Sony Music heavily manufactured the rivalry between the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC in the late nineties, despite the fact that both bands were managed by the exact same guy, Lou Pearlman.

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Sony Music heavily manufactured the rivalry between the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC in the late nineties, despite the fact that both bands were managed by the exact same guy, Lou Pearlman. Millions of teenagers spent their allowances fiercely defending their favorite boy band, completely oblivious to the fact that they were just voluntarily participating in a massive, brilliantly orchestrated corporate monopoly. Pearlman essentially treated the pop music charts like a rigged casino, ensuring that no matter which group of frosted-tipped dancers you supported, all the merchandise money funneled directly into his extremely shady bank accounts. He was eventually exposed as a massive fraud who orchestrated one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history, leaving a legacy of ruined finances and perfectly choreographed music videos. It is truly a beautiful capitalist fairy tale where the real villain was not the rival band, but the greedy manager stealing everyone's royalties behind the scenes