Welcome to Tweenage Wasteland!

(Quick note: We started writing this two months ago, got distracted by a shiny object, and just finished it. Who says intro posts have to come first?)

We are your hosts, Jessica and Rebecca. And we have a secret. (Note: May not actually be a secret.) Despite being well-educated and steadily employed grownups, we watch a lot of the Disney Channel. And Nickelodeon. And we have a bad habit of sitting on the floor of bookstores for hours on end, giggling over J-14. And not just because the production values are so abysmal.

It was during one of these sojourns that we decided that our mocking of such luminaries as the High School Musical cast, the Jonas Brothers, and That Guy Whose Hair Goes to the Left* should be shared with the world at large. And so we present to you Tweenage Wasteland, for all your tween-heartthrob-mocking needs. (Not actual tweens. We like them!)

We considered many subjects for our inaugural post, laboring long into the night, until Rebecca's sister said "Stop being stupid and start with Zef." And truly, there is no better place to start a loving lambasting of today's tween culture than with everyone's favorite singing (sort of) dancing (not really) heartthrob, Zac Efron.

So where does one start with Mr. Efron? From the top! Of his head. The hair, people. That's where it's at. Zef's hair is actually far more versatile than Zef himself - it can be dark, it can be charming, it can do period pieces. The Zef Hair does comedy AND tragedy - often at the same time!




Just two short years ago, Mr. Efron's hair broke into the tween scene. There hadn't been a true teen idol in a year or two, and with his affable charm and completely harmless persona, Zef jazz-squared his way to teenage glory. Mr. Efron, it turned out, had just the shaggy grown-out bowl cut the young'uns had been longing for. Yes...this is the hair that caused a few million girls to hit puberty.

In fact, Zef and his locks were so popular he -- despite not being much of a singer or dancer -- landed the role of Link Larkin in Hairspray, a movie perfect for him because it was entirely about awesome hair. Oh, and race relations in the early 60s.




Now, silly faces aside (oh, so much sillier than that picture can even convey), this is possibly the best acting his hair has ever done. Greased up, spit curled, and squared-off, it was surprisingly charming. Zac himself abruptly he went from being "that kid who's on the cover of TigerBeat every month," to "that kid on the cover of Rolling Stone." The Zef Effect was in full swing.

However, all this meant that when Zef returned to Disney for High School Musical 2, he had to find some way of blending the Link magic with the Troy mop top. And, well...




After careful analysis, we're pretty sure this effect was achieved by liberally buttering his head and then combing every single hair forward. It's still dark, but in some lighting it has orange highlights, the better to match his skin. To put all this in mathematical terms, Link's application of potentially hazardous chemicals + Troy's preference for Clairol's Colors-Not-Found-in-Nature Collection = PROFIT. At least for Disney, if not for poor Vanessa Hudgens, who has to look at him.

Don't worry too much about Baby V, though. It isn't like Zef looked like a complete tool off screen...wait. No. He did:




Well, at least that's gone. Now he looks...




Don't worry. I'm sure it's for a movie. Prince Valiant Pumps Gas, maybe? Oh please God let it be for a movie.

All Zef pictures from here.


*As opposed to That Guy Whose Hair Goes to the Right. One of them is Cody Linley and the other is Jason Dolley and yes, we swear they are different people.