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A weird thing about Britney Spears when she first appeared on the scene is that for many in media, she became this avatar of mass consumerism and a bunch of guys who were way too old to be concerned turned mocking her into some sort of intellectual statement on the culture
there was about a ten year stretch there where mocking the desires and expressions of teenaged girls who were TOO girly was considered a version of intellectual analysis
if you were a girl at the time, it was deeply confusing. You had adults who were supposed to be deep and smart telling you that mocking and hating other teen girls for being the epitome of teen girls was a sign of sophistication, even feminism
you were being asked to hate the girliest aspects of yourself under "liberation". Britney was the locus, but the same convos happened around Christina Aguilera and Destiny's Child (somewhat)
it was the height of "im not like THOSE girls" feminism and it was always a dodge and a ruse. No one thought to ask how radical it truly was to tell a teen girl to assume other teen girls were dumb and lacked humanity, and they weere the only special, good one
what was especially galling is that pop was also dominated by the most aggresively whiny and juvenile men--Eminem, Blink 182 et al--and yet their extremely pedestrian angst was elevated to some sort of everyman drama we should all respect
the flip side was that if you were a teen girl who didn't perform girl-dom like britney, you were also dismissed. there was no way to win.
