Teen idols are an offshoot of mass-marketed twentieth-century popular culture. Most often, teen idols are movie and television (see entry under 1940s—TV and Radio in volume 3) actors or pop singers and singing groups. Adolescent heartthrobs may be teens themselves, but rarely are they far beyond their early- to mid-twenties. Some are traditionally handsome, but most are best described as "super-cute." Their fans are preteen and adolescent girls who scream and faint in their presence. For the youngster, the idol is a romanticized love-object. Teen idols are marketed and sold to their target audience, who are ever-eager to purchase their records, buy tickets to their movies and concerts, and own anything with their images plastered on it, from teen-oriented magazines to—late in the century—posters, T-shirts (see entry under 1910s—Fashion in volume 1), pins, and lunch boxes.

Singer and actor David Cassidy made teenage girls...