I'm 13, what is dream pop?
May 21, 2012 3:13 AM   Subscribe

The Internet is going crazy for 19 (or 16? or 17? Definitely not really 13) year old Florida rapper Kitty Pryde’s track “Ok Cupid.”

"Her video just came out on May 14 and she’s already been written up in the New York Times, Complex magazine, Vice (who term her music “Tumblr-wave”), and the Huffington Post, to name a few.

Pryde also posted an older track called “Justin Bieber” in homage to the teen pop star and the trials of being a hormonal teenage girl. There appears to be a full older album on her bandcamp page, called The Lizzy McGuire Experience.

She writes on her Tumblr, “so much discussion over a song i wrote in traffic to impress a boy its like making a grilled cheese and listening to hundreds of thousands of people bitch about how it isnt gourmet.”
posted by Potomac Avenue (208 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
Did that song last for only 2:52? It felt... so much longer. Listening to it made me almost literally itch.

On the bright side, it was well-produced. The backing track reminded me a bit of Starfucker. But the vocals...? And the rapping? Not a fan.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 3:22 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


Huh.
posted by timshel at 3:25 AM on May 21, 2012


This made my earballs bleed.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 3:25 AM on May 21, 2012 [6 favorites]


Okay, Kitty. You've got fifteen minutes, starting.... NOW. Enjoy them.
posted by Kevtaro at 3:28 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Based on her Tumblr, I am not at all worried about her. I think her expectations and aspirations are well in line with reality. However old she is, she's of the generation that knows exactly how the internet works:

manager: i dont like that he called you a "meme"

me: if i end up with a betsey johnson dress after all of this they can call me whatever the fuck they want


Probability rating: 62.3%
posted by DarlingBri at 3:32 AM on May 21, 2012 [22 favorites]


Well that was pretty fucking awful.
posted by GavinR at 3:35 AM on May 21, 2012


That was very bland, but perhaps that's because the last link I clicked was this and I wasn't in the mood for anything other than Abigail's Party.

There's not that many views for an internet sensation. 200,000 or so is hardly Charlie Bit My Finger, innit.
posted by mippy at 3:36 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


I'm going crazy!
posted by XhaustedProphet at 3:40 AM on May 21, 2012


mippy: "200,000 or so is hardly Charlie Bit My Finger, innit."

Yeah. An internet sensation has to break into millions of views faster than a week.
posted by graventy at 3:41 AM on May 21, 2012


My generation had Adam Yauch. The millenials get this.
posted by bardic at 3:43 AM on May 21, 2012 [15 favorites]


Well it's no Friday
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:43 AM on May 21, 2012 [8 favorites]


manager: i dont like that he called you a "meme"

me: if i end up with a betsey johnson dress after all of this they can call me whatever the fuck they want


So all she wants is a dress? Someone buy it for her already.
posted by Sailormom at 3:44 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


What sold me on Kitty Pryde was this "based freestyle" she posted a month ago.

She's a teenager writing songs and posting them on the internet, which is exactly what I would have been doing in high school if the means to do it over my family's dial up actually existed back then. And she's self-aware and kind of funny, which is way more than I could say about myself at that age (whatever age she is). I dig it, and I can see why it would also be daggers-in-ears bad to some other people. But I don't get people dumping a bunch of Haterade on a young girl.
posted by Maaik at 3:50 AM on May 21, 2012 [35 favorites]


i don't like this song much either but holy shit do you guys have a weird amount of resentment for this teenage girl
posted by p3on at 3:51 AM on May 21, 2012 [52 favorites]


I never in a million years thought I'd hear myself saying this, but I actually prefer Swagger Jagger to this. It's also unrelentingly awful, but at least Cher Lloyd doesn't sound like someone drugged an autotune machine to the gills on Valium and pushed it out onto stage.

Also, I may or may not have a dark unholy crush on the short-haired Asian backup dancer who keeps showing up by Cher's left shoulder in that video. I admit nothing.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:52 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


graventy: It's a big internet. Fenton racked up a million views in a day. Maybe we've become complacent and nothing is sufficiently sensational unless everyone and their cat's seen it, but this is a product designed to get internet attention. It reminds me of an old Popjustice quote about manufactured bands - if a band gets in the charts at no.11, that's brilliant. If a manufactured pop band, heavily marketed and created with the sole purpose of menacing children out of their pocket money doesn't chart higher than no.11, then that's commercial faliure.

tl:dr: the internet can decide for itself what it will make a sensation, not the payola roll blues.
posted by mippy at 3:53 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Honestly, I just look for excuses to link to this video. Even if, OK, it's not exactly related.
posted by Algebra at 3:54 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


Maybe it's not the next Tribe Called Quest but I dig it. It seems pretty authentic. The backing track has a nice quaalude-y Clams Casino vibe. And she's cute without turning herself into some kind of Spears-ian sex-child.
posted by mr.ersatz at 4:04 AM on May 21, 2012 [11 favorites]


One dollar for a song download? Once cent too far for me to go.
posted by parmanparman at 4:06 AM on May 21, 2012


My generation had Adam Yauch. The millenials get this.

SCENE: 1986, afternoon. An old gets home from work and walks into the family room, where a teenager watches You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party on the MTV. The old says, "Heh, my generation had Sam Cooke. Your generation gets this."

MORAL: Olds will be olds! And also, the amount of vitriol directed toward this girl and Lena Oldham is effing sad. Boys being young and dumb and creative: cool. Girls doing same: moral hazard or something? Maybe that's where the pageviews and "controversy" comes from?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:11 AM on May 21, 2012 [40 favorites]


There's a (free) media fire link on that bandcamp page.
posted by njloof at 4:12 AM on May 21, 2012


Good lord, that's hypnotic, both in it's relative melancholia as well as the packed symbolism of contemporary American youth.

I studied hip hop for a few years like Galileo dropped the orange, and this is really a massive development in the genre... if it can be called hip hop. For whilst the genre is meant to be rather fluid and inclusive, this breaks the large majority of the definitions, beyond the fact that there's a certain meter of poetry. Yet, it's aligned in it's authenticity. If rock and roll was about symbolism (hot for teacher or Jeremy spoke in class today), hip hop has always been... well... more direct (When I get out of jail, I'm gonna kill the bitch or We up in the club. Not a lot of symbolism or hyperbole there.

Kitty's lyrics are fascinating given the economic and social dynamics of this generation, packed with layers of meaning.

you apologise to me when I see you do a line, polite, I'm open-minded but I don't do the shit I'm not heartless but I'm (something about a rotten tooth).

There's no stigma against drug use; there's an understanding of personal choice and implication. In a world where the boundaries have systematically been destroyed, we've moved from either the glorification or vilification, to a resigned sense of presence. The heartless comment is fascinating, as it's a statement separating the individual's actions from their value as a person.

It's my party couldn't cry if I wanted to and the more you taunt me the more I think I'm wanting you

The disconnect of a generation with increasing difficulty ascribing expression to emotion. As they've been inundated with content, from obscene wealth to abject poverty, how does one know when to cry? What is worth crying about? The mass media has become so adept at manipulating emotions, it appears as if there may be difficulty in conjuring internal emotion. That is aligned with the genre timbre of the song, a monotone progression. She talks about the big themes of life – young love, marriage, drugs, conflict – with a level of almost scary detachment. As if these are things she sees from the outside, as an observer; she in an observer to her own life. She may know what dreams she should have, however there's a disconnect below the surface.

I've been thinking about you, please think about me

And then the truest line from a teenage girl to a teenage boy. Masked in rhinestone heart boots, cans of PBR, drug references, and resigned celebrations. By the time this line arrives, we've gone through the tapestry of teenage experience, from a bit of bullying to drunken-dialing to drug-use. She's pushed through layers of behaviour and noise and gotten to the root emotion of "Okay Cupid". How distracted she is, a world filled with so many noises that she's unsure of what her message is. Yet, to the outsider, it gleans so brightly.

not going steady but babe I planned our wedding already

And then the veil of hope, that there will be sobriety, and then the journey of destiny will continue. As if the present moment something that whilst not desired, must occur to eventually arrive at a more traditional destination. And again, the resignation and the flatness of voice, as if these are not dreams but rather modular pieces of life that have been communicated as desirable, yet their is either a lack of desire -- or perhaps worse -- a foreclosed sense of desire.

Overall, this is a bittersweet statement on the experience of youth in America. They're not sad, it doesn't exhibit the disconnectedness of grunge. Grunge was a very Gen X experience, the result of White Flight, and destroyed economy, and in retrospect, a spectre of the turmoil to come. Already in the mid 90s, youth were losing their dreams; middle America had started it's long walk toward what it has become today. Grunge was the anti-thesis of rock and roll. Rock and roll was big hair, roaring 70s, American steel, American power, and tequila all night long. Grunge was the hangover of that. Broken communities, traditional values eroded without being replaced.

Then came the lock-step march of hip-hop to world domination. In a world of Disneyland and suburbs, of soccer practices and summer camps, hip-hop came with something real. Real problems and real successes. None of the narcotic sedation of consumer mall culture, but real life on the streets. Hip hop came to dominate and thus bling. Now it wasn't about a great life in the future, it was about a great life now. The deaths of Biggie and Tupac were the final notes in gangster rap, when the eyes of the world came to see that hip hop was indeed real and big, and actually death with life and death. It traded on that credibility all the way up through Watch The Throne, when basically, hip hop has become such a media enterprise, it looks nothing like its roots.

And now Kitty Pryde from Florida. Mingling the adult themes with those of interrupted youth, giving voice to the general malaise eating through the younger generation like a cancer. Powerless, they are experiencing their present collapsing whilst watching their parents rob their futures. There are no futures, at least not ones that deserve any degree of emotional investment.

For anyone outside this generation, this is a big fat warning light. A ringing buzzer as to the disenchantment of our progeny. Whilst we toil around over who should get bonuses and remain riveted by faith-based politics, taxes, and the fate of the rich, The Kids Are Not Alright.

For anyone within this generation, this is the most soothing blanket you could ask for. A statement of just how flat an experience being young has become for so many. It's a beacon, not of hope, but of communal experience. I imagine this song is exploding because it embodies the banal existence a lot of these kids experience.

As mentioned, good lord, that's hypnotic.
posted by nickrussell at 4:13 AM on May 21, 2012 [178 favorites]


On preview, nickrussell's thoughtful comment has made me delete mine which was, in essence, a coded way of saying that I am now old and I don't understand things anymore.
posted by Jofus at 4:23 AM on May 21, 2012 [9 favorites]


I am old enough to be this girl's mother, I am clearly not the intended audience, and it's annoying noise OMG - but this is fascinating. My generation with our noisy guitars and secondhand clothes has been replaced with a new generation making weird music I don't quite understand with cultural signifiers I am too old to really get .. and that is so good.

What I do get from this is a sense of hypermodern bricolage (if you'll pardon my outdated lingo) and kids making music in their bedroom about themselves and *their* lives. Lana Del Ray had me despairing - was that really what 21st century pop music had become? Kitty Pryde makes me grin.
posted by kariebookish at 4:23 AM on May 21, 2012 [6 favorites]


Boys being young and dumb and creative: cool.

Examples?

The hate in this thread is more about ageism than sexism. Witness any thread about steampunk or dubstep as well.
posted by DU at 4:23 AM on May 21, 2012 [5 favorites]


Examples?

Every TV show and/or movie ever that had a teenage "garage band" as signifier of cool.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:26 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Searching for personal context in a world shaped by their elders is a coming of age ritual. The difference in 2012 is that the world is changing so quickly due to connectivity they can actually start steering it in flight. And they are steering it in a direction of community building based on social webs rather than locations. Our interconnectedness is now irrevocable; they have ALWAYS had the Internet, and they will be the ones who truly know how to use it.

The kids are fine. More than fine, they are the future.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:27 AM on May 21, 2012


Probably not the best example, as 'creative' is pushing it, but Justin Bieber. I'm thirty, and orthodoxy says that I'm supposed to hate him with the fury of a thousand suns, but I find it hard to care either way. He's not aimed at me, so I'm freed from needing to really have an opinion. I felt the same about Rebecca Black. Bad pop songs aren't new, and pop stars half my age are going to get more common the older I get, and none of it is important.
posted by mippy at 4:27 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


more about ageism than sexism

Ample sexism, but not really new themes. Teenage girl, waiting for a boy who thinks he's in love with another girl, to sober up from her, the booze, and the drugs, and to call her.

Disturbing that she's waiting by the phone at 330AM for him to call. Not ideal, but the more he teases her, the more she loves him.

Shitty, but nothing new.
posted by nickrussell at 4:28 AM on May 21, 2012


And the good thing about Lana Del Ray is that we don't really need '26 year old' Paloma Faith now.
posted by mippy at 4:29 AM on May 21, 2012


The kids are fine. More than fine, they are the future.

I look forward to revisiting that debate with you in an appropriate thread.
posted by nickrussell at 4:30 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


She's got potential, awesome boots, righteous attitude.

Suck it, haters.
posted by angrycat at 4:31 AM on May 21, 2012 [5 favorites]


Boxxy was cooler.
posted by Neale at 4:32 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


Every TV show and/or movie ever that had a teenage "garage band" as signifier of cool.

A lot of these teen garage bands have girls in them, also signifying they are cool. Or maybe I missed the message they were attempting to send.

In any case, I think we are in basic agreement that old people are stupid. They may also be sexist. Now let's go smoke behind the gym. (I need to get my walker, though.)
posted by DU at 4:36 AM on May 21, 2012


She's wearing a Yeastie Girls shirt. She's ok by me.
posted by bobobox at 4:38 AM on May 21, 2012 [12 favorites]


If you don't see the sexism, so be it. I definitely see it. In fact, to all the teenage girls rapping/singing about sex and drugs, let me say:

Holy shit, mad respeck, you do that shit while knowing that you're going to get called a slut and whore and whatever else and you do it anyway. Sincerely, an old. (oh, and you have to also deflect criticism like nickrussel which says you're not feminist enough - I mean, I see his point, but goddamn you are in between a rock and hard place here, so good on you for doing it and posting it and getting it out there.)

Oh, and the Justin Bieber song is pretty sweet, too.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:42 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Oh there's definitely sexism against young female singers. I just don't see it in this thread. Also, my request for examples was examples of MetaFilter loving young males doing stupid things badly.

Maybe your original comment was speaking globally. I have no idea, since I don't know what people globally are saying about Kitty Pryde.
posted by DU at 4:45 AM on May 21, 2012


Why do people find this song strange? It's not quite hiphop as nickrussell argues, but it's not exactly avant garde either, is it?

What it reminds me off, strangely enough, was Dutch rap sensation De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, some of the same sort of flow and not quite rhyming sentences.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:52 AM on May 21, 2012


Wait a sec. So... if you didn't care for this particular song, that means you're an mean-spirited sexist old fart stuck in 1985? IT IS ALL BLACK OR WHITE! FALSE DICHOTOMIES 'R' US!

Look, I liked the music itself, but I didn't care for Kitty Pryde's vocals. I thought her style of rapping was tedious and kind of twee, and I found the rhythms of her lyrics not particularly pleasing. (I admit I didn't pay much attention to the actual lyrics. I tend not to do that.) Her lyrical flow grated against my inner chalkboard. But hey, she's young, she might do stuff I like in a few years. It's hard to say.

But you know, YMMV.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 4:54 AM on May 21, 2012


I couldn't get past the production quality, and the complete lack of structure to the song, but I thought she did have some clever lyrics. She's definitely a talented writer, and I wouldn't be surprised if she follows this up with quality stuff.
posted by empath at 5:00 AM on May 21, 2012


Wait a sec. So... if you didn't care for this particular song, that means you're an mean-spirited sexist old fart stuck in 1985?

More like if you use the Beastie Boys to criticize this girl for making dumb music, you weren't around when people were criticizing the Beastie Boys for making stupid, pointless music for a stupid generation.

As for the sexist thing, it's not directed at any one person in this thread. Culturally, though, it seems like young creative girls get a lot more negative energy directed their way than young creative boys. Maybe this is just a too-obvious point, thus it's rubbing people wrong because it seems specific to this thread? To clarify, DU, yes I was speaking globally.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:01 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


I think the chances of me listening to this again are pretty low, but it's at least interesting. A sort of sleepwalk sensibility and a very specific point of view that you don't hear too often.
posted by I Foody at 5:03 AM on May 21, 2012


Wait a sec. So... if you didn't care for this particular song, that means you're an mean-spirited sexist old fart stuck in 1985?

No. If a body of viewers, in this case MetaFilter, unfailingly hates a trend or trends participated in mainly by people under age X (steampunk, dubstep and whatever-term-would-cover-Kitty-Pryde) then that body of viewers can pretty reliably be pegged at age 10X.
posted by DU at 5:05 AM on May 21, 2012


Her lyrical flow grated against my inner chalkboard.

Which is funny, because nothing irritates me more than wack flow, and there's something about her flow that really does it for me. It's not uneven and stumbling the way people who just don't get it rap; it's self-consciously awkward. It's the difference between a bad drummer and one who can dance artfully around the beat. At least the way I hear it.

That said, it has all the hallmarks of purposefully-twee music that I ought to hate, but honestly, I really like this for a whole lot of reasons. She knows exactly what the fuck she's doing and is clearly much smarter than she wants to appear.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:09 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


I've been shocked for about 3 weeks that Internet People are actually paying attention to this. Then again, while I think this song is absolutely awful, the internet also launched the careers of Wiz Khalifa and Tyga and about a zillion other horrid rappers, and those guys make music every bit as terrible as Kitty Pryde.

By the way, the song is produced by Beautiful Lou. Some of his beats are alright. Personally I think this one is not good.
posted by broadway bill at 5:15 AM on May 21, 2012


This is awesome. I do not understand the hate at all.
posted by the bricabrac man at 5:17 AM on May 21, 2012


My generation had Adam Yauch. The millenials get this.

lol dude do you even listen to rap
posted by p3on at 5:20 AM on May 21, 2012 [16 favorites]


In an odd way, this strikes me as Peaches (of The Teaches of Peaches) without the explicit sex language. Don't know if that's a criticism or a compliment, tho…
posted by LMGM at 5:21 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


If she swallowed a frog she'd be Tricky.
posted by fleacircus at 5:28 AM on May 21, 2012 [16 favorites]


I kind of like this song.
posted by nathancaswell at 5:30 AM on May 21, 2012


Plus, Boba Fett in the background.
posted by nathancaswell at 5:30 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


Okay so we're talking millenial hip-hop.
Is this any good? Is this the sound of the millenials? I was hoping you (those that identify with the term millenials) would pick something more like ArtOfficial, but they may just be carryover from my point in time, only just finding success now...
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:32 AM on May 21, 2012


I think the song's kind of interesting, but the supposed 'internet is going crazy' stories remind me of the whole Sandi Thom myth. I don't think video this well produced has come from an unknown without a lot of resources.
posted by DanCall at 5:34 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I kind of like it.

Also: nickrussell nailed it.
posted by flippant at 5:44 AM on May 21, 2012


I don't think video this well produced has come from an unknown without a lot of resources.

5D/7D footage (I would bet my life on it) of 3 teenage girls hanging out in and around a small house with some out of focus christmas lights overlaid on top is super well produced?
posted by nathancaswell at 5:44 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Wait, there were 2 to 4 dimensions I missed? I need to upgrade my Firefox.
posted by DU at 5:46 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I see a lot of low-budget professionally produced filmmaking in my dayjob and this doesn't look close.
posted by mippy at 5:46 AM on May 21, 2012


That was awful in a very ordinary way. And I'm not really hearing the "vitriol" and "resentment" it's causing here. It's not Metafilter's job to get an automatic hard-on over absolutely anything desperate media houses claim is hip now. Also, treating people's opinions about a single song by a single girl as representative of their opinions about all of youth culture just makes it sound like you aren't aware of any of the other things young people are doing.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 5:49 AM on May 21, 2012 [6 favorites]


My favorite thing about her is how much her flow sounds like Paul Barman's. Listen to the way she hits the ends of lines late, in triplicate and in the middle of the bar, sqooshing slants and full rhymes together as in "bAbe-I planned our wEdding alreAdy". Very Barman, very MF Doom, though of course from the perspective of a bored chick who works at Claires.

If she doesn't get branded as the next Kesha or try too hard to be funny and go all Minaj, but just keeps rhyming about Internet memes and hardcore screamo boys, she's going to be a major force in hiphop (or mallgaze or whatever you want to call it).
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:49 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


And, there's been a lot of this about recently - see also Cherry Menlove, who was essentially manufactured as a blogging personality to take advantage of the trend in modern crafts/home making skills.
posted by mippy at 5:50 AM on May 21, 2012


I didn't expect to like this at all but I kinda did and now I'm confused.
posted by Windigo at 6:06 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


My generation had Adam Yauch. The millenials get this.

You're so right. There was nothing embarrassing at all about the eighties. We were perfect.
posted by srboisvert at 6:07 AM on May 21, 2012 [14 favorites]




nathancaswell Was it though, or was it designed to look like that? It looked more considered and planned than something that came out of a random bedroom. I admit I might be wrong though.
posted by DanCall at 6:11 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I wish there was a way to find out the circumstances of the video! Grrr! Oh wait it's in one of the articles:

"How was that video shoot for “Okay Cupid?”
[Laughs.] Very unprofessional.

Apparently, some dude just like showed up to your house or a friend’s yard sale. Do you want to run through…

He was friends with [my manager] Walker. He’s from Boston and he shot a lot of videos and stuff. He is a really good photographer so I just saw his videos like, “Oh this is cool.” He e-mailed me, “I am going to be down for vacation next week.” This is like the day “Okay Cupid” came out. He was like, “I want to shoot a video for you. I’m going to be in Florida next week.” He was like two hours away. He drove like two hours with his girlfriend in tow to come to my house and to shoot that video. We had no idea what we were going to do. He was like, “I don’t know. We’ll just wing it.” I thought, “OK, whatever.” Because I don’t really like to think about logistics of things, either. I was like, “Sure, we’ll figure it out.” But when the time came to do it, I hadn’t really planned anything out. I was just sitting at home alone and I was like, “I don’t want to be alone with this random guy at my house. That’s so scary. What if he kills me?” So, I called one of my friends and was like, “Can I come over? And have this video shoot at your house?” She was like, “Yeah, sure. I am having a yard sale right now but if you want to do it at the yard sale, that’s fine.” I was like, “Oh my God, this is going to be the worst thing ever.

And we just did it. And the people ended up being really cool and now we are really good friends. And so it worked out for the best. But, I mean, yeah it was random and my friends are not particularly well-groomed in that video because they weren’t really expecting it. [Laughs.] I think they are kind of not very happy with it being this popular right now because they didn’t really have time to get ready or anything.”

posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:17 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


My favorite thing about her is how much her flow sounds like Paul Barman's.

Exactly what I came in to say... especially the linked album. I think she's pretty damned good, and I'm looking forward to what she does in the future.
posted by Huck500 at 6:21 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


Somewhere, Wolverine is crying.
posted by Missiles K. Monster at 6:23 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


My how we've fallen.
posted by ReeMonster at 6:25 AM on May 21, 2012


I like it, this rap reminds me of Crispin Glover's "Clowny Clown Clown".
posted by Matt Oneiros at 6:25 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


steampunk, dubstep

I'm waiting (to hate) steamstep. It's only a matter of time.
posted by jonmc at 6:25 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Don't hate... create! And if you can't create, enjoy what you enjoy...
posted by lotusstp at 6:26 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


kariebookish: "I am old enough to be this girl's mother, I am clearly not the intended audience, and it's annoying noise OMG - but this is fascinating. "

Same boat here. The atonal autotuned thing was crazymaking, but nickrussell's comment: "For anyone within this generation, this is the most soothing blanket you could ask for. A statement of just how flat an experience being young has become for so many. " made me reconsider the song in a different light. And while I'll grant the concept of NickRussel's comments, I would suggest that there have long been musicians with dystopian views and flat-line societal expectations.

That said; as interesting a commentary on the Youth Of Today as "OK Cupid" may be, (although I find the messaging derivative of Ke$ha), I'm old, and it makes my ears want to drop off and hide in the Pink Floyd box.
posted by dejah420 at 6:29 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Why do you guys keep saying she's autotuned? She's not. It sounds like maybe it was doubletracked, but that's it.
posted by empath at 6:35 AM on May 21, 2012 [5 favorites]


I absolutely loved that, once I'd worked out for certain it wasn't satire - if that video had a fixie in it, it'd serve as the master list of 'stuff people who hate hipsters think hipsters are into'. I mean, a sequin fucking cupcake!

If she swallowed a frog she'd be Tricky.

Yeah, his 'flow' sprang immediately to my mind too. I think this means we are old and don't really follow hip hop much ;-)

Seems I need to listen to Paul Barman, who I'm already liking on the basis of his having the least hip hop name imaginable, which worked well for Derek B (God, I really am old).

The atonal autotuned thing was crazy making

What? I'm 99% sure there's no autotune on her vocals.
posted by jack_mo at 6:38 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I see a lot of low-budget professionally produced filmmaking in my dayjob and this doesn't look close.

Yep, "produced by beautiful lou" - not quite just an authentic grilled cheese sandwich whipped up in a spare moment
posted by crayz at 6:38 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


someone drugged an autotune machine
atonal autotuned thing

This ... is not the sound of tuning.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:38 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Yeah double tracked, some effects but no autotune. The man vocal trick she does that's interesting is to use a ton of vocal fry on one vocal track and none on the other. Vocal fry is pretty underused as a rap vocalist tool, aside from maybe Buck 65 and select Jean Grae or Lauryn Hill songs.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:38 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


It's not Metafilter's job to get an automatic hard-on over absolutely anything desperate media houses claim is hip now.

Yeah, this is the type of thing that turns some of MetaFilter into David Brooks, just desperate to tell us the wonders of eating at Applebee's with real Americans
posted by crayz at 6:45 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


This is what a low-budget music vid looks like. Even if you are very talented, the budget/equipment you can afford will let you down. I see a lot of advertising, and the difference between stuff produced for £5000 and stuff produced for £10k is significant. Fair play to her if she's a new artist and has got a hot director to work with her - that's brilliant - but claiming that it's all grass-roots budget of 10p stuff is going to invite a backlash.
posted by mippy at 6:46 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


My generation had Adam Yauch. The millenials get this.

Girls - to do the dishes
Girls - to clean up my room
Girls - to do the laundry
Girls - and in the bathroom
Girls, that's all I really want is girls
posted by Scoo at 6:47 AM on May 21, 2012 [10 favorites]


n+1's What Was The Hipster? (which was actually really good because nobody at n+1 contributed essays) suggests actually that the Internet gave rise to two big cultures, one that was text-centric (forums and message boards) that became modern nerd culture, and one that was image-centric and became a big part of what eventually got called hipsters. My friends and I were waaaay on the nerd side. When I was thirteen I was on a game-designing forum, Googling Karl Marx so I could join in the philosophy debates to hide the fact that I was thirteen. It was like Ender's Game but more pathetic: we'd resigned ourselves to not being social animals, though as a result our actual parties were fun things like shooting Benny Hill tributes and writing songs about Gregor Mendel.

Anyway, while some of us saw the Internet as a thing we could write on, some people turned to the Internet as an alternative to celebrity magazines or whatever, and quickly realized that hey, on the Internet ANYBODY can publish photos and therefore ANYBODY can be a celebrity! So the craze became going to whatever parties happened to be nearby and taking pictures and blogging them. A bunch of people became Internet-famous because of this, and a new celebrity culture arose where different celebrities were attached to different blogs and anybody could be a celebrity if they happened to do something picture-worthy. And while this isn't the entirety of what gets called "hipster culture" it's a significant subtrend within.

The point I guess is that on the Internet, where culture evolves so fluidly yet stays self-contained within little bubbles, where you come in from pretty much defines what you think the Internet looks like; and no matter what you think, you are wrong. Christ, the other month I saw somebody on Reddit telling old war stories about what Reddit was like five years ago, back when it was all about programming and Paul Graham and nobody knew Ron Paul's name. And people were shocked and awed over this! Like, I always just assumed that Reddit was made of the same programming geeks and that somehow they'd decided to also love kittens and hate women. It's weird to realize that a culture can be hijacked, that a bunch of young whippersnappers can waltz in and just transform a social web site.

Tumblr was the melting pot. Everybody loved it. I found it from Lifehacker, and saw it as this place for philosophical contemplation and inner quietness (this was before reblogs and likes, where there was no interaction between users whatsoever). Some of my friends used it like Livejournal and I got SUPER PISSED OFF because they were, like, squandering this cool new tool for betterment. And of course Tumblr became a HUGE thing for this image-driven culture, to the point where a number of middle/high school girls I know independently started taking photographs of themselves in order to gain followers and build a "brand". It's weird talking to them and realizing that they take stalkers, angry threats, and marriage proposals for granted. Like that's just a part of growing up on the Internet.

Last year a friend and I went on a tramatic Tumblr double date. Long story short, having "posts on Tumblr" and "likes drunk flirting" in common doesn't mean you've learned a goddamn thing about the other person. But we hadn't realized that! We saw these girls' Tumblrs and kind of assumed, like idiots, that because theirs looked the same as all the people's that we knew, they must therefore be totally like us in every way. Which is crazy! But the Internet reduces people and makes them all seem pretty much the same. It's a blessing and a curse.

If there's a single unifying cultural theme for my generation, it's this detachment between presence and reality, the obsession with "branding", the weirdness of being so lost in superficial detail that we lose sight of what's actually going on. In some ways it's horrible (I still have a problem not judging people on their writing style or their appearance or their mannerisms). In some ways it is deeply, deeply cool (like when you become friends with somebody and they turn out to be way different from you in some way and you go, Oh cool, people are people are people). In some ways it's the same as it's ever been, only more pronounced, which means it's easier for people to notice and try to overcome.

This video, for instance. There's a young girl here who's spending her time making music with friends. She's funny. She's writing from her heart, about things she cares about, and it's resulted in a few good lines. That's terrific. The delivery? Kind of irritating. But the delivery doesn't matter. Music should not be about the fucking end product for 99% of people who make music. What matters is that there is a young person making music with friends and talking about things that matter, and that people like this are more and more common.

Yeah, that means more irritating things in pop culture than ever before. That's a good thing. It means pop culture is starting to be defined by people who don't know how to play the game. Impossibly, sincerity is slowly winning out over marketing.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:52 AM on May 21, 2012 [33 favorites]


The hate in this thread is more about ageism than sexism. Witness any thread about steampunk or dubstep as well.

Young people are into steampunk?! I thought it was all thirty- and forty-something blokes who are handy with a welding machine and have a shed full of brass odds and sods that'd 'come in handy one day'.

I'm waiting (to hate) steamstep. It's only a matter of time.

You could just about argue that's already happened, in the form of the 'dungeon sound' which a) tends to sound like it's been recorded live in a brass-plated bathysphere b) is an explicitly nostalgic reaction that harks back to the 'Victorian' era of the genre (1999-2005) and posits an alternate universe in which the American-style dubstep/brostep no-bass drop-fetish thing never happened.
posted by jack_mo at 6:52 AM on May 21, 2012


Ok, her song Justin Bieber is fantastic. Like really damn good. And I'm impressed at how it doesn't immediately sound LIKE any particular musician, the way my high school bands always obviously were trying to sound like XYZ genre. This just sounds like a teenage girl, doing her own thing, but musically. Which is really fucking bizarre to hear. I like it and I want more of it.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:06 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


I like the beat a lot. Music for surfing tumblr.
posted by azarbayejani at 7:10 AM on May 21, 2012


That was awesome. She's cooler than me and I've been spending almost 36 years trying to be cool. I wasn't cool at her age and I'm not cool now, but I recognize it when I see it.
posted by misskaz at 7:11 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


I studied hip hop for a few years like Galileo dropped the orange, and this is really a massive development in the genre.

No, my friend. No it is not. It's a white girl rapping. She has her own style, but it is not at all a new genre. I can't believe Uffie's name hasn't appeared in this thread. There are plenty of songs with this same sound.

She's average, and the only reason she's getting attention is because it's the next thing out. You can hear the overdubs where she rapped a bar and stopped and picked it back up. It gets done by lots of people, but it's pretty obvious she is just the flavor of the month. She's as entertaining as any internet thing is for a week or two, and good for her. To me she looks like she's 25 or something.

But new, this is not.
posted by cashman at 7:19 AM on May 21, 2012 [6 favorites]


To much like Gucci Gucci and I hate that song (ok its really a secret love affair only my husband knows about). Regardless I hate both songs!
posted by Sweetmag at 7:23 AM on May 21, 2012


If she swallowed a frog she'd be Tricky.

“Vocal fry” is the voice of the new generation.
posted by davel at 7:26 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I like it. But I like girl rappers AND twee (like my new fave grimes) and kreayshawn. The video is well done, the money/equipment behind it is obvious, especially in the interior shots, I have no idea what the first article is talking about when it claims it was shot on webcam, did they even watch the video?
posted by saucysault at 7:45 AM on May 21, 2012


It means pop culture is starting to be defined by people who don't know how to play the game.

But videos like this are the definition of the game now.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 8:00 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


all of you white boys are just mad that hiphop is selling itself out to new demographics...
posted by ennui.bz at 8:00 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


So twee doesn't mean what it used to, does it? Anyway I liked it. Very druggy in its own way.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:04 AM on May 21, 2012


And the Paul Barman references are spot on.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:06 AM on May 21, 2012


Ok, her song Justin Bieber is fantastic. Like really damn good. And I'm impressed at how it doesn't immediately sound LIKE any particular musician, the way my high school bands always obviously were trying to sound like XYZ genre. This just sounds like a teenage girl, doing her own thing, but musically. Which is really fucking bizarre to hear. I like it and I want more of it.

Rory Marinich, thanks for that comment. I found her offering in the FPP noxious, but I went to see what you were talking about, and I agree with your assessment of "Justin Bieber".

I'm in the "she's funded and professionally produced" camp, but if she wrote that, and had a hand in creating the sound, she's got talent.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:11 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Guys, she has a bunch of olds talking about some song she wrote to impress a teenage boy. I'd say this girl's going places whether she has a future in music or not.

It seems easy access to technology helps some of these kids today express themselves creatively in ways we couldn't have, and I believe that's a good thing.
posted by butterteeth at 8:16 AM on May 21, 2012


The production on the music track is pretty damn good. I mean, look, I've got some nice home-studio gear but I'd be hard-pressed to come up with something that sounded like this. Some folks may not like the aesthetics of it, but regardless of personal opinions about the style the piece is well crafted and well executed. So yeah, likely she's got some experienced people helping her craft her artistic ideas. Nothing wrong with that.

I really dig the backing track. It's got that whole dislocated "when you're done with the vicodin pass the nyquil" vibe going. Lucid but drowning.

Also, re:Bookhouse...this is probably not twee. Nor is grimes. I don't see a willful childishness here, which is what I normally think of as "twee" (a revolt back into youth as Paul Morley put it). Rather this stuff is explicit self-awareness of what it means to be young, dumb, and tripping down the angst/fascination/ennui spectrum. You remember that, don't you (I certainly do)?

I wasn't really into hip-hop when I was young (I was an outlier who preferred Radiohead, Thelonious Monk, and Mahler), but I can totally see where this is coming from. Don't y'all remember being teenagers?
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:20 AM on May 21, 2012


On Preview: Goddammit, this girl's nothin' but a poseur if she isn't a computer genius who can literally walk through walls. And what's this Florida bullshit? Kitty's from Chicago, people.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:27 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


God damnit, finally.. FINALLY someone made an x-men reference. Jesus people!
posted by tittergrrl at 8:31 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


You missed the reference back up at Somewhere, Wolverine is crying.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:35 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Call me totally nuts, but I love this. Maybe because I spent most of my life arguing music with classical music snobs; this is refreshing.

Seriously, though, I really like the way her speaking meter lines up (or doesn't line up) with the backing track, yet it comes together in the end--like a new way of interpreting hemiola that surely she happens across purely by accident. Similarly, I love how a new line of poetry comes in the middle of what should be a perfectly symmetrical phrase, and off a beat to boot, but it is the right length to still be symmetrical rhythmically, though not poetically.

Man, I absolutely love this for some reason. I hope she really is doing these things on purpose and not on accident.
posted by TinWhistle at 8:47 AM on May 21, 2012


I've been listening to this for a few days. Justin Bieber is good, but I personally love thanks kathryn obvious.
Something about her flow and deprecating sense of humor. Reminds of what I first liked about hip-hop, ie.: the humor and wit and DIYness (as opposed to the posing and self-aggrandizement and bitches bling bling).
posted by signal at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2012


Yeah, I don't know why everyone hates her so much. When I heard both tracks a few days ago I thought they were great fun. If you've got this much hate for a little white girl making hip hop, you may need to find a healthier outlet for your anger.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:51 AM on May 21, 2012


This doesn't sound appreciably better or worse than lots of other records that I also don't care one whit about, but what I really want to know is: How long before Marvel Comics' lawyers slap a cease-and-desist letter on this girl?

While I suppose it's possible to make the argument that comics and pop music are different enough fields that her use of a Marvel character's name as a pseudonym is non-infringing, there's does seem to be at least future potential for confusion regarding use of that name in videos, on TV, etc. Otherwise, we'd have pop stars going around billing themselves as Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, Reed Richards, Clark Kent, and so on, right? Anybody with experience in trademark and IP law care to comment?
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 8:55 AM on May 21, 2012


Her flow reminds me of nothing more than MC Paul Barman.
posted by me3dia at 8:55 AM on May 21, 2012


But videos like this are the definition of the game now.

Right. Which should tell you something: "the game" has significantly changed.

The way computers, and the Internet, change the world is that now the smallest unit of expression is a system, not a song or a story. The people who most craft our culture aren't making music or writing essays, they're making platforms. Systems which people build on top of, which encourage creative behaviors from people who would never be creative on their own, and create entirely new social structures which supersede the ones that've been there for decades or centuries.

The world is now more deeply modular than it ever was before. People are breaking things down and building up new things. Video game mods. Fanfiction. Hiphop. Each system gives you a slightly different way to make things. There're more options available than ever before. And it turns out that creativity is highly entertaining: people like posting status updates and writing tumblelogs and recording themselves singing a hell of a lot. It's not all creative to the point where other people give a shit, but it's all creative in a way that pure consumption isn't.

And the more that people create, the faster our culture starts to fluctuate and vary. It's become clearer and clearer that any notion we have of there being any united culture, any social touchpoint, is just a useful delusion. You can't even call a site like Facebook a center, because the point of Facebook is that it's different for everybody who uses it. And the trend is towards more diversification, not less. The thing that replaces Facebook will be even more modular than Facebook, just as Facebook was a hundred times more customizable than MySpace in the one way that mattered.

nickrussell is right when he says that youth culture is "disenchanted". He's wrong that this means our kids are Not Alright. You can be disenchanted, and realize that parts of our society suck, and that we have little in common with each other, and still be a part of that society, still love those dissimilar people. Friendships are stronger when you embrace differences. It's easier to think about how to fix big problems when you're not deluded into thinking the fixes are going to be easy. "Easier" doesn't mean all our problems are over; but this generation has a better grasp on how many there are and how long they'll take to fix than any other. That's a feature, not a bug.

From the standpoint of pure creative culture, it means that our personal expressions are growing colorful and more diverse. Kids today write more, create more, think more than ever before. Not all the stuff they write/make/think is interesting; superficially, in fact, it's gonna seem a lot shallower, but that's because they're coming to it on their own rather than inheriting most of it, and ultimately they'll figure out better ways of how to say what they want to say for figuring it out personally.

Pop culture and mass media are going to change in big ways. None of us have any idea. When I studied advertising at college, it was made clear to all of us that none of the traditional methods of advertising were going to last much longer. Media is about dialogue, now; and you can't fake dialogue for any length of time. At some point it becomes more convenient to just be sincere and honest than to craft something artificial; maybe things will start to fluctuate quickly enough that nobody has time to craft a goddamn thing.

Then maybe the enchantment'll be broken and we'll just love what and who we love, give up on judging every little thing that slightly bother us, learn to appreciate that the best thing about anything is how different it is from us. We're not there yet, but I think we're closer to that than we've ever been. And yes, it looks and feels totally weird. I dunno if anybody is quite used to that kind of popular culture.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:59 AM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


If a body of viewers, in this case MetaFilter, unfailingly hates a trend or trends participated in mainly by people under age X (steampunk, dubstep and whatever-term-would-cover-Kitty-Pryde) then that body of viewers can pretty reliably be pegged at age 10X.

The average age of MeFites is 170?!
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:00 AM on May 21, 2012


"I hope she really is doing these things on purpose and not on accident."

This is what they wondered about Leadbelly. People are still debating the answer.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:08 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


I don't know how many people truly hate her, but maybe some people who don't get rap do. But I think some of us are just wondering what the fuck, did you just discover rap music yesterday if you're lauding this like it is some mind bending new genre (omg lets make a wikipedia entry on it!) that she has created or that this is anything but some pretty average if not below average rapping over a beat.

Seriously? I like the grilled cheese comment but for me it's that some people are swearing this is some incredible development in the sandwich making world, and it's just a damn grilled cheese sammich. Calm down.

Her rapping on Accordian is once again just standard shit - it's okay, but there is nothing new about it - that's just her voice. She isn't doing anything new or amazing or different. She hasn't created any new styles. She isn't doing anything lyrically. Her storytelling isn't anything exceptional. It's just rapping. And what MF did over that same beat puts her to shame.

So the problem is hyping it up like it is mindbendingly different when it is just some cool shit you might like to listen to, or just some dumb shit where she is playing around. Here, have some Uffie.
posted by cashman at 9:08 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


Any time some one gets out of Florida, an angel gets it's wings.
posted by seansbrain at 9:09 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Her rapping on Accordian is once again just standard shit - it's okay, but there is nothing new about it - that's just her voice. She isn't doing anything new or amazing or different. She hasn't created any new styles. She isn't doing anything lyrically. Her storytelling isn't anything exceptional. It's just rapping. And what MF did over that same beat puts her to shame.

The wonderful thing about music is that it, and our reactions to it, can't be categorized meaningfully by technique. Yeah, the techniques are there. Yeah, you can form the categories. You can even judge them. But past a certain extremely trivial point, our reactions can't be quantified or even always predicted.

I get why you feel upset that our reactions don't fall within your classifications, but please stop acting like the problem with our enjoying something is us.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:14 AM on May 21, 2012


if you use the Beastie Boys to criticize this girl for making dumb music, you weren't around when people were criticizing the Beastie Boys for making stupid, pointless music for a stupid generation.

Not everything is about generations. The Beastie Boys had a lot of great music but Fight For Your Right To Party IS stupid pointless music. It's their "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" which didn't invalidate "Give 'Em Enough Rope" but still stucks nonetheless.
posted by msalt at 9:14 AM on May 21, 2012




Up on ILX there is an interesting/infuriating discussion of kitty pryde. I quite like what I've heard of her, and to me it feels like an interesting branching off of Lil B/based-type stuff, but as is pointed out on the thread there's plenty of other young female rappers kicking about (Sasha Go Hard, Katie Got Bandz, Angel Haze) who are also deserving of attention!
posted by Dim Siawns at 9:19 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


I get why you feel upset that our reactions don't fall within your classifications, but please stop acting like the problem with our enjoying something is us.

You gave me the "U Mad?" treatment, haha. I am not mad. I'm saying - a wikipedia entry because a white girl started rapping...seriously? Like what you like - clearly I love lots of music that most people on metafilter hate, since rap isn't exactly mefi theme music. It isn't about that. I have that Uffie song on my itunes playlists. It isn't about that. Imagine someone changed the color of this screen to orange, called it morangefilter and people went wild. You would say "wtf? it's the same shit, there is just a different color involved!"
posted by cashman at 9:21 AM on May 21, 2012


So the vocals sound like they were recorded through a webcam mic (which is consistent with her tracks that don't have fancy videos with good lighting). The question is: were they, or are they just treated to sound like they were? (It was aliens.)
posted by uncleozzy at 9:23 AM on May 21, 2012


Very interesting contrast between this thread and the Pussy Be Yankin' thread from about a year ago. How many people even remember the PBY song? Wonder if folks will remember this song a year from now?

hip hop has always been... well... more direct

If hip hop is so direct, tell me what was going on in Ghostface's verse on Daytona 500. He actually fired gunshots at Joseph and slap-boxed with Jesus? Damn!

And once you've explained that, I've got a couple dozen more "direct" hip-hop songs I'd love to have explained.

(Then again, my first reaction to the beanplatealicious post from which that quote was taken was notsureifserious.jpg, so maybe I just fell for the hokey doke.)
posted by lord_wolf at 9:24 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


For anyone within this generation, this is the most soothing blanket you could ask for. A statement of just how flat an experience being young has become for so many. It's a beacon, not of hope, but of communal experience. I imagine this song is exploding because it embodies the banal existence a lot of these kids experience.

Who are you to label other people's experiences as flat or banal? You spent 500 words projecting your own outlook onto this girl's tune so you can label it as a sign of the doom of civilization; from where I'm sitting the song looks like a smashing success because it gives voice to a common and healthy female perspective. I found it witty, intimate, and immediately relateable and if I were young and single I would probably have a massive crush on this girl as opposed to admiring her from a generational distance. Most likely she's queen of 4chan right now.

Saying 'the kids are not alright' and sighing that she doesn't compare with the Beastie Boys? Welcome to Old Fartdom.
posted by anigbrowl at 9:30 AM on May 21, 2012


I still listen to Yankin' all the time. I love it, so ridiculous and nasty.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 9:32 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


(Sasha Go Hard yt , Katie Got Bandz yt , Angel Haze yt )

See now to me those first two were week and boring rehashes of dirty south stuff. Angel Haze though, whoa. Yeah. Gonna check that out too.

But I defy you cashman or anyone else to show me someone *with aspirations to be an MC* (not Kesha or some wanna be popstar) who is a teenage middle class girl rapping about stuff that is important to her, rather than about how great an MC she is or how she is going to beat her competitors.

Frankly once an MC starts talking about she's the best MC and money and 22s and whatever garbage I just tune out. It starts with redefining the language, coming up with new terms, specifically based and swag. Lil B's existence challenges the entire genre: Talk about something else, or rather, have a different perspective other than "IM THE BEST". So, OK, this rises to the challenge by saying "OK, how about rhyming about ennui and lovesick shit and the internet". Uffie sounds similar but A. Her flow is very AABBCC etc, and B. She's rhyming about her pussy and guns. This isn't anything like that. This is new.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:41 AM on May 21, 2012


I was surprised by how much her video focuses on her. Just standing there. Biting her lip, or shifting fro foot to foot. It felt very objectifying, in the most literal sense of the word. The same way a webcam snap of a pretty girl is objectifying (of course, yes yes, she is objectifying herself, but there's passivity there that reminds me of that post a few days ago about YA book covers with dead white girls on them). This says something, I think, but it's hazy and undeveloped in my mind. Something about girls accepting and internalizing the male gaze?

That, to me, is why the comparison between her and Peaches rankles so much. Peaches is pure subject, even when she's singing about being ignored.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:47 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


This is really compelling stuff to me because she's already mourning, laughing at and mythologizing her younger self which couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years ago. Young people are growing up in such an ADD cycle of introspection, expression and momentum that obsessions they blogged about a week ago are already old hat. When she's half-singing/half-monologuing in a sad drugged reverie about being 13 and being obsessed with Justin Bieber it's like she's speaking about another era entirely, because that's what it feels like to her. "Okay Cupid" sounds like the music equivalent of things coming out of the alt lit or mumblecore scene. Sad and funny at the same time, painfully self-aware and honest yet ironic. When people are talking about this being the future of music they're not joking around, and they aren't ignorant of hip-hop or anything. You just need to look at it through the lens of what art is going to be like when this tumblr/twitter/bandcamp-obsessed generation really finds itself. I think it's thrilling...
posted by naju at 9:47 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


(Also the lines about flirting with skater boys and driving them to hardcore shows, losing them in the pit and then "fuck 'em let's just go" is kind of surprising and great in the context of a song about a Justin Bieber obsession.)
posted by naju at 9:55 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Color me unimpressed by Uffie. Not seeing how that is so game-changing in comparison to Kitty Pryde. I mean, I enjoy it, but neither are going to explode the rap world.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:00 AM on May 21, 2012


The linked song is OK. But she has better. This is my favorite so far.

And Cashman, comparing her to Uffie's autotuned hip-pop leads me to believe that you are missing the difference.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 10:02 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


This is my favorite so far.

Huh. This is a cover of Why's "Good Friday".
posted by naju at 10:24 AM on May 21, 2012


I think it's telling that my first impulse was to doubt that this is real (Yeastie Girls T-shirt? Really?) meaning authentic.

I wish there was some way to eliminate the possibility that this is yet another propped up viral creation-- yet another head of the songwriting/songwriter industrial complex-- wearing yet another mask. It's just seems so perfectly calculated to be what a 30-something might want a teenage-something hip hop act to be.

Which is a recipe for a Metafilter Explosion! Including the 100+ comments when it's revealed next year that Kitty is in fact, a 45-year-old songwriter based in Memphis and an advanced sampling software package.
posted by mrdaneri at 10:35 AM on May 21, 2012


I was surprised by how much her video focuses on her.

The song is a love confession. What should be focusing on, if not the person making the confession?

Just standing there. Biting her lip, or shifting fro foot to foot. It felt very objectifying, in the most literal sense of the word. The same way a webcam snap of a pretty girl is objectifying (of course, yes yes, she is objectifying herself, but there's passivity there that reminds me of that post a few days ago about YA book covers with dead white girls on them). This says something, I think, but it's hazy and undeveloped in my mind. Something about girls accepting and internalizing the male gaze?

Really? I'm seeing 3 girls in their messy apartment/house, who apparently enjoy chap beer, takeout, goofing off and surfing the net, while KP raps about her crush. It looks and feels like a lazy Sunday morning in a real apartment with real people, to the point that it reminds me of some old roommates-that-I-should-call-up-and-say-hi-to. How on earth are you getting objectification and the male gaze out of this?

That, to me, is why the comparison between her and Peaches rankles so much. Peaches is pure subject, even when she's singing about being ignored .

I watched the linked Peaches video. It consists of a) Peaches repeatedly asking why another person won't talk to her, b) some scantily glad girls in fright wigs (one of whom may well be Peaches) feeling each other up, c) Peaches looking at an oil painting of herself, and d) Peaches being pursued by a wig monster that's going to drag her off to some sort of lesbian orgy. I must be missing something, insofar as this video seems to focus almost exclusively on Peaches. I mean, if you prefer Peaches' music that's fine, but this particular video is kind of softcore punk porn, and it's certainly more overtly sexy than the Kitty Pride one.
posted by anigbrowl at 10:47 AM on May 21, 2012


nickrussell: "I studied hip hop for a few years like Galileo dropped the orange, and this is really a massive development in the genre..."

Honest question: How's this different from Why? Just listen to Good Friday— your entire post could apply to that track as well.
posted by yaymukund at 10:51 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


How on earth are you getting objectification and the male gaze out of this?

You clearly missed the note in the Avengers thread that it is objectification-and-the-male-gaze week here on Metafilter.
posted by nathancaswell at 10:54 AM on May 21, 2012


The possibility that it (or any other new musician/performer anyone has ever heard of) is anything other than that is so small that it does not merit consideration.

I am friends with a few people in bands that people have heard of. I assure you that they are real.
posted by nathancaswell at 10:58 AM on May 21, 2012


YOUR FRIENDS ARE PHONIES!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:06 AM on May 21, 2012


Real in what sense?

Real as in they formed in college or what-have-you with people they knew, record songs that they write themselves, tour and make videos people watch on youtube, play on late night snows, even sign to major labels all without being some Backstreet-Boys style 3rd party creation or sneaky viral front for the songwriting/songwriter industrial complex, or whatever it is that you're saying exactly... what is it that you're saying exactly?
posted by nathancaswell at 11:07 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Potomac Avenue, this is standard hip hop. You rap about what interests you and what you like and what you're thinking about. You have so many qualifiers after the "defy you" that I think you're missing the simplicity that is what this is. Rap. I'm saying this is not some new genre. If you want to argue it is a new song, well sure she's new! But it isn't anything mindblowing that means it is time for a new genre. When Malik was on Snoop's pump pump or Kris Kross was rapping or T-Low was on Funky Lil, there wasn't some new genre of music called Preteen Hop. It was just hip hop being done by kids. This is just hip hop. Ludacris has like 20 styles. Kitty has almost one, and it isn't even well done.

And Cashman, comparing her to Uffie's autotuned hip-pop leads me to believe that you are missing the difference.

Well I also linked Mac Miller. There are all sorts of rappers and different types of sound. It's just part of hip hop. She is doing nothing special. Rap is about talking about yourself and what you do and what you like and think about and who you are. That is all she is doing. None of the songs sound exactly like her, just as you're not going to find someone that sounds exactly like Busta Rhymes, Black Milk, Royce, or Yelawolf. Jay Electronica & Rakim said things in ways nobody has. Doesn't mean it's time for a new genre. It's just rap. And she's okay.

I'm happy for those who have discovered rap. Welcome. It's awesome isn't it!
posted by cashman at 11:07 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Who the hell said it was a new genre?
posted by empath at 11:09 AM on May 21, 2012


"Tumblr Wave!"
Tumblr-Wave is a new genre in rap music, characterised by lyrics resembling micro-blogging.[1] This scene is in its infancy and is mainly associatedd with rapper Kitty Pryde [2]
posted by cashman at 11:12 AM on May 21, 2012


Clearly a viral ad for PBR. (Whch with it's new owners needs all the stupid girls drinking it it can get.)
posted by Catblack at 11:14 AM on May 21, 2012


Metafilter: a team of unphotogenic middle-aged people.
posted by happyroach at 11:17 AM on May 21, 2012


I'm saying that there's no such thing as a musical act that anyone who has ever heard of that doesn't have a team of un-photogenic middle-aged people working their asses off behind the scenes.

Besides Tool, of course.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:20 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


OOOOH snap hi 5.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:20 AM on May 21, 2012


I took that to mean "in addition to the un-photogenic middle-aged members of Tool, there are other un-photogenic middle aged people behind the scenes." Which I thought was pretty funny but I may have misread it.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:25 AM on May 21, 2012


The song is a love confession. What should be focusing on, if not the person making the confession?

Many music videos show some sort of narrative story. This has none, other than a girl wandering listlessly through a house, sitting in front of a computer, standing in a driveway. The focus is on the passive act of longing.

I watched the linked Peaches video. It consists of a) Peaches repeatedly asking why another person won't talk to her, b) some scantily glad girls in fright wigs (one of whom may well be Peaches) feeling each other up, c) Peaches looking at an oil painting of herself, and d) Peaches being pursued by a wig monster that's going to drag her off to some sort of lesbian orgy. I must be missing something, insofar as this video seems to focus almost exclusively on Peaches. I mean, if you prefer Peaches' music that's fine, but this particular video is kind of softcore punk porn, and it's certainly more overtly sexy than the Kitty Pride one.

It's not about preference. Compare their body language in the video and the content of their lyrics. Compare the way that Peaches moves to the way that Kitty Pryde doesn't. It's not about "overtly sexy" but rather female sexuality seen through either a soft focus gaze while reassuring the male object that you have no needs or preferences outside of them ("I don't do the shit, but I don't really mind it") or female sexuality being aggressive, perhaps dangerous, and certainly active while the lyrics are an expression of frustration and lost patience ("stop pretendin that the problem's mine/lift your head and look me dead in the eye/what made you so bitter inside").

One seems to be a story about a woman's anger at being ignored. The other? Well, even Grimes dances. Kitty Pryde just stands there.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:51 AM on May 21, 2012


So who wants to crank up some Iron Butterfly??
posted by jonmc at 11:57 AM on May 21, 2012


I'm saying that there's no such thing as a musical act that anyone who has ever heard of that doesn't have a team of un-photogenic middle-aged people working their asses off behind the scenes.

Maybe that's how you got world famous, but as far as I can tell the whole point of the internet is to disprove what you just wrote.
posted by grog at 12:11 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I can see the appeal, especially for 14 year old 4channers, but nothing special going on here. I was going to make note of her breathless flow and her longing looks into the camera, and talk about how female rappers usually have to adopt a whole persona as opposed to their male counterparts. But I'd rather not have a discussion about how this is super special and why can't I see that, and instead ask what the hell ever happened to Princess Superstar?
posted by Rocket Surgeon at 12:11 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


You clearly missed the note in the Avengers thread that it is objectification-and-the-male-gaze week here on Metafilter.

I guess I should have expected it after the thread about 'problematizing Lego.'

I wish there was some way to eliminate the possibility that this is yet another propped up viral creation-- yet another head of the songwriting/songwriter industrial complex-- wearing yet another mask. It's just seems so perfectly calculated to be what a 30-something might want a teenage-something hip hop act to be.

Given how chilled and well-balanced the production is, I'd say that's very likely. There's so many little clichees and shout-outs in it that it feels very much like a commercial confection. But...so what? The perspective and sentiments that it voices are real enough, and I don't care if there was additional expert help to craft them into a song. I used to work as a recording engineer, and a few times I've nagged a band into making a song out of throwaway things they were doing in the rehearsal room because something they did appealed to my musical sensibility. Insofar as I 'produced' those tracks, they weren't entirely the band's creation, but they seemed to prefer some guidance and targeted appreciation to the 'meh, better luck next time' approach of the other people they'd worked with.

Even if you write a song on your own and then hand it to someone else to sing, which I've only done a couple of times because I'm not much of a songwriter, it's still because you think the singer has the voice/personality to bring it alive in some way. I don't feel like things are necessarily less authentic for not being 100% homegrown. Look at joke videos like Boxxy 'You See', which is just autotune plus a backing track applied to the original random goofy webcam rambling that happened to become a thing on 4chan. Boxxy is a particularly interesting example insofar as she's never exhibited any sort of aspiration towards being a musical performer; to the extent that she's any sort of performer she's a comedian or character actor, but people who were amused/annoyed by her internet persona have made music out of her performances. So musically these remixes are utterly inauthentic, but at the same they're very much a creation of this Caity Wayne person.

I'm saying that there's no such thing as a musical act that anyone who has ever heard of that doesn't have a team of un-photogenic middle-aged people working their asses off behind the scenes.

Hey now I look good from certain angles if you squint hard enough.
posted by anigbrowl at 12:17 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


You clearly missed the note in the Avengers thread that it is objectification-and-the-male-gaze week here on Metafilter.

I guess I should have expected it after the thread about 'problematizing Lego.'


Sorry you guys missed metafilter's major feminist population and how we could overthink the gaze of a plate of beans?

And like it!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:20 PM on May 21, 2012


Interview exchange:
SO IS THERE A SCENE FOR TEENAGE YOUTUBE RAPPERS OR IS THIS A NEW GENRE THAT YOU ARE PIONEERING? I don't know. I didn't mean to do anything with it. Justin Bieber got found on YouTube.

I DON'T KNOW THAT MUCH ABOUT JUSTIN BIEBER. I don't know that much about anything else.
That kinda makes me like her.
posted by benito.strauss at 12:31 PM on May 21, 2012


PhoB's Peaches and Kitty P can both be good and interesting statements about femininity right?

And she's not just standing there, she's rappin'. Well, sometimes she is just standing there. But the non-performance is part of the performance, as much as the "My music is bad" line on her tumblr or the "I'm telling" call-out at the end of this other track. I dunno why I have this need to defend her, ideally it's because I think she's good at rapping, and not some lost youth thing I'm working through.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:37 PM on May 21, 2012


I still see one statement to be all about sublimation of female desires and activity, so we may have to agree to disagree. Reading the lyrics only confirmed that for me. It seems to be all about how what she wants doesn't matter. I dunno. This--"It's my party, couldn't cry if I wanted to/And the more you taunt me the more I think I'm wanting you"--is a freakin' tragic subversion of Lesley Gore.

I don't know how to characterize what she's doing in that driveway other than as "standing there."
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:41 PM on May 21, 2012


PhoBWanKenobi, I think it's possible to characterise this all as reflecting the passivity of being a teenager. A lot of which is, in fact, standing around doing nothing, taking insane numbers of image-obsessed photos of yourself, and crushing on objects of drama-infested love. The fact that she's providing commentary on this experience makes her pretty active in her own experience.

OK now I feel like an asshole.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:53 PM on May 21, 2012


The production is top notch.
posted by cashman at 12:58 PM on May 21, 2012


Potomac Avenue: "“Tumblr-wave”"

This cultural movement already has a movie, it's fitting that it has some music to go along with all the animated gifs.
posted by falameufilho at 1:01 PM on May 21, 2012


Why do you feel like an asshole?

That might be, but her resistance to contextualizing her work in any way makes it difficult to tell. There's a very fine line between reflecting on passivity and merely participating in that passivity, which I think has been kind of . . . murkified for a lot of teenage girls these days. Like with the YA book cover thing, it's all, "But what's wrong with girls in pretty dresses who look dead? What's wrong with pretty dresses? It's antifeminist to say there's something wrong with pretty dresses." But the entirety of the cultural message is that you still need to look like a princess, to be a princess, passively waiting for your prince to get you, which is what this song is about, it seems. How often is that chosen by girls this age knowingly, and with any awareness of the value of choosing otherwise? If girls recognize themselves in the listlessness, what does that say about girls? I think it's a conversation worth having, and worth having beyond "people are just criticizing her because she's a young talented woman." Because she is, clearly, but she's also espousing certain values and if it's commentary on those values, it's not very clearly stated, to say the least.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:07 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


It's not about preference. Compare their body language in the video and the content of their lyrics. Compare the way that Peaches moves to the way that Kitty Pryde doesn't. It's not about "overtly sexy" but rather female sexuality seen through either a soft focus gaze while reassuring the male object that you have no needs or preferences outside of them ("I don't do the shit, but I don't really mind it")

Well, apart from the repeated injunction to call her when he's sobered up and amused disbelief of his bullshit. She sounds confident and patient to me, like someone who's pretty sure she's going to get what she wants.

or female sexuality being aggressive, perhaps dangerous, and certainly active while the lyrics are an expression of frustration and lost patience ("stop pretendin that the problem's mine/lift your head and look me dead in the eye/what made you so bitter inside"). One seems to be a story about a woman's anger at being ignored. The other? Well, even Grimes dances. Kitty Pryde just stands there.

I don't see the point you're making. Peaches has a song about a dysfunctional relationship, Kitty Pride has a song about seducing a guy. It seems like you're annoyed with her for being cute and chilled out as opposed to angry and confrontational. Just because Peaches or punk in general expresses the emotion of being pissed off about something doesn't mean there is something lacking in the music of people who are not pissed off.

Is there any reason she should be cavorting around for my putative entertainment? What I'm seeing here is 3 dorky friends that do their own thing, and I suspect that if I were to talk shit about one of them I would disinvited from their little world real quick.
posted by anigbrowl at 1:12 PM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


I don't see the point you're making. Peaches has a song about a dysfunctional relationship, Kitty Pride has a song about seducing a guy. It seems like you're annoyed with her for being cute and chilled out as opposed to angry and confrontational.

Why should I care if she's cute? I care that she's standing around doing nothing while normalizing/celebrating passivity in her lyrics. And I don't see anything about a seduction in the actual song, and it seems to be a misreading to project that on them. They're both songs about "dysfunctional relationships" where the woman isn't getting what she wants. In one, the woman is mad about it. In the other, she says "I'm open-minded and it's fine" and plans their wedding.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:20 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Wow. You guys ran with this didn't you. And I'm glad you did this is an interesting discussion.

But... Would if this is just a really accurate snapshot of what 15ish year old girls do? I don't feel like she's trying to subvert or uphold any paradigms, just capture her life as an american girl. Which she does, perfectly.

The way the video is shot supports this: it's just a lazy afternoon hanging out with friends, talking about boys and chilling out. She's clearly intelligent and talented, but her focus seems to be on the experience of being a teenaged female. And maybe that's all.
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:21 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Smoosh grew up!
posted by cashman at 1:28 PM on May 21, 2012


Why should I care if she's cute? I care that she's standing around doing nothing

You're essentially saying that "being cute/hanging out" is "doing nothing". I think it's a pretty valid criticism but then again she's not writing an essay about how to live an empowered life, she's an artist documenting her real life in which being cute is a pretty major part of it. None of which would matter if she wasn't so clever and skillful at depicting this way of life with rhymes.

Would you make the same critiques of a cool punk artist drinking heavily in a video? (<--potentially idiotic analogy)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:29 PM on May 21, 2012


In the other, she says "I'm open-minded and it's fine" and plans their wedding.

It's not that I don't understand what you're saying, or that I don't think it's a valid critical assessment. What I'm not getting here is what it is you want. Do you want her to:

a) Pretend 15 year old girls do not lie around planning their weddings to moronic rejecting 15 year old boys?

b) Just not talk about it

c) Pretend she is more pissed off about it when she isn't

d) Shut up until she's older and has more sophisticated and nuanced filters through which to craft her lyrics

e) Something else I am not understanding

I'm pretty much with Potomic Avenue on this one, to be honest. It's a slice of life and that's what her life looked like that afternoon. It's not, you know, a manifesto.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:33 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Well, apart from the repeated injunction to call her when he's sobered up and amused disbelief of his bullshit. She sounds confident and patient to me, like someone who's pretty sure she's going to get what she wants.

At the end, she snorts some drugs despite saying that she "doesn't do that shit" earlier in the song. So . . . does she get what she wants? I don't think it's textually supported to say that she does.

I guess my thing is, even if she's just trying to reflect a passive life, she's now creating the culture even as she's participating in it. Searched for her hashtag on tumblr and there area lot of teenage girls reblogging the wedding line with #ohmygodlove tags, and so on. I dunno. Twilight is harmless till it teaches girls it's romantic to have some guy break in and watch you while you sleep and the net effect of the celebration of these outmoded values is kind of a bad thing, I can't help but thinking, but I've been accused of pearl clutching before so I'm sort of even wary to talk about that. I guess my schtick has always been that I'd love to see the sort of adult introspection and awareness that comes through the experiences of once elevating passivity. But we don't even now how old this girl is (so, she might not have those experiences), she might not be an active participant in creating theses aspect of her video (maybe the director told her to just stand there). I dunno.

On preview: You're essentially saying that "being cute/hanging out" is "doing nothing"

Again, I don't care about her appearance, and I think claiming that one woman is merely criticizing another for "being cute" when it's actually about the composition and action (or lack of it) in the video and based on a close reading of lyrics is both pretty crappysexist and dismissive/silencing. I love cute girls! I watch vlogs of them and listen to their music and like to hear the smart ones talk about their lives! In this video, however, the cute girl stops what she's doing to just stand there for long stretches of time. She also lays on a bed and tries on clothes. These are all pretty typical participatory acts in objectification. I don't think it's radical to point that out.

Would you make the same critiques of a cool punk artist drinking heavily in a video?

I have no idea how drinking is relevant? If P!nk were just to stand there brushing her hair from one side of her face to another in a video, yes, I'd make the same criticism.

What I'm not getting here is what it is you want. Do you want her to:

I think there's value talking about stuff like participation in the male gaze and objectification even if it's not an active call for change.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:40 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Hmmm, I took that whole "planned our wedding already" thing to be a joke. And a funny one, at that. Here are the lines:

Lordy, shorty you're a 10 and I wait for your drunk dials at 3:30 am
I love them
Excuse me, you're a hell of a boy, your cigarette breath, well I thoroughly enjoy it
Lordy, shorty you're a 10 and I wait for your drunk dials at 3:30 am, I love them
So call me sober when you're ready, not goin steady, but babe I planned our wedding already


If that's not a joke, I don't know what it is. Imagine that Kristen Wiig character on SNL going "Just kidding, just kidding, I'm not kidding, just kidding." This girl is not actually planning a wedding. She's saying I'm into you, A LOT, just kidding, whatever, like, I'm so into you I planned our wedding already! haha no I didn't just kidding. But you are hot. And so forth.

At least, that's what I took from it.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:43 PM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Found this pretty good interview with the artist just now.

It doesn't come up, but it seems like Kitty Pryde would find the Tumblr Wave wikipedia entry twice as ridiculous as cashman does.
posted by furiousthought at 1:44 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I guess my thing is, even if she's just trying to reflect a passive life, she's now creating the culture even as she's participating in it. Searched for her hashtag on tumblr and there area lot of teenage girls reblogging the wedding line with #ohmygodlove tags, and so on.

Not everything needs to be a political manifesto.
posted by empath at 1:45 PM on May 21, 2012


Not everything needs to be a political manifesto.

No, but media reflects cultural values and it's both interesting and valuable to talk about it because of that.

Or that's what they taught me in grad school.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:46 PM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


the cultural message is that you still need to look like a princess, to be a princess, passively waiting for your prince to get you, which is what this song is about, it seems. [...]
Why should I care if she's cute? I care that she's standing around doing nothing while normalizing/celebrating passivity in her lyrics.


She's not doing nothing; she has her own life, and has made a particular choice about this guy despite his obvious failings, and seems perfectly confident that he'll fall in with her plans...as long as he's smart enough not to cheat on her ("Now you're tryna dip, without me
But I'm the princess, read my lip, it's pouty").

And I don't see anything about a seduction in the actual song, and it seems to be a misreading to project that on them. They're both songs about "dysfunctional relationships" where the woman isn't getting what she wants. In one, the woman is mad about it. In the other, she says "I'm open-minded and it's fine" and plans their wedding.

Er...from a guy's perspective a girl who says she's 'planning our wedding' is absolutely not taking a passive position. That is a definite assertion of decision power in a relationship (as opposed to possibly-vain hopes that the guy will throw out a proposal...sometime...). The persona she presents here rather reminds me of my wife, who I assure you hasn't attenuated herself to the business of accommodating my wants and needs or taken up a passive position.

Actually, that line about planning the wedding is a big part of why I like the song, because my wife made it quite clear quite early what specific things her ideal wedding would include (not in a bridezilla way, but nevertheless, abundantly clear), and I went to considerable lengths to made sure she got them. I don't want to derail the thread with several paragraphs of explanation, but suffice it to say that I think patience and passivity are quite different things.

Anyway, there are first-hand explanations of various lyrics here, in case anyone was feeling short of beans.
posted by anigbrowl at 2:00 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Well in grad school they taught me to look at every product of the artist as the Object created by the artist cuz I went to formalist school hehehe. So to me, just by posing in a video, she is in fact "DOING SOMETHING". I do not know if that something is also "Participating In Objectifying Herself By Accessing Helplessness and Timidity", that seems probable too, which is why I keep favoriting your posts PhoB.

But to me, presenting an image is never a passive act. She is being KITTY PRYDE, defining her brand...like a fashion model and designer in one. Those activities also are problematic, objectification-wise, I'd guess, but they are still a thing that is being done. She is displaying herself as a visual object, much as say, Johnny Rotten is doing all the bloody time. And she also, sitting there, looks like she doesn't really give 2 shits about this boy, or anything. Which is pretty fucking punk, being disaffected (like, Princesses are also above the reach of the world, noble, doomed) and which to me personally is more interesting artistically than Peaches angry sexuality.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:02 PM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Found this pretty good interview with the artist just now.

It doesn't come up, but it seems like Kitty Pryde would find the Tumblr Wave wikipedia entry twice as ridiculous as cashman does.


Thanks for that. This entire thing is a joke, and she says that repeatedly. That the songs are bad, that they are jokes, that she's just messing around.
"Are you 17? That’s what the Internet is saying today, but I know you said you like to be mysterious about it. Can you confirm that?
I don’t know. I haven’t really decided yet what I want to do about that. When I do decide to tell everybody how old I am, maybe it won’t even be a big deal.

...

Yeah, I imagine it is pretty funny for you. You’re in high school, right?

I am not going to confirm or deny that. [Laughs.]

...

You’re either like 16 or 17. Is it that complicated, really?

It’s more just like, I don’t know. I think depending on how you interpret what I do, it changes depending how old you think I am. Obviously, the people who thought I was 13 were like, “This is horrible. I can’t believe this 13-year-old is using such language and talking about drinking.” I was like, “Oh my God.” So, I think just seeing things. I think it’s hilarious. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll tell everybody. I’m sure you’ll hear about it.

I guess you’ll just tweet it one day and it will be a big deal. Because I’m like, if you’re going to tell some guy tomorrow, just tell me today.

OK. I’m not going to tell anybody tomorrow. I am going to have a really in-depth discussion with my manager before I tell anybody. But honestly, I can’t believe nobody has figured it out yet. Nobody has gone through… It’s really obvious if you, like, look. You can find it. It’s not hard. But people haven’t done it yet. I’m surprised someone I know in real life hasn’t sold me out."
Yep, I bet she's like 23. I guess we'll have to wait for the reddit mob to do the sleuthing she refers to, and expose her actual age.
Honestly, it was just a joke. It was just a big joke and after [producer] Beautiful Lou saw it... I mean, at first, I wanted everybody to be in on the joke. I was like, “Everyone listen to this! Isn’t this hilarious? Isn’t this funny?” My friends were all into real hip-hop culture, so they weren’t really taking it seriously and they’d be like, “Wow, you’re terrible at this, but it’s cute.”
You're terrible at this, but it's cute.
posted by cashman at 2:03 PM on May 21, 2012


I think there is probably more of that going on than people think, but I've met some honest-to-god famous people, and they generally are not the product of a gigantic marketing machine.

Just in the scene that I'm familiar with, once you get past guys like Swedish House Mafia, Deadmau5 and Skrillex, there's a whole bunch of mid-tier DJs that are not the product of a gigantic marketing machine, and that got well known because they produced a lot of great tracks and worked their asses off. I know agents and managers for EDM acts, and I know what they do, and while there is a certain amount of 'branding' going on, most of it is just typography and photography-- those guys really are out there making and playing the music they love, and there's nothing fake about it.

I have seen what the media marketing machine did to at least one band, though -- Good Charlotte. The guys that left my home town looked nothing like the band that came back a year later from LA. Everything about their first album was phony -- the stuff they were playing before they made their album was nothing like what they eventually released.
posted by empath at 2:03 PM on May 21, 2012


Also, I keep wondering what Carles would say about her. Could she be the anti-Lana???(!)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:14 PM on May 21, 2012


Yep, I bet she's like 23.

Well, from a cursory whip through of her Tumblr, I'm pretty sure she's between 18 and 21. Eighteen because she discusses with her dad signing a contract with her manager, which I assume he would have had to sign on her behalf were she under 18. Additionally, she clarifies for a fan that in one video, she is not drinking but the friends shown who are are over 21.

I like her just fine but I actually care about this much less than my posts would indicate and I am totally ready for the next shiny thing, please.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:19 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Anyway, there are first-hand explanations of various lyrics here, in case anyone was feeling short of beans.

The wages of modern Internet fame: you have to explain the lyrics to your disaffected-teenage-girl-persona hip hop in the third person.
posted by Copronymus at 2:21 PM on May 21, 2012


I hope I am never so old that I can't enjoy a nice pop song like this.
posted by feckless at 2:29 PM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


The wages of modern Internet fame: you have to explain the lyrics to your disaffected-teenage-girl-persona hip hop in the third person.

tigrefacile has always stepped nimbly over this trap and the lyrics to his disaffected-teenage-girl-persona hip hop remain shrouded in mystery. He is, admittedly, at the lower end of the modern Internet fame payscale.
posted by tigrefacile at 2:31 PM on May 21, 2012


At the end, she snorts some drugs despite saying that she "doesn't do that shit" earlier in the song. So . . . does she get what she wants? I don't think it's textually supported to say that she does.

Maybe she wasn't being 100% honest with him, or maybe she likes to take her own trips rather than go along with him on his.

In this video, however, the cute girl stops what she's doing to just stand there for long stretches of time. She also lays on a bed and tries on clothes. These are all pretty typical participatory acts in objectification. I don't think it's radical to point that out.

Wut? Is there something wrong with lying around on a bed, because I spent part of last weekend doing that. While I don't actually see any trying on of clothes in this video (in which the singer seems to wear the same outfit the whole time), so what? Not only do women spend some of their time trying on clothes, so do men. I'm not much into fashion, but guys also have conversations about 'check out this shirt I bought' or 'help me out at the suit sale.' Surfing the internet, half-watching movies and generally lounging around with friends is a way some people like to spend some of their leisure time. There must be 1000 afternoons of my life that more or less resemble that music video, which is probably why find it and the characters it depicts to be likable.
posted by anigbrowl at 2:36 PM on May 21, 2012


Aw, c'mon - if you don't know the difference between a fella lying around on a bed in his boxers and a pert young girl lying around on a bed while a camera that just happens to be there whirrs away, then I don't know what to tell you. At the very least, you'll wonder why the likes of AbbyWinters is NSFW. Why, those girls are doing what you do every weekend!
posted by mippy at 2:44 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


(Not that I'm comparing this with faux-amateur porn, btw. But this stuff isn't in the video by accident.)
posted by mippy at 2:45 PM on May 21, 2012


She needs to get a job
posted by jonmc at 2:47 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


She has a job, she works at Claires. Don't b such a h8r jon.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:48 PM on May 21, 2012 [5 favorites]


Maybe her next video could be about a paper round?

A sexy paper round.
posted by mippy at 2:48 PM on May 21, 2012


Or did you mean a real job, cuz working in retail doesn't count?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:49 PM on May 21, 2012


Hmmm, I took that whole "planned our wedding already" thing to be a joke. And a funny one, at that.

Brotip: Just because she's being funny does not mean she's joking.
posted by anigbrowl at 2:53 PM on May 21, 2012


She sells her paintings online too.
posted by cashman at 2:54 PM on May 21, 2012


Well, whatever her age, she's already better than Kreayshawn anyway.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:16 PM on May 21, 2012


Oh c'mon Mippy, it's not like she's in her underwear. The only sexposure in that video is the shot the Justin Bieber displaying his abs on a poster. This is why I can't understand the complaints about 'male gaze' in the context of this video; most of the time we only see her head and shoulders as she wears a loose-fitting t-shirt. In about 10% of the shots she walks about her backyard wearing a short skirt. One of her friends wears a tank top. The camera doesn't particularly dwell on anyone's body and the only extreme closeup shows that her boots have a cupcake made from sequins. It's not sexless but it's nowhere even close to amateur porn. You might as well say that the scenes of beer consumption are meant to normatize alcoholism.
posted by anigbrowl at 3:25 PM on May 21, 2012


Then I would say you might have a misunderstanding of the male gaze, at least in this context. At least listen to the way she's rapping. If that doesn't help you with contextual understanding of what some people find problematic then maybe this video was made for you after all. Appeal counts for something.
posted by Rocket Surgeon at 3:37 PM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Where I grew up we're all drinking at 13 anyway.
posted by mippy at 3:37 PM on May 21, 2012


Anyway (can you tell I'm avoiding going to bed) all this talk of the male gaze is reminding me of the first time I heard that term - in an A-level media studies lesson when the teacher showed us Ripley getting ready for bed in Alien. I saw it for the first time yesterday (yeah, I know) and I was waiting for that scene to show up as much as the more famous ones.

The cat was to show her softer, feminine side, dontcha know. *writes extended essay*
posted by mippy at 3:43 PM on May 21, 2012


I'm not sure that, if given a time machine, I would visit the future. Not after viewing this.
posted by not_on_display at 3:46 PM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Actually, that line about planning the wedding is a big part of why I like the song, because my wife made it quite clear quite early what specific things her ideal wedding would include (not in a bridezilla way, but nevertheless, abundantly clear), and I went to considerable lengths to made sure she got them.

Not all women are your wife. Teenage girls joke about weddings all the time - heck, I joke about them to my SO, as neither of us are that bothered about getting married (we're old-fashioned and we want to live together first). Young girls on Facebook add their friends as husbands/wives all the time - it's fun. Some girls doodle dresses and think about what music they want, and some girls don't. (A woman I know planned and booked her wedding in a day, after being engaged for three years and not getting round to it.) I seriously don't know any girls amongst my friends who have a concrete Perfect Wedding Plan, and some of my friends have been with their partners long enough to get a mortgage and cat. IT IS A FUNNY.
posted by mippy at 3:48 PM on May 21, 2012


Cloud Rap (or Based, if the name cloud rap is dead) + soft teen girl vocals going about normal teen stuff = novel, but not groundbreaking. I think this is just a minor offshoot of the Based thing, which was already going against mainstream hip-hop/rap thanks to Lil' B.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:04 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I'm all about feminist cultural analysis (hey, I got my gender studies degree in the 90s, when that's about all we did), but I really, really do not like this trend I've been seeing lately, of criticizing female artist's work because it doesn't present an image that is sufficiently undermining of the patriarchy.

I see this everywhere towards young women, from Lena Dunham to Ke$ha. They're criticized for presenting characters that aren't ambitious, or angry, or badass enough. But how boring would it be if the only female characters we saw were perfectly actualized feminist badasses? Or perfectly self-aware feminist commentary delivery systems? Can't young women be silly, or lazy, or weak, or passive without being antifeminist?

Also, it's really only young women that are the targets of this. As always, young women are expected to lift the cultural burden of feminism. Men are largely exempted from this, but why?
posted by lunasol at 4:05 PM on May 21, 2012 [7 favorites]


Then I would say you might have a misunderstanding of the male gaze, at least in this context.

That's not very persuasive, unless your definition of 'male gaze' extends to 'females visible to a camera.' I happen to think the grouping of female friends and their ownership of the space they are in are kind of important here, as well as explaining why I don't think the song itself expresses passivity or dependence.
posted by anigbrowl at 4:24 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


young women are expected to lift the cultural burden of feminism

They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve

Not sure that they are 'expected' to lift cultural burdens, or that they're the ones that have been anointed to lift the cultural burdens: "young women are simply given more leeway by society to speak flamboyantly."

By the way, mad props to the girl with body hair and the Boba Fett. Break all those norms down with subtle symbolism. Perhaps the within group analysis is alright, however I do remain of the opinion that, in time, the between group effects will place an undesirable pressure on one of the samples, yo.
posted by nickrussell at 4:25 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


She has a job, she works at Claires. Don't b such a h8r jon.

As a retail worker, I'll concede that working at Claire's must be a suckass gig. I can only imagine how we3ird her customer bullshit must get.
posted by jonmc at 4:41 PM on May 21, 2012


I can see the appeal, especially for 14 year old 4channers, but nothing special going on here. I was going to make note of her breathless flow and her longing looks into the camera, and talk about how female rappers usually have to adopt a whole persona as opposed to their male counterparts. But I'd rather not have a discussion about how this is super special and why can't I see that, and instead ask what the hell ever happened to Princess Superstar?

She's actually working on finalizing her sixth LP, called THE NEW EVOLUTION. A link from the LP's project page can be found here.

And yeah, Princess got there first, a little more than 15 years ago actually. Now let's play some "Bad Babysitter"!!!

Now let's see if Kitty can grow and step up her game away from being the flavor-du-jour... time shall tell.
posted by theartandsound at 4:57 PM on May 21, 2012


Not all women are your wife.

Did I assert that they were?

I seriously don't know any girls amongst my friends who have a concrete Perfect Wedding Plan, and some of my friends have been with their partners long enough to get a mortgage and cat. IT IS A FUNNY.

That's a perfectly valid way of interpreting it, and so's mine. FYI we lived together for 5 years before we got married and did all our actual wedding planning a few weeks beforehand, such that our friends were freaking out about how little time/effort we were apparently putting in on it. But that was in large part because we had agreed on all the basics a long time before that. There was a particular place that she had always wanted to get married, particular things she did and didn't want, and other things that had to be there for family/cultural reasons, while there were a whole bunch of other traditions that we threw out. It was because all these different things were well enough understood to for us joke about that they were important enough to take seriously when we decided to go ahead and actually get married.

Is there something wrong with the idea that a woman might know what sort of wedding (and by proxy, life relationship) that she wants to have, and might play around with the question of whether a given man fits in with her desires, or not? There seems to be an awful lot of hostility to the idea that the woman might actually be the decision-maker in the context of this song, despite her expressly saying that she has selected this guy and has no illusions about him.
posted by anigbrowl at 5:08 PM on May 21, 2012


Also, it's really only young women that are the targets of this. As always, young women are expected to lift the cultural burden of feminism. Men are largely exempted from this, but why?

They're not. I was saying to TWF via MeMail that I'd first heard of Kitty Pryde thru John Green, and that framing likely has something to do with my knee-jerk reaction, because he writes women often through a very male gazey lens.

Personally, I don't think the artistic output of women is exempt from feminist critique solely because it's created by women. But I agree that they likely do face more scrutiny in terms of whether or not their work upholds the patriarchy. This is, in part, because the work of male artists is expected to uphold the patriarchy, whereas women are the ones who more self-consciously opt-out. Feminism is, as always, about women's choices, and participating in it at all is one of those choices. Because very often, women are the upholders of sexist or outmoded values--female cosmo copywriters encouraging and enforcing insecurity about body hair, or whatever.

I don't expect perfect female characters. Hell, I don't write perfect female characters. I do like characters who interact self-consciously with the dialogue of feminism, though (which is one thing I think Lena Dunham has successfully done as Girls has trucked on). I'm just not sure this does, but hey, if you're okay with art that simply reflects culture without critiquing it or commenting on it, that's you're prerogative.

FWIW, when it comes to the wedding argument, I thought it was tongue-in-cheek, but not necessarily a "joke." The whole song presents the idea that she really digs this guy regardless of whether or not he reciprocates. I saw it as her saying "Yeah, I'm really serious about you." Which, ick, given the rest of the lyrics, but oh well.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:32 PM on May 21, 2012


I don't believe any of this. That isn't beer in those PBR cans.
posted by narcoleptic at 5:32 PM on May 21, 2012


Of course not, it's PBR.
posted by jonmc at 5:37 PM on May 21, 2012 [4 favorites]


A quickly faded-through shot of her writing on her'binder' (I'm guessing that this lady is like 23 at least, but whatever) reveals the crush in question to be maybe this Danny Brown, who I only just got introduced to via this rather excellent thing, the latest in a long line of things to swoop in to confuse & delight me just when I think it's safe to ignore what's going on in hip-hop. Stupid me.
Nice track, though. Not 200 comments nice, but quite decent if I'm to pile MHO on at this stage.
posted by $0up at 6:12 PM on May 21, 2012


This video just looks like a young person having some creative fun, presumably with some friends. I think it's great. I would have been excited to make something like this when I was younger (or now!). It looks like someone just trying on some identities and making some fun rhymes and producing something. It looks like a blast and I hope she keeps it up.
posted by soundproof at 6:29 PM on May 21, 2012


just when I think it's safe to ignore what's going on in hip-hop

Oh dear. Well I would say it is never safe to do that. Never.
posted by cashman at 6:43 PM on May 21, 2012 [5 favorites]


Yeah and this.
posted by chrchr at 6:49 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Or this.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:55 PM on May 21, 2012


I liked nickrussel's analysis, but I wasn't quite sure if it was serious or not, and it kind of reminded me of my Uncle Fucka Exegesis from many years ago, which I offer here for your amusement.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:15 PM on May 21, 2012


Personally, I don't think the artistic output of women is exempt from feminist critique solely because it's created by women. But I agree that they likely do face more scrutiny in terms of whether or not their work upholds the patriarchy. This is, in part, because the work of male artists is expected to uphold the patriarchy, whereas women are the ones who more self-consciously opt-out. Feminism is, as always, about women's choices, and participating in it at all is one of those choices. Because very often, women are the upholders of sexist or outmoded values--female cosmo copywriters encouraging and enforcing insecurity about body hair, or whatever.

Oh, for sure. To be clear, I wasn't saying that women should be exempt from feminist critique - just that I'm irritated that they seem to be held to a much higher standard than men.

if you're okay with art that simply reflects culture without critiquing it or commenting on it, that's you're prerogative.

I agree that this video isn't really saying anything explicitly about sexism or feminism, and I am ok with that. But I don't think it simply "reflects" culture, which casts the artist into a weirdly passive frame - it also creates culture.
posted by lunasol at 10:58 AM on May 22, 2012


Ew.

I had to listen to THIS to detoxify my ears.
posted by crazylegs at 11:57 AM on May 22, 2012


haha im sorry ep. Pretty much more of the same. I keep hearing Smoosh every time she starts rapping.
posted by cashman at 4:05 AM on June 13, 2012


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