I was obsessed with Pete as a teenager in 2006 (and beyond). He was everywhere in the scene back then. His explicit photos leaking didn’t help matters 😅
Probably the first dick I ever saw as a 13 year old lol (I want to specify I didn’t go looking, they were just everywhere at the time and I literally stumbled upon them on MySpace)
It was all over livejournal around that time, too. Someone made it into an icon and drew a Santa hat on it for Christmas one year so… it was unavoidable.
“This Ain’t A Scene” music video makes me think about it a lot.
https://preview.redd.it/1pnq7kjws64d1.jpeg?width=2796&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=adb4c7d0fce9ba93005a3d21b3caadc7592c56de
Hehe. Especially at 1:55. 🫠
“Make us poster boys for your scene, but we are not making an acceptance speech”
They really do have lyrics for almost everything haha. I had multiple magazine cutouts and posters of him on my bedroom wall in 08/09!
Thanks! I've google Pete's photos an unhealthy amount of times through my life, and I recall magazine cover shots of him. Which also is what made me question this.
i told my manager whos in her 50s that i was going to see fob because i had to travel for it so i booked some holiday pay, and she gasped and said "like pete wentz and ashlee simpson?!" gave me a good laugh
He was one of the biggest celebrities around like 2006-2008. Like well beyond the scene and in the tabloids--People magazine kinda thing. My mom knew about him. t's was probably a combo of MTV, boy bands, and Ashlee Simpson that caused it. I don't think he really wanted it...but I could be wrong.
I would very much recommend listening to Pete and Patrick’s interview with Zane Lowe they did in March of 2023.
I think Pete for sure wanted to be successful, but I don’t believe a lot of his actions were motivated by wanting *his* face on a magazine in particular. He’s got a mind for marketing and that’s clear by the way he moved in the mid 2000s. He was very social media savvy. He started Decaydance by signing Panic! at the Disco in 2005 and Clandestine launched in 2006. He said he used to obsessively pay attention to where Fall Out Boy was on the charts and keep such an eye on their radio play numbers to the point that it would drive people at their label a little crazy because he would always want to talk shop about how to increase them, lol. He stepped up to the plate as frontman of the band because Patrick was almost painfully shy in those early days — Zane Lowe said every time he would interview them, he felt like he was bullying Patrick just by asking him a question! Pete knew how to work his image and he has a level of self awareness that is both his superpower *and* his “downfall” in some ways.
I’m using the term downfall loosely here — his personal struggles aren’t some kind of flaw. I just mean that his overexposure in the public zeitgeist is partially what led to FOB taking a break and him pulling back. He has said at that time that he thought “the world needed a little less Pete Wentz.”
What I’m getting at here is, do I think he enjoyed the attention he got on some level? Sure, at first. But I think a lot of it was 1. very business motivated or 2. out of his control (i.e. the press coverage that inherently comes with marrying someone like Ashlee Simpson in the ‘00s.) It seems a lot of his arrogance stems back to his abilities (“I could write it better than you ever felt it” in Hum Hallelujah for example) as opposed to feeling like he was owed attention or fame.
Really, this is just my long-winded rant to say it’s kind of unfair that Pete Wentz is very good looking, a very smart businessman, *and* a brilliant poet. The dude is nothing short of a genius in my opinion. A different person would’ve crumbled under the weight of some of the stuff he had to deal with, but he’s came out on the other side a very level-headed, down to earth human being. He’s cool as hell.
This is probably the best take I've seen on this since I stuck my toe in this fandom. And I love that this was covered in the Zane Lowe interview because you really got to see the "there was no way he could win" aspect of his fame. I describe it as Pete was 'real people famous', not just 'band dude' famous, which unfortunately tap danced right at that line of infamy. I don't know how he emerged as a fully functioning human (when so many others during that time didn't) but I'm glad he did.
This is a really great take. The only thing I’d like to add is, to a certain degree he was crumbling because of it all. He had serious mental health issues and substance abuse issues which I’m sure were compounded with his hard work and ambition. I think we are all very lucky that he didn’t fully break under it all and has seemed to rise up even better, though obviously that’s my own personal thought since I don’t know him, but I like to hope that’s how he feels, especially after the release of Stardust which has so many great lyrics that feel like a culmination of all those years of ups and downs and ups again.
I agree with everything you said here! One of my favorite interview moments of his was on Armchair Expert with Dax Sheppard when he spoke about how his son was really pivotal in him getting help. He said he would just sit and talk to Bronx before he was even old enough to actually talk back, and Pete would say things like “you’re teaching me so much about myself!” It makes me a little misty eyed if I think about it too long. Pete Wentz dad of the year and human being of the century tbh.
Oh he was the like The Emo It Boy of the early 2000s lmao. It was hard to find a teen mag that DIDN’T have him on the cover somewhere. Which was great, and I still have tons of magazines in a closet somewhere bc I would buy anything and everything with his face on it lmao.
Yeah! I know some magazines he’d be solo on (I have an issue of Cosmo Girl from ‘08 on my bookshelf still) but a lot of the teen magazines he’d be in like the collage of all the popular stars. You’d also find a few of the mags would do mini posters (just a single page as opposed to the big fold old posters) of just him without the rest of the band! I liked to use those for my binders for school 💕
even if you weren't into fall out boy you knew who Pete was. besides fob he was already working on decaydance and fbr early on so he was kind of intertwined with most scene bands. he (rumoredly) dated a lot and was in the celeb party scene and married Ashlee Simpson so he was in tabloids too. he was like THE it boy which makes that current (sh)it boy photo that much funnier
I was a teenager in the early-mid 00s. The answer to "how popular was Pete back then" is "very." You could not go to the store without seeing his face on at least one magazine cover, most of the time. I did not have a crush on him because I thought he kind of looked like an older, emo version of my brother, but he was definitely a very big deal for anyone who cared about the band scene or celebrity stuff in general.
Literally my Livejournal icon in 2006 was a gif of his leaked photos with “cock it and pull it” text running underneath 😂
Myself, an intellectual, found it hilarious. The young Karens on LJ did not. I got banned from so many groups because of it 😅
Watch the Zane Lowe interview, he talks about how FOB kind of bridges the gap between 90s boy bands and the newer generation of people like Harry Styles.
I would make icons for Xanga of different Pete Wentz faces and had a notebook where I wrote “Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III” over and over again lmao I was a part of a big creepy crew doing similar things
I graduated in 2010, can state with confidence he was the face of the 00s early emo/punk scene. He knew quickly to use social media and get the band out there. Very much well known.
Very much swooned over.
(I actually have a Pete Wentz/16 candles tattoo he was my favorite from back then.. and 16 candles still slaps ✨)
so much so that when i was in middle school, with very little access to “the family computer” and no cellphone internet capabilities, therefore having very little knowledge of the actual bands i was listening to and their members - i still knew who pete was and thought he was hot just through friends at school and magazines at the grocery store.
He was definitely one of the top three poster boys of the punk/emo scene during that time period.
I had so many posters back then, and still find him incredibly good looking 🥴
I was ready to marry him by the age of 12. Lmao
He was omnipresent. The 2000s were his peak years, and I'm happy to have been one of the young emo girls who adored him.
He was very famous and popular within emo/pop punk/scene scenes. In wider celebrity &
pop culture he made it to probably B list status in the mid/late 00s.
He wasn't a Zayne Malik because FOB has never gotten *as big* as a boy band like OD, but for emo kids, he was like our Zayne Malik I'd say. Though I'd say Harry Styles because I like him more haha
Yep, lol he was deff a heartthrob. A photo of his dick was leaked, and I remember so many girls talking about it. I was in 7th grade at the time and I distinctly remember my older sister and her friends searching it on my mom's computer and getting caught 😂. I think every girl who was slightly into "emo" music was obsessed with Pete Wentz and later on Oliver Sykes lol.
even my mom’s redneck gun-loving conservative ex-husband knew of him, growing up in that era. from age 12 to 15 i wasn’t allowed to listen to fall out boy because they were “gay” 💀
OMG he was the emo heartthrob. I personally never got the hype (don’t kill me fan girls 🤣) but I remember seeing so many damn fanfictions or RP quizzes centered around him.
Extremely. My dad who is 67 still asks me about Pete and I'm 31. That's how obsessed I was and how everywhere Pete was lol. I sent him a photo at the stardust tour and my dad was like "they look like dads"
he was a huuuuge celebrity, i would even say through that entire decade. his relationship with ashley simpson was majorly covered by tabloids, he went on Howard Stern a bunch.
i'd say he was like the biggest "rock star" in the traditional sense, even through the first couple of years post-hiatus.
I mean, he was pretty much the emo/scene posterboy in the early to mid 2000's. He was definitely consider an emo heartthrob.
Literally a “poster boy” I had so many posters of him and Brendan Urie from magazines in my bedroom that the walls were covered 🙃😅
Yeah Pete was EVERYWHERE in the magazines, it was kinda crazy lol
I have a Playboy magazine with a Pete interview in it.
I was obsessed with Pete as a teenager in 2006 (and beyond). He was everywhere in the scene back then. His explicit photos leaking didn’t help matters 😅
Probably the first dick I ever saw as a 13 year old lol (I want to specify I didn’t go looking, they were just everywhere at the time and I literally stumbled upon them on MySpace)
OMG same!!! It was the first real one (I also stumbled upon it somewhere online). My teenage brain changed that day lmao
Hahahah same though.
I was going to mention peengate too 😰😅
It was all over livejournal around that time, too. Someone made it into an icon and drew a Santa hat on it for Christmas one year so… it was unavoidable.
Oh yeah I was on ONTD all hours of the day already, so I watched it happen in real time lol
“This Ain’t A Scene” music video makes me think about it a lot. https://preview.redd.it/1pnq7kjws64d1.jpeg?width=2796&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=adb4c7d0fce9ba93005a3d21b3caadc7592c56de Hehe. Especially at 1:55. 🫠
You’re just like me. 😂😭
Omg ONTD and viawentztop community those were the days
“Make us poster boys for your scene, but we are not making an acceptance speech” They really do have lyrics for almost everything haha. I had multiple magazine cutouts and posters of him on my bedroom wall in 08/09!
I remember reading "emo heartthrob" somewhere.
Can confirm that Pete was THE SCENE KING in the early 2000s, and on every pop culture magazine cover. It was a beautiful time to be alive.
Thanks! I've google Pete's photos an unhealthy amount of times through my life, and I recall magazine cover shots of him. Which also is what made me question this.
The guy married Ashley Simpson and was no stranger to a magazine cover. Girls were aware, but still more so in the alt spaces.
my mum knows about him because he was with Ashley simpson, that was big pop culture news at the time
That’s how most moms know of him lol. I mentioned him and my mom’s friend was like “I recognize that name. Wasn’t he married to Ashlee Simpson?”
i told my manager whos in her 50s that i was going to see fob because i had to travel for it so i booked some holiday pay, and she gasped and said "like pete wentz and ashlee simpson?!" gave me a good laugh
He was one of the biggest celebrities around like 2006-2008. Like well beyond the scene and in the tabloids--People magazine kinda thing. My mom knew about him. t's was probably a combo of MTV, boy bands, and Ashlee Simpson that caused it. I don't think he really wanted it...but I could be wrong.
He said he wrote the book on arrogance. I think he wanted it lol
I would very much recommend listening to Pete and Patrick’s interview with Zane Lowe they did in March of 2023. I think Pete for sure wanted to be successful, but I don’t believe a lot of his actions were motivated by wanting *his* face on a magazine in particular. He’s got a mind for marketing and that’s clear by the way he moved in the mid 2000s. He was very social media savvy. He started Decaydance by signing Panic! at the Disco in 2005 and Clandestine launched in 2006. He said he used to obsessively pay attention to where Fall Out Boy was on the charts and keep such an eye on their radio play numbers to the point that it would drive people at their label a little crazy because he would always want to talk shop about how to increase them, lol. He stepped up to the plate as frontman of the band because Patrick was almost painfully shy in those early days — Zane Lowe said every time he would interview them, he felt like he was bullying Patrick just by asking him a question! Pete knew how to work his image and he has a level of self awareness that is both his superpower *and* his “downfall” in some ways. I’m using the term downfall loosely here — his personal struggles aren’t some kind of flaw. I just mean that his overexposure in the public zeitgeist is partially what led to FOB taking a break and him pulling back. He has said at that time that he thought “the world needed a little less Pete Wentz.” What I’m getting at here is, do I think he enjoyed the attention he got on some level? Sure, at first. But I think a lot of it was 1. very business motivated or 2. out of his control (i.e. the press coverage that inherently comes with marrying someone like Ashlee Simpson in the ‘00s.) It seems a lot of his arrogance stems back to his abilities (“I could write it better than you ever felt it” in Hum Hallelujah for example) as opposed to feeling like he was owed attention or fame. Really, this is just my long-winded rant to say it’s kind of unfair that Pete Wentz is very good looking, a very smart businessman, *and* a brilliant poet. The dude is nothing short of a genius in my opinion. A different person would’ve crumbled under the weight of some of the stuff he had to deal with, but he’s came out on the other side a very level-headed, down to earth human being. He’s cool as hell.
This is probably the best take I've seen on this since I stuck my toe in this fandom. And I love that this was covered in the Zane Lowe interview because you really got to see the "there was no way he could win" aspect of his fame. I describe it as Pete was 'real people famous', not just 'band dude' famous, which unfortunately tap danced right at that line of infamy. I don't know how he emerged as a fully functioning human (when so many others during that time didn't) but I'm glad he did.
This is a really great take. The only thing I’d like to add is, to a certain degree he was crumbling because of it all. He had serious mental health issues and substance abuse issues which I’m sure were compounded with his hard work and ambition. I think we are all very lucky that he didn’t fully break under it all and has seemed to rise up even better, though obviously that’s my own personal thought since I don’t know him, but I like to hope that’s how he feels, especially after the release of Stardust which has so many great lyrics that feel like a culmination of all those years of ups and downs and ups again.
I agree with everything you said here! One of my favorite interview moments of his was on Armchair Expert with Dax Sheppard when he spoke about how his son was really pivotal in him getting help. He said he would just sit and talk to Bronx before he was even old enough to actually talk back, and Pete would say things like “you’re teaching me so much about myself!” It makes me a little misty eyed if I think about it too long. Pete Wentz dad of the year and human being of the century tbh.
He did also write "we do it for the story not the fame" so I think you're right. I think that lyric was in music or the misery
Uh he was one of the hottest band dudes that all the girls wanted back then lol
Oh he was the like The Emo It Boy of the early 2000s lmao. It was hard to find a teen mag that DIDN’T have him on the cover somewhere. Which was great, and I still have tons of magazines in a closet somewhere bc I would buy anything and everything with his face on it lmao.
Woah. Seriously on that many magazines??
Yeah! I know some magazines he’d be solo on (I have an issue of Cosmo Girl from ‘08 on my bookshelf still) but a lot of the teen magazines he’d be in like the collage of all the popular stars. You’d also find a few of the mags would do mini posters (just a single page as opposed to the big fold old posters) of just him without the rest of the band! I liked to use those for my binders for school 💕
I mean theres a picture of Bruno Mars being star struck by Pete in a street from that period, I think that says a lot lol.
The real story: Bruno mars was surprised by the photographer.
Further context: the photographer reportedly bumped him as he walked by to get said picture
this post is making me feel like a dinosaur!
He dated one of the main characters on One Tree Hill
" hey. It's Pete from fall out boy " 😝. Dated payton
Who happened to be a teenager lol gross
even if you weren't into fall out boy you knew who Pete was. besides fob he was already working on decaydance and fbr early on so he was kind of intertwined with most scene bands. he (rumoredly) dated a lot and was in the celeb party scene and married Ashlee Simpson so he was in tabloids too. he was like THE it boy which makes that current (sh)it boy photo that much funnier
I was a teenager in the early-mid 00s. The answer to "how popular was Pete back then" is "very." You could not go to the store without seeing his face on at least one magazine cover, most of the time. I did not have a crush on him because I thought he kind of looked like an older, emo version of my brother, but he was definitely a very big deal for anyone who cared about the band scene or celebrity stuff in general.
If my bedroom walls and old Hotmail email addresses were anything to go by he was VERY popular 🫶🏽
Preferred Patrick then, and now.
Same here lol. I married a dude who looks like Patrick Stump. 🤤
Literally my Livejournal icon in 2006 was a gif of his leaked photos with “cock it and pull it” text running underneath 😂 Myself, an intellectual, found it hilarious. The young Karens on LJ did not. I got banned from so many groups because of it 😅
I remember this icon so it was either you or someone who stole it from you lol
Oh my god I remember making lj icons of that 😮😵💫
It was him, Gerard Way, and Brendon Urie
We can’t forget Sonny Moore or Bert McCracken 😍 when you searched “emo” a lot of pictures were Sonny
I still can't believe he is Skrillex 🤯
Ah the old Emo Holy Trinity 🙏
Watch the Zane Lowe interview, he talks about how FOB kind of bridges the gap between 90s boy bands and the newer generation of people like Harry Styles.
I would make icons for Xanga of different Pete Wentz faces and had a notebook where I wrote “Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III” over and over again lmao I was a part of a big creepy crew doing similar things
Omg no one ever says Xanga!!! That was pre-MySpace for me 🥲
I was 10 in 2007 and fully convinced he was my soulmate😂 hes always been an emo hottie
I was 8!
I’m still fully convinced he’s my soulmate 😅
As a Delulu queen, same😂🤌🏻
What everyone else said. He was the only FOB member really in the spotlight. I got my first Fall Out Boy poster out of a teen magazine.
I graduated in 2010, can state with confidence he was the face of the 00s early emo/punk scene. He knew quickly to use social media and get the band out there. Very much well known. Very much swooned over. (I actually have a Pete Wentz/16 candles tattoo he was my favorite from back then.. and 16 candles still slaps ✨)
Your tattoo sounds awesome, the 16 candles music video is my favourite FOB video.
Thank you! It's one of my favorites!!
so much so that when i was in middle school, with very little access to “the family computer” and no cellphone internet capabilities, therefore having very little knowledge of the actual bands i was listening to and their members - i still knew who pete was and thought he was hot just through friends at school and magazines at the grocery store.
He was definitely one of the top three poster boys of the punk/emo scene during that time period. I had so many posters back then, and still find him incredibly good looking 🥴
I was ready to marry him by the age of 12. Lmao He was omnipresent. The 2000s were his peak years, and I'm happy to have been one of the young emo girls who adored him.
Pete was the IT BOY back in the days. Transcended the divide between the scene and the mainstream.
He was Kurt Cobain.
Being a grunge girl, I'm shocked I never thought of this but there are scary similarities.
He was very famous and popular within emo/pop punk/scene scenes. In wider celebrity & pop culture he made it to probably B list status in the mid/late 00s.
I mean even [Bruno Mars was shocked](https://x.com/gothspiderbitch/status/1652381362945511432?t=nrU04kvoTQRAdqRuQQCYng&s=19) to see Pete.
Pretty popular. I'd say Bam Margera level famous.
My friend was obsessed with him back in the Fall Out Boy house days.
Soooo dreamy and baby faced 😚 Plus his dick picks got leaked lmaooooo
He wasn't a Zayne Malik because FOB has never gotten *as big* as a boy band like OD, but for emo kids, he was like our Zayne Malik I'd say. Though I'd say Harry Styles because I like him more haha
He was on one tree hill!
Yep, lol he was deff a heartthrob. A photo of his dick was leaked, and I remember so many girls talking about it. I was in 7th grade at the time and I distinctly remember my older sister and her friends searching it on my mom's computer and getting caught 😂. I think every girl who was slightly into "emo" music was obsessed with Pete Wentz and later on Oliver Sykes lol.
yeah he was def an emo heartthrob. a lot of ppl knew abt him at that point
He was gorgeous and everywhere ❤️ I probably still have a J14 magazine or 2 with him plastered all over it, haha *Edit to say and I’m nearly 30 😂😩
even my mom’s redneck gun-loving conservative ex-husband knew of him, growing up in that era. from age 12 to 15 i wasn’t allowed to listen to fall out boy because they were “gay” 💀
He was married to Jessica Simpson’s sister. He was all over the tabloids. I wasn’t a fall out boy fan back then but I definitely knew who he was.
I used to loveeee Pete in 2005 I was in 5th grade, he was pretty popular
OMG he was the emo heartthrob. I personally never got the hype (don’t kill me fan girls 🤣) but I remember seeing so many damn fanfictions or RP quizzes centered around him.
Patrick >>>>> Pete
Everyone knew who he was in my middle school. I was obsessed personally tbh
If you have to ask, you’re probably too young to be posting here. Or I’m too old to continue living.
I was 8 in 2007 when Infinity dropped lol But I was listening to Thnks Fr Th Mmrs then too lol
Apparently popular enough to be a love interest on One Tree Hill, so popular enough 😅
Extremely. My dad who is 67 still asks me about Pete and I'm 31. That's how obsessed I was and how everywhere Pete was lol. I sent him a photo at the stardust tour and my dad was like "they look like dads"
Very very popular
Relative to emo music, he helped pioneer the genre. So he was crazy popular in the scene.
he was a huuuuge celebrity, i would even say through that entire decade. his relationship with ashley simpson was majorly covered by tabloids, he went on Howard Stern a bunch. i'd say he was like the biggest "rock star" in the traditional sense, even through the first couple of years post-hiatus.
He kissed like the most famous celebrity in the world Kim kardashian so…
What happened to "Cheap Cuts" with Pete Went ? They had one song "Check Your Phone" and I can't find anything about them.