"That moment became proof to many people that she was done. It's heartbreaking. That song was great. She was great. And if that moment had been handled with care instead of cruelty, maybe things would've been unfolded differently."
Welcome to Notes with Kathy Patalsky. Today's episode asks what happens when pop culture. Grows up at the same time that you do.
You're listening to Notes with Kathy Patalsky.
Britney.
Everyone has a few things from their teenage years that quietly explain who they became. You know how you'd cover your bedroom walls with posters, musicians, movie stars, bands, magazine cutouts, and somehow that collage became a personality?
Like you were borrowing pieces of yourself from pop culture before you fully knew who you were. For me, at 16 or 17, there were three big ones. Okay? There were more, but here's like the top five. Beverly Hills. 9 0 2 1 0 Was really big. Paula Abdul. Was really big. Then I got a little older and the three became clear.
NSYNC. Titanic. I actually have a poster on my office wall that represents Titanic. And number three, Britney Spears. If you're an elder millennial, you already know Britney wasn't just a pop star, she was the pop star. There really wasn't anyone like her when she showed up.
And I say that with clarity, you guys, before Britney, our options were not exactly current. Do you even remember? We would go back to Whitney, Celine, Gloria Stefan. Incredible women, but not ours, in that teenage coming of age way. I mean, do you remember when Britney posed on the cover of Rolling Stone, wearing like boxer shorts that every girl wore at every sleepover at that age, and she was holding, I think, a telephone and she had like a Teletubby toy.
Am I remembering this right? That was ours. That was our teenage era. When Britney arrived, it felt like something cracked open. She came in right alongside in sync in the Backstreet Boys, and suddenly we were in a golden era of pop. It felt shiny and fun and electric and young. It felt like the future. It was TRL after school.
It was watching Eminem battle the pop stars. Watching Metallica and Nirvana and Corn. Korn. Do you remember that? They had a big video, and Britney wasn't just famous. She was everywhere. She was joy, she was choreography, she was confidence. She was that feeling of standing in front of your mirror with a hairbrush, absolutely convinced that you were doing something important, that you had some secret essence from your girlhood, just like Britney did. Fast forward to a few years I graduated college with a degree in nutrition and science thinking I'm gonna work in public health or become a dietician. And I could have, but even then I knew deep down that if I stayed only in that lane, that clinical left brain sort of way.
A huge part of me would go unused. Around that same time, Britney's life started unraveling very publicly. The mid two thousands were brutal. Paparazzi culture was vicious. Young women were followed, mocked, photographed relentlessly, especially those young mothers like Britney was. We called people fat when they were size six.
We treated breakdowns like entertainment. We didn't have language around mental health. We also didn't carry language to say out loud, this is wrong, you guys stop. This is not okay.
When there were whispers of Britney returning, performing again, releasing new music, her blackout album, which got like zero promotion, but was actually really fun to listen to, I felt something familiar spark. That same teenage loyalty, that same protectiveness from those "baby one more time" and "oops, I did it again."
Yours. Those years when she went on the VMAs and came out in a black sparkly suit and peeled it off of her body and looked like she was naked, but totally wasn't, and then danced her heart out. Yes, I was very protective of that woman on the stage. So I did what made total sense to me at the time. Sense for where the world was going.
I made a website and I called it, I called it Britney's Comeback, and I went all in. I posted daily updates, photos, news, rumors, appearances. I became unintentionally, a Britney Spears expert, TMZ featured me twice. Radio shows called me. I talked about her VMAs performance, the song "Gimme More" the cultural Weight of it all.
And if you remember that performance, you remember how painful it was. She wasn't ready. She looked lost. It wasn't the Britney we knew. And instead of asking why, the world laughed. They actually chose camera shots where people in the audience were laughing. That moment became proof to many people that she was done.
Looking back now, especially as a mother and an adult, it's heartbreaking. Because that song was great. She was great. And if that moment had been handled with care instead of cruelty, maybe things would've been unfolded differently. Maybe she wouldn't have carried so much damage for so long.
Years later, Britney said in some interview I read somewhere that she didn't like the word comeback, and that hit me because I was like, Ooh, that was kind of my word. Did I make that?
Comeback is the wrong word. No one ever leaves themselves. We don't disappear. We don't reset. We just show up in different proportions at different times in our lives.
She didn't need a comeback, because she never stopped being Britney Spears, and that's the part I hold onto, not the speculation, not the headlines, not the trauma played out in public, but the joy, the fact that some tiny pieces of my personality, my confidence, my playfulness, my willingness to be a little ridiculous.
Came from her. From that way her music made us feel fearless. Before Fearless was a song by Taylor Swift. From Dancing Badly in Public, from insisting on, "oops. I did it again" on a jukebox and not caring. Who watched for those many hours that I practiced the intense choreography for that song before there was YouTube or Instagram or a replay in any way.
I don't know how I did it. I used a VCR. Stop, rewind, play again.
Britney didn't give us a moment. She didn't give us content. She gave us a feeling. She gave us an ownership of who we were in that era and who we became as adults. Britney will never have a comeback. She doesn't need one. Because she will always be Britney Spears.
This was Notes by Kathy Patalsky
For more, follow Kathy on Instagram or visit healthyhappylife.com
