening? Yeah, we get email alerts from our favorite bands and they text us when they're going to be in town, but how exactly does that work for an eight-year-old? We were sixteen when we went to our first concert and we drove ourselves there, which, between Seattlest and you and our friend who did the body work on our parents' faux-woody wagon, was a colossal mistake. AC/DC, however, rocked. We certainly didn't ask our parents to pay an exorbitant amount for the tickets (or, better yet, to exploit us in their Youtube advertising in order to afford them).

And poor Hannah... How long until she Britney's out and we see some future Chris Crocker crying, "Leave Hannah alone!"

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By Dan in Arts & Events on October 30, 2007 11:52 AM

Comments [rss]

misternobody

>>>can we ask how the hell eight and nine-year-olds are even aware enough to know that a Hannah Montana concert is happening?

We were totally aware of the Hannah/Miley concert around our house, but how the hell did I not even become aware of Yo La Tengo at the Town Hall? Can't believe we'll miss that-YLT can do no wrong.

BTW that video is from 2 years ago - when Hannah opened for The Cheetah Girls. Her stage set has increased in size in direct correlation to her current popularity, see here:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/popup.asp?SubID=3225&page=10

Kim Ruehl

maybe this was a girl thing, but when i was a kid (and i'm 30 now), i found out about artists on tour by joining their fan club, getting on their mailing list, or paying attention to magazines for kids like tiger beat.

i imagine now the kids get on the internets, or just hear it from other kids at school.

i know my 11 year-old niece has been researching for school projects online for a few years now.

Katelyn

Eight year olds are way more savvy than you think, Dan. These kids are on the internet using forums, nurturing NeoPets (or whatever the latest fad animal thing is these days), and downloading music. Scary huh!

belle

her name is miley. it will be "leave miley alone!", that is, if her daddy (billy ray cyrus, he of the achy-breaky heart) can't convince her to hang on to her chaste and virtuous disney lifestyle.

romulus

can we ask how the hell eight and nine-year-olds are even aware enough to know that a Hannah Montana concert is happening?

There's these big boxes with a bright light on one side that shows pictures. They are very popular among the younger generations. They can plug them into their wall like an electric lamp and get these pictures from all across the country.

You should definitely pick one up if you want to be in touch with today's youth. You can probably even find a 9-year-old to help you.

COMTE

I believe Disney made a secret agreement with the health care industry some decades back that allows them to secretly insert telepathic microchip receivers into the brains of all female newborns, thus enabling them to spontaneously deliver advertising messages directly into their cerebral cortexes.

Either that, or these kids watch waaaay too much of The Disney Channel, or listen to waaaay too much AM 1250...