Last week a documentary aired called Mad About One Direction. It featured some of the lengths teenage fans go to today to meet their idols. Waiting for hours outside hotels and venues, recording Nando's intake and monitoring the band's Twitter activity take up much of a hardcore fan's day. One Directioner announced she would chop off her arm should the band instruct her to do so. While we wouldn't threaten the selection below with self-mutilation we were young once and might still hang around on a drizzly day outside their hotel. Here are our teenage crushes...
1. W. Axl Rose, a small piece of my heart will always belong to you. Not *you* you, the crazy and overbloated egoistical rock star who destroyed the best thing to come out of America in the 1980s, but the you I lusted after back then, all razor-sharp cheekbones, long smooth hair, and acres of black leather. Sweet Child O' Mine Axl, not Estranged Axl. My GN'R obsession defined my adolescence, from my taste in music to my fashion sense. It also dictated the boys I fancied - long hair? band t-shirt? carving rock lyrics into school desks? YES PLEASE! But we do grow out of our crushes, eventually. Earlier this year I was TOO BUSY WORKING to use my free tickets and VIP access to an Axl Rose N' Random Backing Band that was taking place a few hundred yards away. That was the moment I truly realised I could call myself a grown-up. F1Kate
2. My teen crush had eyes so dark you could get lost in them, skin so smooth I envied him and a name that meant something about a breeze over the mountain tops, which instantly made me think of him blowing erotically on a woman's breasts (er, hadn't had any sexual encounters at this point, I didn't know!) I went to see the Matrix three times and it wasn't for Keanu's top notch acting. Swoon. Squeamish Nicola
3. Allison Hannigan will always have a special place in my heart. Or more precisely Willow will. I think she's the only woman I've ever had a poster of on my wall. Gareth
4. From the ages of 16 through to about 19, I had a...let's call it a healthy interest in Placebo. I loved everything about the band and followed them around 5 countries to watch dozens of their shows. But as much as I loved the music there was also another draw in the shape of androgynous sex dwarf Brian Molko. The outfits, the voice, the prancing around in skin-tight clothes and feather boas. Be still my beating heart.
Over time my crush lessened and faded. But I still avoid up to date photos - Molko will be forever young in a corner of my heart - and have still got a fondness for men in eyeliner. Squeamish Louise
5. I recall a report on Take That's fans on Newsround when I was 6. "I'm far too young for all that" I thought, "plus my parents would never approve of posters in my room" being rather a self-policing child thanks to a diligent older sister. When I met a TT super-fan I felt sorry for her, I also thought she was silly because she claimed her love for Mark Owen was soooo real it hurt. I know one thing about love, it's fun and it doesn't hurt (two things about love). I was never a boyband girl. I once saw Boyzone at Wembley and was underwhelmed. My teen crush wasn't co-ordinated but he used logic like a laser. Yes, Jonathan Creek, a scruffy boy-man living in a windmill with mussed up hair floated my teen boat.Squeamish Kate
2. My teen crush had eyes so dark you could get lost in them, skin so smooth I envied him and a name that meant something about a breeze over the mountain tops, which instantly made me think of him blowing erotically on a woman's breasts (er, hadn't had any sexual encounters at this point, I didn't know!) I went to see the Matrix three times and it wasn't for Keanu's top notch acting. Swoon. Squeamish Nicola
3. Allison Hannigan will always have a special place in my heart. Or more precisely Willow will. I think she's the only woman I've ever had a poster of on my wall. Gareth
4. From the ages of 16 through to about 19, I had a...let's call it a healthy interest in Placebo. I loved everything about the band and followed them around 5 countries to watch dozens of their shows. But as much as I loved the music there was also another draw in the shape of androgynous sex dwarf Brian Molko. The outfits, the voice, the prancing around in skin-tight clothes and feather boas. Be still my beating heart.
Over time my crush lessened and faded. But I still avoid up to date photos - Molko will be forever young in a corner of my heart - and have still got a fondness for men in eyeliner. Squeamish Louise
5. I recall a report on Take That's fans on Newsround when I was 6. "I'm far too young for all that" I thought, "plus my parents would never approve of posters in my room" being rather a self-policing child thanks to a diligent older sister. When I met a TT super-fan I felt sorry for her, I also thought she was silly because she claimed her love for Mark Owen was soooo real it hurt. I know one thing about love, it's fun and it doesn't hurt (two things about love). I was never a boyband girl. I once saw Boyzone at Wembley and was underwhelmed. My teen crush wasn't co-ordinated but he used logic like a laser. Yes, Jonathan Creek, a scruffy boy-man living in a windmill with mussed up hair floated my teen boat.Squeamish Kate
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