Everybody is a teenage idol.

Host:
The night was pure gold — the kind that clings to the edges of a city still humming with music and memory. The streetlights burned soft halos over wet pavement, reflecting neon signs that blinked in lazy rhythm: VINYL PARADISE – OPEN ALL NIGHT. A faint disco beat drifted from somewhere down the boulevard, tangled with laughter and the low purr of traffic.

Inside the record shop, the air was warm and thick with nostalgia. Rows of albums glimmered under amber light — faces of the famous, frozen forever in youth, their smiles caught between confidence and fragility. The faint scent of dust, plastic, and old leather jackets mingled in the air.

Jack leaned against the counter, his grey eyes tracing the cover of an old Bee Gees vinyl — “Saturday Night Fever.” The mirrored suit, the stance, the eternal swagger of Barry Gibb stared back at him like a promise from another century.

Across from him, Jeeny was flipping through the soul section, her black hair falling in loose waves, her brown eyes glowing with the soft light of reminiscence. A faint smile tugged at her lips as she pulled out another album — The Teen Idols Greatest Hits — and held it up between them.

Host:
For a moment, the shop seemed suspended — two people caught in the amber of a simpler, louder time. And through the low hum of the vinyl spinning somewhere in the back, Barry Gibb’s words seemed to echo like a truth dressed in melody:

"Everybody is a teenage idol."

Jeeny:
(softly)
It’s funny, isn’t it? How one sentence can sound both comforting and cruel.

Jack:
(raises an eyebrow)
What do you mean?

Jeeny:
That line — “Everybody is a teenage idol.” It sounds glamorous until you realize what it really means: that everyone gets their moment in the light, but it never lasts.

Jack:
(smirks)
So you think he meant it as a warning?

Jeeny:
Maybe. Maybe he meant that being adored is universal, but being remembered — that’s the hard part.

Jack:
(grinning faintly)
You always find the melancholy in everything.

Jeeny:
And you always pretend it isn’t there.

Host:
A quiet laugh passed between them — not the kind that breaks tension, but the kind that builds it gently. The record player in the corner skipped, the soft scratch of the needle like a heartbeat learning to stumble again.

Jack:
When I first heard Gibb say that, I thought it was about fame — about being worshiped, envied, adored. But now, I think he was talking about something else.

Jeeny:
What?

Jack:
That feeling. The teenage one — when you think you’re invincible because someone sees you. Even if it’s just for a moment.

Jeeny:
(nods slowly)
Yeah. That rush of being looked at — not just noticed, but believed in.

Jack:
Exactly. Every kid gets that once. At a school dance, at a concert, under a streetlight. That instant where you think, This is it. I matter.

Jeeny:
And then you spend the rest of your life chasing that same light, don’t you?

Jack:
(smiling, wistful)
Some of us do it with guitars. Some with words. Some with smiles that never quite reach their eyes.

Host:
The shop’s lights flickered softly, reflecting in the vinyl sleeves like starlight caught in black glass. Jeeny’s hand lingered on the album cover, tracing the photograph of some long-forgotten singer whose name had already faded from the collective tongue.

Jeeny:
You know what’s strange? Even those idols — the real ones, the ones plastered on walls and lunchboxes — they were just teenagers pretending not to be scared.

Jack:
Maybe that’s why we loved them. Because they looked like they knew what they were doing when we didn’t.

Jeeny:
(smiles sadly)
And now we’re the ones pretending for the next generation.

Jack:
(sighs)
Yeah. We became the thing we used to worship — half certain, half terrified.

Host:
Outside, a car radio passed by, blasting “Stayin’ Alive.” The chorus drifted in, sharp and sweet, like a memory made of sweat and sequins. For a heartbeat, both of them listened — really listened — to the pulse of an era that had refused to die.

Jeeny:
You ever wonder what it feels like — being Barry Gibb? Knowing your voice became the soundtrack to someone else’s youth?

Jack:
Probably lonely. The higher the pitch, the harder it is to come down.

Jeeny:
(laughs softly)
That’s dark, even for you.

Jack:
It’s not dark. It’s honest. Every idol lives for the applause, but what keeps them alive is the silence afterward — the moment they have to face themselves without the music.

Jeeny:
And yet we still chase it. The applause. The illusion. The flashbulbs.

Jack:
Because that’s what being human is — trying to be immortal for three minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

Host:
The record finished. The needle lifted with a soft click, and for a moment, the shop was swallowed in silence. Jeeny reached over and placed another record on the turntable. The first soft notes of “How Deep Is Your Love” began to spill into the air.

The sound was warm, intimate, eternal.

Jeeny:
(whispering)
Maybe that’s what Gibb really meant. Not that everyone’s an idol in the public sense, but that everyone has that phase — that golden, reckless version of themselves that someone, somewhere, still remembers fondly.

Jack:
You mean — even the quiet ones?

Jeeny:
Especially the quiet ones.

Jack:
(smirks)
You think I was anyone’s teenage idol?

Jeeny:
(pauses, smiles gently)
You still are. You just don’t know who’s watching.

Host:
Her words landed soft as dust, but heavy with truth. Jack’s eyes shifted toward her — not defensive, not proud, just… still. The kind of stillness that means the world has stopped spinning for exactly one person.

Jack:
And you?

Jeeny:
Me?

Jack:
Who was yours?

Jeeny:
(thinking)
Every person I ever loved for a moment and lost the next. Every flash of connection that made me feel like I was in a movie. That’s what teenage idols really are — not people, but moments.

Host:
A passing siren screamed down the street, cutting through the soft music. The neon light outside flickered once, twice, then steadied — the color washing across their faces in shades of gold and red.

Jack:
You know what’s strange? The world keeps making new idols, but the story never changes. Same poses, same heartbreak, same spotlight.

Jeeny:
Because the story isn’t about the idols. It’s about the ones watching — the dreamers in the dark.

Jack:
Maybe that’s why the title still fits. “Everybody is a teenage idol.”

Jeeny:
Exactly. Because everyone’s been adored once, even if it was just by a single person who saw them clearly for one fleeting moment.

Host:
The record spun slower now, the last chords fading into a soft hum. Jeeny leaned back, eyes half-closed, her face lit by the faint pulse of neon. Jack watched her, his own reflection caught faintly in the album cover between them — both ageless, both ordinary, both immortal for this moment alone.

Host:
The rain had stopped. The city was quiet, its pulse steady, its music waiting to begin again.

And in that tiny record store, surrounded by a thousand voices forever young, Barry Gibb’s words lingered in the air — not as boast, not as nostalgia, but as revelation:

That beneath the skin of every idol, there lives the same trembling heart of a teenager —
aching to be seen,
aching to be remembered,
aching to belong.

Because in the end, we are all just teenage idols,
standing beneath the dim light of someone else’s admiration,
pretending we don’t still crave
the sound of applause.