Vanessa Hudgens Has The Best Fans In The World

You know what’s interesting?

Britney Spears. Gosh, her little antics kept the bloggers and TV networks fuelled full of gossip for a couple of weeks there, didn’t they?


You know what else is interesting?

The stars of hit TV shows like Gossip Girl and Heroes. Who saw Hayden P and Milo Ventimiglia’s little relationship coming? Man, there’s a significant age difference between them so it means we can criticise them! YAY! And then there’s the gossiplicious hottie Chace Crawford and his break-up with Carrie Underwood. They broke up through text messages and wow, that just had everyone recalling ‘Federline-Spears’ break-up all over again!


And do you know what’s interesting right now?

Vanessa Hudgens. Her little nude pictures stunt was Perez Hilton’s dream come true.


Yes, these stars are very interesting. They live these little lives that we get to read and for a couple of minutes or hours or even days, we escape from our own lives. We have chores to do, some have errands to run, others have mortgages to pay and families to feed.


But doesn’t it make you feel like you’re in an alternate universe when you’re reading about these people? No wonder you’re getting a buzz out of the paparazzi videos, the candid photos and the stories hot off the rumour mill. It’s good to know that these untouchable, super-glamorous people crash and burn too.


And boy, do the media know it.



They know we love seeing Vanessa Hudgens’ sweaty two hundred pound or so father yell abuse at a TMZ cameraman and they know we love watching Zac and Vanessa walking out of a restaurant in California after New Years. They know we love watching beautiful people lead beautiful lives that sometimes mess up. It’s the perfect reality soap opera.


What they also know is that we are contributing to their magazine sales, the hits their webpages get and the ratings their TV shows have.


What they also probably know is that sometimes watching the pretty people makes us feel ugly and depressed because they don’t feel ‘interesting’ but of course: THEY don’t care about that. I’ll be honest, I look in the mirror and I see a monster and hey, that’s not just me being ‘modest’ – little kids run away from me in the street and old grannies scream in horror at me in the supermarket. I can deal with it.


This Friday (the 11th April), Vanessa Hudgens debuted her first single from her second album ‘Identified’ on Radio Disney. The single is called ‘Sneakernight’ and you can check it out here if you haven’t already (although I seriously doubt anyone ‘in the zone’ hasn’t heard it yet!).


How would I describe this? It’s jazzy and Vanessa definitely explores a range of vocals we never got to hear in her first album. Sneakernight proved one thing to me for sure. The girl’s got a voice and the girl’s got a little soul in her. However, she doesn’t carry the song well. The chorus wakes you up again and really gets your head bouncing but the verses were a strange place for me. And my mother told me strange places are bad, especially when a 45 year old retired gym teacher tries to take you to one....


So what does Vanessa’s ‘Sneakernight’ have to do with her having the best fans in the world and my point about the media often depressing us with these beautified images of these idols?


Well, here’s my point. Sometimes you’re having a bad day (or maybe this is just me...) and you flip open a magazine and see these pretty, beautiful people with their lives talking about another holiday home they’ve bought for a ridiculous amount of money in some exotic location and you think: ‘YOU DIRTY LITTLE MOTHERFUCKER!’ Or, you know, if you’re a nicer person then me, you think: ‘When am I going to get a break? These people are people, they’re just like me and they can do this. Am I doomed to failure?’ Like I said, sometimes you go to a dark, depressing place and the last thing you need is skinny famous people with more money than they can handle shoved in your face. Sometimes you think ‘Hey, Rihanna... if I hadn’t bought your album, if my friends hadn’t bought it, if I’d taught my grandma how to illegally download it instead... you wouldn’t be in your fancy little car. So shut up, Rihanna. Just shut up. Stop smiling. Stop Rihanna, for the love of God, Rihanna STOP!’ (I have nothing against Rihanna, she’s lovely...). It only makes sense that you would question ‘Where’s my recognition for buying your damn DVD/CD?’ because the sad truth is, a lot of stars these days forget to thank the FANS. I think fans should at least be second on your ‘list of people to thank in my acceptance speech for my Emmy’, you know?


So.



Vanessa Hudgens. Sneakernight. Lots of ‘OMG! I can’t wait’ and a ton of anticipation that has been leading up to the premiere of the single for almost months. Fans have seen the pictures of her going into a recording studio in the morning and leaving when it’s dark. Reports have been coming through that she was working impressively hard on it and the producers working with her were impressed. Cue the fan hysteria. Wait, let me amend that. Cue the loyal fan hysteria. Fans who saw her ‘naughty area’ and still stuck by her. Fans who scrounged for even the tiniest piece of information about her new album for months. Wild assumptions stating she could be working with the likes of Timbaland and that her album was going to be one of the best of 2008 started to circulate.


Then the single was released and the response across fan-boards was pretty much varied. There were sprinkles of ‘she sounds so different! Wow. I love it’ and others of ‘NOOOO! I stayed up until 2am in the morning on iTunes for this?!’ But the general consensus seemed to be: ‘It was an OK song but definitely not the best and I feel Vanessa has a lot of potential left’.


See that?


That’s what the unanimous agreement seems to be.


Now don’t you think Vanessa Hudgens fans absolutely rock?

I sure as hell do!

I went to bed late Friday night and didn’t get to listen to the song.

I wake up on Saturday morning and hit ‘SNEAKERNIGHT’ into YouTube. There were well over a hundred videos there, I’m sure. This is how dedicated and loving these guys and girls are. Even the ones who disliked her song still can’t wait for her album photoshoots or her other songs from the album.



Now tell me this. If this was anyone else... if this was, say.... Soulja Boy... or even the Pussycat Dolls and they came out with a song that came from an album that had been highly anticipated for the best part of almost a year and the song disappointed the vast majority of fans... do you think they’d still be making support banners or getting creative on YouTube making their own versions of the music video? Hell no. They would either move onto the next ‘fad’ hip-hop band or artist and forget them. Or you know, if they were uncivilised like me, they’d go throw dog poop at their windows and heckle them in public.


But that is not the case with Vanessa Hudgens fans with their ‘Team Hudgens’ websites and support networks. They take fandom to a whole new level and I think... I think all you good-for-nothing beatniks could learn a thing or two from them. Yeah, that’s right, I’m lecturing you! OK... not really... because... you wouldn’t listen because... you’re horrible...
Now you can say ‘but I detest Vanessa’. That’s fine. Everyone knows I’m not crazy-happy for her either. But not even the most insane Vanessa Hudgens’ hating dude-person can deny that Vanessa fans deserve a little recognition for what they do and for their dedication... and they have a lot of fun with it!


It kills me to say this because I am not a ‘touchy-feely-emotive’ person but it is beautiful, it really, REALLY is... to think some of these guys stayed up for hours talking online and waiting for this song... how they connected across countries and cultures just because they are fans of this one person. So these famous people can be a good thing in our lives after all! Now if only every single celebrity would band together for world peace... we’d be onto something.



So really, this is just a blog to say that if you are a Vanessa-crazy girl, guy or alien then you are part of something special. This is just a personal blog for me because this whole ‘Sneakernight’ thing got me thinking about bigger stuff... yeah, Vanessa Hudgens got me thinking about deeper issues- AMAZING... but I won’t talk about them here. Just a quick ‘keep it up, V-fenders!’ and I’m out.


Vanessa really doesn’t know how lucky she is but she is one of the more gracious stars who thanks her fans when receiving awards, so props to her for that! And ‘Sneakernight’ was horrible for me but I’m sure it’ll do something impressive in the charts because of these amazing, amazing fans... I swear, the government should recruit you guys with how organised you are...


Talking of organised...


Everyone needs to check out VanAshBrenique, they’ve started their own little campaign to get Vanessa’s song even more widely recognised. Apparently, they think Hollywood Records is screwing her over (can’t say I agree there, if the song sucks... not really the record company you can blame!) but check it out and lend a hand. They're also way better then JJ for updates on all things Disney and celebosphere!


And with that, I bid you guys a very good night!