Cafeteria Choking and Boy Band Scams: My Sick Day with Netflix's 'Dirty Pop'

School is back in session, and you know what that means? Germs! And you know what that also means? Sick days with Netflix!

Y’all, I didn’t even make it through the first week back. It wasn’t the germs that got me, though. It was, in fact, a hunk of cafeteria chicken that got lodged in my throat and caused all sorts of chaos. This is not a knock at our school’s cafeteria by any means—the lunch that nearly took me out is actually one of my favorites. As it turns out, I have a narrow esophagus, probably caused by food and environmental allergies. My esophagus is very demure. Very cutesy. 

After a wild afternoon of terrifying my friends, family, and coworkers that included two emergency rooms, a propofol nap, a breathing tube, and a GI scope, I wanted nothing more than to lie in the bed and watch something fun. Something nostalgic. Something scandalous. 

Enter Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam. Netflix knows what I want. She knows what I need.

Y’all. I knew that the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC were managed and/or manufactured by the same creepy dude, and I knew he got into some legal trouble, and I think I knew that he died. But—and if you’re eating any chicken right now, please swallow it before you finish this sentence—I didn’t know that NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were launched to fame by the largest and longest-running Ponzi scheme in American history. I also didn’t know that Lou Pearlman, an OG Florida Man if we’re being honest, was a cousin of Art Garfunkel. What is going on?

Any Netflix limited series is great sick day viewing, but Dirty Pop in particular is a great watch for all the millennial girlies stuck at home with whatever virus their kids brought home. Or the millennial teachers who don’t chew their food well enough for their tiny little esophaguses. Esophagi? I don’t know, y’all, I’m traumatized and off the clock.

It’s worth noting that Justin Timberlake was not one of the former pop stars interviewed in the series, but they do throw the perfect amount of shade at him, which obviously hit for me because I still want to fight him in a Walmart parking lot.

Anyway, as much as it was NOT AT ALL FUN to see my life flash before my eyes at work, I’ll take a little break where I can get it. School is back in session, I’m starting a Ph.D. program next week, and I have a newly acquired aversion to chicken. Who knows when I’ll be able to do this kind of thing again?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been meaning to watch TLC Forever for like…forever.