American Idol makes me feel old.

The Top 24 have been announced for this year's American Idol, so I have gone back to spending time lurking on the discussion forum at Television Without Pity. And yeah, it makes me feel absolutely ancient.

One of the semifinalists is a young man named Danny Noriega, who comes off as a flaming high-school theater queen. He seems quite comfortable with himself and is very talented, as long as you can get past the mannerisms of a flaming theater queen. Having been a theater geek in high school and college (and I still bemoan the fact that I don't have the free time to get involved with my local community theater), I think he's adorable. Not what I'm looking for in an American Idol, but adorable and I wish him well.

The lastest post in his thread refers to him as "total hawtness" and expresses that all the tween/teen girls will love him and will probably be disappointed when they discover he's gay. My question is: when? Is it not obvious? It's not like he's in the closet or not, you know, a flaming theater queen!

*sigh* Today's teen heartthrobs are not actually young enough to be my children, but it's starting to feel like it.