Tiffany vs Debbie

During the fall of 1987, there was a struggle of titanic proportions between two of the most powerful influencers in the world.

Two pop artists made their Billboard debuts, giving middle school kids like me music that seemed to speak to our time and situations. Debbie Gibson began her career as a pop star with the release of the single Only in My Dreams. This was the traditional way to build a career in the industry: release a single, build some momentum on the radio, then release an album later in the year.

I must have heard this song on the radio well before the video debuted on MTV in June of 1987, but what I remember the most from this time is the video:

It’s hard for me to stress how great this video was for an eleven year-old (almost twelve, mind you!) kid who was in the throes of middle school.

For one thing, here was someone who was clearly older than me, but not by all that much. Debbie was 16 when she recorded and shot Only in My Dreams, and it was refreshing for me to hear someone on the radio (and see someone on TV) who wasn’t too far removed from me.

Also, puberty was in the driver’s seat for a lot of my musical selections during this time. Debbie Gibson was a beacon of light during a very dark time, and I gravitated toward her music almost immediately.

Putting it into context, there had always been teen idols out there, but each mini-generation has its own short window of time. It’s very easy for a star from a couple of years ago to seem much older to kids who are currently coming of age. When Debbie entered my world, therefore, she had my full attention.

That might be why it’s so notable when Tiffany burst onto the music scene in the summer of 87, right as Debbie’s star was just beginning to rise.

Tiffany started out notably different from Debbie. For starters, she recorded and released a cover song, not an original composition (you can probably already tell on which side of this debate I’m going to land). I Think We’re Alone Now is a really good cover!

Even more notably, there was an entire campaign built around a very calculated release timeline. The idea was for Tiffany to play mini-concerts at shopping malls across the country. Now, if you don’t already know this, malls were the ideal place to court teen kids who might one day spend money on you.

Tiffany’s team released the single right as the mall tour was wrapping up, on August 16th, 1987, the video dropped. Suffice it to say, it was an enormous hit.

Tiffany had recorded nearly all of her self-titled debut album while she was only 14 years old (she turned 15 as the album was finishing up). When I Think We’re Alone Now hit number one, Tiffany was still just 15 years old, making her the youngest woman ever to top the charts.

Meanwhile, Debbie Gibson had written Only in My Dreams when she was 14. She had already recorded several demo tapes, so she had already been in the process of refining her skills for a couple of years when she finally recorded her record Out of the Blue, which I rushed to buy on vinyl.

While it took a bit longer than Tiffany for her career to take off, the slower grind approach Debbie used seemed to yield big results. Even though Tiffany had another huge hit with Could’ve Been, Debbie’s career kept on churning out hits for longer, including Foolish Beat, which I remember staying at the top of the charts for a stupid long time in early ‘88.

Naturally, there was a great deal of comparison between these two teen idols. For many kids, it seemed important to let everyone know whether you were on Team Tiffany or Team Debbie. On the surface, this might seem kind of crazy, because the two had so much more in common than not:

• Both rocketed to stardom in 1987, a year I remember quite well due to trauma

• Both faded pretty quickly from the public consciousness after a hot moment

• Debbie and Tiffany were clearly crafted to appeal to young teens like me. Madonna and Whitney Houston were gorgeous and amazing, but they might as well have been my mom’s generation

• They were both clean-cut, bubblegum pop stars

However, having a bunch of things in common is no reason not to fight. In fact, there’s often more reason to fight when things are so similar. Let’s think about why.

We need to start by thinking about who on Earth might be arguing about Debbie and Tiffany in the first place. It’s not a huge group relative to the planet—maybe a million kids in the right age group and demographics, give or take. You needed to be between, say, 8 and 16 years old if you wanted to weigh in.

All of these kids were keenly interested in female pop stars in the first place. Then, they had to be into top 40s music. They had to have heard both Tiffany and Debbie a bunch of times, too.

If you fit that mold, you felt like you had observed something special. You knew about Debbie and Tiffany because you were in the right place at the right time, and you had this special knowledge. Adults certainly didn’t know what was up, and kids that were too young didn’t have a clue.

You were pretty sure you were right, since you had this position of privilege—of seeing deeper, further than most others. You had listened to the top 40 every week for the last six months straight, and you’d made sure to watch every nightly video countdown, too.

In short, you had done your research.

Knowing you’ve spent some time obsessed with something can make you really want to double down when someone expresses a different view. In your mind, there’s just no way they’ve done the same level of research as you. They can’t possibly understand the situation as well as you can. They must be wrong if they disagree with your view.

This is how opinion polarization really gets going. If having a different viewpoint is the dry tinder, then schismogenesis is the oxygen that fuels the flame.

Now, divergence of opinions is one thing. It’s healthy and normal to feel differently about something than someone else! In fact, it’s what makes life interesting. Unfortunately, it’s easy for this divergence to lead to polarization.

It is opinion polarization that turns a playful discussion into a cruelty contest. Now, it’s no longer about whether Tiffany wrote her own songs (again, she did not!), but instead about how she’s a no-talent hack—a glorified karaoke singer. Her mall tours are now opportunistic cash-grabs, and her signature jean jacket is pathetic.

To opinion-polarized fans of Tiffany, Debbie was just a Madonna ripoff. Instead of wondering how she rose to prominence so quickly, nasty middle-school Tiffany fans might ask who she slept with to get the job in the first place. Tiffany’s voice made her sound like a rock star, while Debbie just sounded meh.

Naturally, I want to close by asking you if you’ve ever been in the thick of one of these rivalries. I certainly wasn’t during 1987—I liked Debbie’s music better overall, but I also enjoyed Tiffany when she was on the radio. Even still, I’ve seen plenty of these sorts of schismogenetic vicious cycles form to know how destructive they can be, and I saw this happen with this rivalry back then.