We've come so far, but we hope for more

It's hard to explain, maybe impossible to explain, to an outsider. The bond between people who have never met. Thousands, maybe millions, of us joined together through music and teenage crushes and jealousy which is kept simmering politely under the surface.
They're just a manufactured boy band. They're just a manufactured boy band grown old. They're just a manufactured boy band, grown old, reformed, cashing in. On us. Maybe.
Or maybe they are still our boys and always will be.
It's certainly a concept that on paper should be uncomfortable to watch. That should elicit a cringe from even the most hardended of fans. Cringing at them, in their middle age still performing synchronised dances, at us quickly chasing them in birthdays and still screaming in delight and awe.
But it doesn't. The delight is still there. The awe certainly still has a hold. The crush? Oh yes, if anything more in place than ever. And, now, a feeling of 'go on my son'. A feeling of pride for them. That where they are now we somehow played a part in it.
We're all in it together. Them; us. Still divided into band and fan but undeniably us.
Which is why the only way to describe it is like family. Yes, we're all giving sideways glances at our potential rivals but it's all play now. We're grown. We have families of our own. They have families of their own. But in this setting, every time, we are family.
It's an instant bond 'oh, you like them too'; you bob along and smile having shared years of love for the same thing. Because we are all a part of the same thing.
Not one of us denies that physically time has passed but to be reunited before this stage is to know that inside time has stood still. We're all family. We're all the same just a decade later.
It's a comfort. It's familiar. It's still exciting.
It's too hard to explain to anyone who isn't family.