Anyway, their website sucks. Yet more people who need to call 1800RagOnMe. It has a tremendously annoying intro (intro of the moment: Space Cowboy playing behind a BAD animation of an asteroid tumbling through outer space) and then you have to watch the NSYNCers sneak onto the screen in a clear example of Flash abuse. Right now, the main page has a Christmas theme. That is, it has flashing red and green lights surrounding it. For some reason it reminds me of a Mexican cantina, the kind of place you'd end up at after a long roadtrip. The kind of place you'd get wasted out of your head at. The kind of place you'd wake up at three days later, remembering nothing. Somehow I doubt that's the effect the designer was going for.
And then there are the pop-ups. I hate pop-ups. I think they are SATANIC.
Here at nsync.com you get a bunch of 'em.
It starts off with them whoring out their MSN shit. They list the benefits of
it:
For some reason I don't believe this. Oh- probably because a) I'm a raging
cynic and b) it's not true. Notice they don't say that NSYNC themselves will
be chatting. I LOVE deniability. Love it. Surprise Chat Session with Some
Guy Lance Met at Taco Bell- Tonight! Only on MSN!
Okay- did Lance write this blurb? [see our review of his chat on MSN for more
on our conviction that Lance has no fucking clue what an ISP is] Because
a skin doesn't do anything. Windows Media is what plays music and video.
All a
skin does is sit on top of your player, look lame, and take up disc space
you could be using to download MP3s.
Right on! But I already have an IM program. I would vaguely
like to see how it's
been made special and NSYNCdified (Like... do you think it plays the intro
to Digital Getdown when you open it?), but I'm not willing to do anything
for it.
You're 0 for 4, people. And- oh? Down at the bottom?
You must be 18 years or older to order.
AHAHAHHAHAA. Don't think you'll be selling too many of the cds, then.
Also, they sell ad space. I'm hugely weirded out by this. Okay- maybe they donate it as opposed to selling it, I don't know. But you'll just be minding your own business when suddenly up pops a fucking DON'T SMOKE ad. Whatever!
No- they sell ad space. There's a banner plugging Pringles right now. Guess that million bucks per concert they pull in isn't enough.
And when you've sat through all that, the intro, the popups, the random Flash, you notice that there's nothing ON the fucking site. It's terrible. They pay someone to do this? I want his job.
On the left are the navigation buttons. You can choose from
I click on Fun Stuff first. Does that really surprise you? As I write this, the FUCKING Pringle pop-up keeps showing up. Fuck you, Pringle guy.
Under Fun Stuff you can choose from
Okay, so now I'm at From the Fans. Aha! NSYNC Fan Reviews! You can choose between the World Tour or the Challenge for the Children thingy. I'm going with World Tour. Aside: the reviews are listed by the names of the chicks who wrote them: Brandy; Kristy; Sherry; Tania; Vanessa; Andrea.
WT, anyone?
I click on Brandy first. Sounds promising.
Actually, it's pretty boring. She saw "the studs of NSYNC" live on the fourth of July and mentions that when Steve came out to introduce them, he said that "we were a very special crowd and that they had a surprise in store for us". Yeah. I bet he says that to all the girls. She gushes about the opening acts. Then she mentions that there was a bomb threat called in. Wow. See, if I had been writing this, I would have opened with that. Now I feel all mean. Dammit.
She gushes some more. But now, due to the stupid bomb threat, I feel like a bitch. In closing, I must give Brandy props for reasonably nice grammar and spelling definitely correctly. I wonder if the NSYNC site people cleaned it up?
On to Kristy. She's a little more entertaining. First, no bomb threats. Second, she's teenier. I'm sure that a lot of OMGs and LOLs had to be edited out. She tells us all about her attempts to weasle information out of NSYNC's Chief of Security (caps hers) "I can't tell you names, sorry". Darn. My plan to stalk the dude is dead aborning. She tells us about how the Chief of Security dude got her into The Klub. Ehm. I'm picking up some scary Nabokov vibes. She closes with: "I would say there was a more older crowd in Raleigh than in G'boro".
I... I worry for the state of the nation. More older. Jesus chris.
Sherry's review is even more fun. Lots of gushing. She's twenty-six. God forfend I'm like this at her age. We get more bomb scare info. Now I really feel like a bitch, because for some reason I find it funny. I'm picturing four or five frat brothers sitting at home, bored, and then calling up the stadium. I'm sorry. I know it's horrible of me. But... it's making me laugh. Primarily due to Sherry's weird use of the English language.
"As of then we were scared, nervous, all kinds of emotions running through your mind... scared for safety of all those in the building and for yourself. scared for the safety of the guys (which we were told that they were safe on their bus) and even worried that the show may have to be cancelled. We were assured with another announcement that there was no guarantee how long this would take considering the matter at hand."
Isn't grammar special?
"It was a night of many emotions but thrilled was the one that one out over all the others. NSYNC always makes seeing them a NIGHT TO REMEMBER!!!"
Grammar, punctuation, gushing, all special. Did I mention that she spelled intermission intermition? Spelling's special, too, I guess.
I was going to tell you about the Challenge reviews, but I read the first few lines of the first one and got a bad case of Replacement Shame and just couldn't go on. NSYNC must hate their fans. How could they not?
Back to Fun Stuff. I'm going to Toys now. You know I have to do it. I can't help myself. Okay... screensavers or wallpaper or something... nope... NSYNC Memory... eh.... Here we go! The NSYNC Quiz! I love this shit.
Who's afraid of heights? Chris. The quiz tells me "Very good!" I smile 'cause I got it right. Well, I don't, actually. But you know.
What's one of Chris' favorite sports? You can choose from football, jet-skiing, and tennis. Dude- have I ever told you that I kick multiple choice ASS? I have no idea what Chris' favorite sport is, but it's a simple case of deduction. Tennis is for pussies. Jet-skiing is, too. Chris is in a boyband. Of course he's going to pick a macho sport than involves bleeding and broken bones.
Yup. "Very good!" Thanks.
Oh. God. I got a perfect score on the Chris section. I hate myself.
Not that I'm going to stop taking the quiz or anything. But still. Hatred.
Now it's about Justin. Thank God. I got something wrong. Justin was 11 when he was on Star Search. I did not know that. Unfortunately, now it's burned into my brain.
I got two things wrong. At then end of the Justin section the quiz tells me SORRY! Because I didn't get enough answers right. Fuck you! I have to take his section again. This is surreal. But I do it. Get it right. Yeah- I'm a quick study. Remember the key facts: 11, dreadlocks, Ferris Bueller. I'm money. Onward!
It's Joey. Yay! I get a question wrong. Have to take the fucker again. One of the questions asks if part of Joe's heritage is Italian, French, or Hungarian. For some reason I don't understand, the Hungarian thing makes me laugh. I don't know. Dude! Steve gets a question! That's fucked up.
Onward.
I get all of JC's questions right. Fuck me.
Lance's turn. I get a question wrong, about nailbiting. And I didn't know that Lance smacked into a bird while sky-diving. I'm impressed. And I didn't know that Lance's favorite show as a kid was I Love Lucy.
Do you think he has any idea how gay that is?
I retake the test. Pass. Dude, this is like getting your license.
The quiz congratulates me. I hang my head in shame.
Now I'm going to play NSYNC Says. I have no idea what it is. But I'll give it a go. Oh. Yawn. It's one of those deals where the game flashes you a sequence and you have to repeat it and the sequence keeps getting longer. Whatever! I'm not four years old. My memory works, I can keep this up for a while. I don't, because it's boring as hell, but I can.
That wasn't fun at all. Actually.
I have a lot of stuff to say about some other stuff that can be found here, namely the videos, but that's a whole other review. This review is about the website. And my final analysis?
Sucks. Fire those Media X people RIGHT NOW.
And another Pringle thing just popped up. Fuckers.