Niccolò Machiavelli
to Nick Jonas the Magnificent
Those who wish to win favor with a Jonas brother customarily offer him those things they hold most precious or that they see him most delight in. Thus, we often see Jonas brothers given vestments of gold cloth, made-for-television movies, precious stones, insulin, horses, Baby Bottle–pop endorsement contracts, arms, and similar ornaments suited to their greatness. Wishing, then, to present myself to Your Cuteness with some mark of my duty to you, I have been unable to find anything I possess that I value more or prize so much as my knowledge of great male teen pop stars who are targeted at the preteen demographic, which I have acquired from a long experience in modern affairs and a continuous study of antiquity. And although I consider this work unworthy of your station, I seem to somehow find myself living constantly in an excruciating pain, and writing this treatise may distract me from my injuries.
CHAPTER I
The Kinds of Jonas Brotherships
and the Means by Which They Are Acquired
All musical entities that have had and continue to have power over preteen girls were and still are either boy-band-alities, consisting of multiple unrelated teenagers, or Jonas brotherships. And Jonas brotherships are either hereditary, in which case the record-executive or evangelical-Christian family of the Jonas brothers has ruled for generations, or they are new.
CHAPTER VII
Concerning the Acquisition
of New Jonas Brotherships
When Jonas brothers enter and occupy a new market, either through their own singing ability and Publicity (what some call Fortune) or that of others, there are three ways of keeping it: the first is to destroy the preteen girls of that market; the second is to go live there in person; and the third is to let it continue to live under its own musical style, producing covers and taking proceeds, and setting up a media landscape of television personalities and minor music artists who will keep it friendly to you. In markets that previously enjoyed a high level of sexual energy from their boy band or other ruling pop-star entity, it is necessary for the new Jonas brothers to develop a transitional regime. In most cases, and most recently when the Jonases of France invaded Venice, this means putting in power an obese man with a harmonica and gravelly singing voice who only performs religious hymns. After the preteen girls have been tamed by this pop star, the Jonas brothers will enter the territory, remove the harmonicist from power, and have their preteen army inflict a certain violence on him in the city streets where the market’s tourists gather. Thus, the people will be both grateful for and fearful of the new Joneses, and they will accept the abstinence vows and diluted romantic lyrics of the new, sexually attractive regime. And I say it is better to be both feared and loved, for it means neither a boy band nor the Zac Efron of that market can overthrow the Jonases without much Publicity.
CHAPTER XII
Concerning the Various Kinds of Fans
There now remains for me to discuss the means of offense and defense these Jonas brotherships can generally employ. Jonas brothers should only enlist in their preteen-girl armies those who are native to their Jonas brothership, for mercenary fanatics are hard to trust and do not vote for Teen Choice Awards with the passion of those who truly support the band. To encourage this passion, it is often necessary, as it was for Tiberius, Publius, and Sextus Jonias of ancient Rome, for a Jonas brother to secretly kiss, and perhaps further pleasure, a number of his fans while they are sleeping, but to do so in a way that makes every fan certain this strange sexual experience had to have been a dream. Each of these girls will then recount this experience on the slumber-party circuit, ensuring that a high level of sexual interest is maintained among the ranks without the Jonas brother compromising his Family Values.
CHAPTER XXII
Concerning the Jonas Brothers’ Advisers
A matter of no small importance to Jonas brothers is the selection of their advisers, for the first estimate of their hotness and musical ability will be based upon the character of the men they keep around them. And the most important of these advisers is the political theorist, for he knows how to maneuver in society and achieve for the Jonases their rightful glory and market share. It is important that a Jonas not worry his political theorist with questions about the Jonas’s Miley Cyrus or whether those blue pellets in his Brita pitcher are OK to drink. It is also important that he not murder his fellow Jonas brothers, for though another Jonas may receive greater love and glory for being the only Jonas in a particular market, fans of the other brothers are sure to rise up eventually. But when the political theorist leaves the farm to which he has been exiled and returns to Los Angeles to kill Nick Jonas, other Jonas brothers should not be surprised, for Nick sent the American market into turmoil and caused great pain to the preteens that loved the Jonases he ordered to be assassinated at their Change for the Children Foundation banquet.
CHAPTER XXIII
An Exhortation to the Bonus Jonas
That He May Bring Together
the American Music Market
Under His Just Rule
Soon the loyal advisers of Nick Jonas will find him here in a pool of blood, and this political theorist will be on his way to the court of the Jonases of Mexico. But before I leave this valuable gift at the so-hot corpse of His Cuteness, I must call for unity around Frankie Jonas, who has taken the title of Bonus Jonus, and ask that he not seek division but rather a unified Jonas brothership at last under his just rule. Salacious American preteen girls, do not look to a Jonas you do not know but, rather, trust that the wisdom and goodness of the dynasty will come in due time to the fourth brother, though he may have yet to enter puberty and have only a short appearance in Camp Rock 2.