Why Do We Expect the Spice Girls and Other Bands to Keep Reuniting?

'90s nostalgia rules the day. We miss that era of innocence and try to bring it back to life by adapting classic movies and TV shows and forcing beloved musical groups to reunite. One of the groups that gets hounded most is the Spice Girls.

They have, on several occasions, heard our call and given us what we wanted, what we really, really wanted. They most recently reunited for the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. They also collaborated on a West End musical called Viva Forever. And then there was their glorious 2007 reunion tour, the first time the girls toured as a five-piece in America (you know, 'cause Geri bailed on them in 1998 without warning #notoveritandneverwillbe).

When the girls made it to California eight years ago, I flew down to LA to see them, not because they weren't playing a show much closer in San Jose, but because the historic moment felt like it deserved some sort of pilgrimage. I'm not even kidding.

My love for the Spice Girls has spanned 20 years, at this point. The greatest love of all might be the one you have with yourself (R.I.P. Whitney), but the second greatest love of all, for me, could very well be the one I have for the Spice Girls and everything they represent.

What's so great about some cheesy girl group from forever ago? Basically everything, but since you probably want some specifics:

The Spice Girls were all about owning who you are and reveling in it. Their fun, catchy pop was full of positive affirmations and sometimes served as a vehicle for escape, at least it was for me, a gay kid growing up in a conservative Greek space that adheres to strict gender roles.

The Spice Girls also introduced me and a lot of other young fans to feminism. Granted, a very light, sugar-coated brand of feminism, but still. The main takeaway of Girl Power! was that girls and women are equal to boys and men. Such a simple, yet revolutionary concept. Maybe some fans didn't completely get that, but many of us did and that's a wonderful thing to learn at a young age. They also honored and celebrated femininity and their sexualities in a time when no one else was really doing that on such a large scale.

So, if you didn't already know, this is why fans get so excited when news of a Spice Girls reunion bubbles up. It isn't just because we like singing along to "Wannabe" or showing off the simple choreography we learned from the "Stop" music video. It's because these girls and their music helped us develop our ideas of who we are and how we treat each other.

Because the 20th anniversary of their first single is coming up, there's been speculation that the girls will do another tour or a one-off show or a single or something. Mel B fanned the flames this week by going on talk shows and saying things like, "Hopefully, we’ll gather the troops around and we’ll get to do something to celebrate it next year. It's in my plan."

And earlier this week, some report claimed that the girls were plotting a comeback tour without Victoria Beckham a.k.a. Posh Spice. As we learned after Geri left (#grrr), it just isn't the Spice Girls without all five of them.

What do some of the other girls think of all of this noise?

It's all news to Melanie Chisholm and Emma Bunton (Sporty and Baby):

Emma went on to say: "Nothing's happening at the moment."

Now here's where I get controversial: I don't need a reunion. Yes, I am a super fan, love them an inordinate amount and would most likely see them again, given the opportunity. But they've already reunited for us several times. Even if they do another reunion tour, we'll just ask for another in three years.

We're insatiable. But more than that, we just don't know how to accept the end of something. With countless adaptations and reboots and reunions, we've lost our ability to just appreciate what was. We've come to believe that it's not enough for a movie, TV show or band to have made an impact at some point in the past; now we expect them to continue entertaining us, expiration dates be damned.

So are the Spice Girls actually reuniting in 2016? Maybe, maybe not. The better question is why we keep insisting that they do.