By 1997, boybands were already a flourishing industry, powered by teen hormones and the commodification of hunky young men. When Hanson came along, bigwigs at Mercury Records immediately saw them as the next teen heartthrobs. Once the band had their foot in the door, the label began marketing them via teen magazines like Bop, 16, and Tiger Beat.

Boyband fan culture is a completely normal and healthy way to explore the early inklings of sexual desire — but as Sage Journals pointed out in a 2023 literary review, the media representation of boybands is quite problematic. For one thing, sexualization is often rooted in stereotypes, such as "innocent sexuality," which was evident in Hanson's case. On the one hand, the boys were touted as squeaky-clean gentlemen — but at the same time, magazines over-sexualized them by harping on their dating lives and giving them labels like "babelicious bros."

As reluctant sex symbols, Hanson received plenty of unwanted attention from fans. "I was mobbed by girls when we found fame as Hanson, but I was awkward," Taylor Hanson recounted to the Sydney Morning Herald. He added, "They'd bribe security while we were on tour in Latin America and be in our hotel rooms. Some of that experience is even too hard to articulate." Plus, there were times when things got downright scary in the Hanson fandom. In 1998, the trio issued a warning about predators attempting to meet young girls by posing as Hanson online.