Forget Gizmo or Tickle Me Monica — the hottest gift idea this season is the boy band.

They’re plentiful, they’re easy to use and damn, are they cute.

Boy band paraphernalia is the perfect present for any chick, especially that little cousin who’s name you drew over Thanksgiving and tried to trade to your brother, but he wouldn’t because he would rather die than walk out of a music store with an ‘N Sync poster.

Although they’d never admit it, even moms and brothers will be happy with boy band stuff. They don’t go around singing, “You’re tearin’ up my heart now, baby,” for nothing. They’re dropping clues.

The only problem with boy bands is telling them apart. There’s been an outbreak of them this year, and sometimes even Carson Daly himself gets Sean from Five mixed up with Shane from Boyzone.

Here’s where I come in.

I spent my Thanksgiving break doing some hefty research on boy bands so I could present a little boy band gift guide, so to speak.

The two sure things are the Backstreet Boys and Hanson.

Some could argue the ages of the two younger Hansons separates them from boy band status, but we haven’t heard from these cats for a while, and you have to bet puberty has peaked its ugly head since the “MMM Bop” days.

One advantage to Hanson, along with ‘N Sync, is they have been so kind as to record a Christmas CD with all our favorite carols on it.

This makes a great gift if you’re giving it a few weeks early, but no one wants to get Christmas music on Christmas. Then you only get to use it one day and have to wait another 11 months to hear it again.

People want to deck the halls with the balls of Hanson now, baby.

As for the Backstreet Boys, the Web has a plethora of history on the fivesome that brought us the catchphrase “Everybody, Backstreet’s back.” (Where are they coming back from, again?)

There are over 90 fan sites dedicated to Backstreet fever, not to mention six anti-Backstreet Boy sites, including one called “We Hate the Backstreet Girls” in which the author vents, “Those ‘boys’ have nothing to give to society except copious amounts of ugly girl mobs. If everyone really wanted to hear them bleat out their pathetic lyrics, the fans would stop screaming.”

One site, called “Someone dies and all of a sudden Howie’s hot?” is particularly entertaining. The Backstreet basher writes, “I’m sorry that your sister died Howie, but you are still one ugly son of a bitch.”

I guess that’s a clue to stick with Nick, Brian, A.J. or Kevin if you’re going the individual collector’s card route.

The problem you’ll have with the Backstreet Boys is that their fans are like, way obsessed and probably have every Backstreet Boy product available.

However, they do make Backstreet Boy soap, and ugly girl mobs can never have too much soap.

Another way to avoid buying a boy band present someone may already have is venturing over to one of the newer groups.

‘N Sync (not to be confused with the girl band N-Tyce) seems to be the flavor of the month, and you could even go the concert ticket route since they’re heading to Des Moines a few days after Christmas.

Chris, JC (no periods), Joey, James and Justin are dead-on Backstreet-look-alikes, so chances are, you can’t go wrong.

Boyzone is the older, rowdier Irish boy band and the only one with all members of legal drinking age.

In the group’s bio, Boyzone credits George Michael, Eric Clapton and LL Cool J as influences (that threesome paints a pretty picture), and lead singer Ronan Keating swears, “We don’t have somebody telling us what to say or do or wear.”

Five, the cleverly named five-piece boy band, is the latest project from Spice Girl creators Bob and Chris Herbert.

They boast two Dicks (Richard Breen and Richard Neville), one of which goes by the sexy nickname “Abs” to set himself apart from the other Dick.

Despite being the hottest of the boy bands (OK, that was bad), 98ø is the clear underdog here. Most importantly, they only have four boys, while every other group has five.

And two of the 98ø boys are brothers, which leaves the potential for Nelson disease.

All of the boy bands have potential, though, and loads of junk for sale. As for dad, stick with tools. Unless you’re really close — then go with the Tickle Me Monica.

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Corey Moss is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.