#millennial taylor

[camcamino]

millennials are not millennianing the same way taylor swift used to millenial in videos

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Randomly thinking about “tolerate it” (narrator voice: it was not random) and how under the cloak of fiction it is ostensibly inspired by works like “Rebecca” (which Taylor said she read during the 2020 lockdowns I believe?), with the line of “you’re so much older and wiser” indicating that the speaker is significantly younger and inexperienced compared to the person she’s speaking to and a pretty direct reference to the plot of the book.

But I saw something somewhere once that stuck with me about how it might not be referring to relative age between the characters but chronological age as in the passage of time in a relationship. And that made me think about how in a contemporary context, it might not necessarily be referencing an actual age gap between the two characters, but rather a sarcastic or cynical response to the man’s claims that he has matured (“you’re so much older and wiser [than you were before/than you were when we met/etc.]”), which then made me think about that line in relation to the woman. And that it could be taken like, “you act like you’ve matured so much in our time together and like you know everything, while I’m supposedly still stuck as the girl I was when we first met.”

Which then made me think of the “right where you left me” of it all and did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen time went on for everyone else she won’t know it and the bit in Miss Americana where she talks about how celebrities get frozen at the age at which they got famous, and how she’s had to play catch up in a lot of ways not just in her emotional growth but kind of in general. (Which also made me wonder if she’s ever been called out for immaturity/lack of curiosity/lack of education about things in her life…)

Which then made me think about the rest of the song, and @taylortruther’s posts yesterday about “seven” and “Daylight” and the way Taylor idealizes her youth yet contrasts it with an almost sinister reality in its wake, and the line, “I sit by the door like I’m just a kid,” because the discussion raised that her relationship let her recapture some of the childlike joy and wonder she’d lost. So this line is a double-edged sword: the speaker sits by the door with childlike hope that the person will come home and cherish her, but on the darker side, feels like the child dealing with the monsters she doesn’t have names for yet and the feelings of isolation she felt as she aged.

I’m not saying the song is necessarily autobiographical; like most of the songs on folkmore, it’s clearly a fictionalized story based on media she’d consumed and created, but we know a lot of the fictional songs were infused with her own feelings and experiences and… This idea swirling in my head picked up steam and now I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. Sorry but I’m a little obsessed now.

Like maybe it might start to shed light on why she identified so strongly with the novel in the first place…

[idsb]

xoxo, Gossip Girl

[historicity-was-already-taken]

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG POSTED A PIC OF HIMSELF AT THE ERAS CONCERT IN LYON AND I AM DEAD. HE IS WEARING FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS. THIS IS CRINGE MILLENNIAL POP CULTURE HISTORY.

The only way I could be MORE dead is if I had Eras tickets and then dropped another $2K to see Epica with full orchestra in Mexico City. At least I get to see Green Day in August.

[callmefirefly]

The song’s getting released on September 29th!

[kezcore]

i hate to break it to you, millennials, but gen z does, in fact, know what dvds and cds are. we grew up with them. we grew up with a lot of stuff y'all obsess over, actually. not my fault all the tech companies collectively decided to get rid of dvd players

[bigassbowlingballhead]

I know we all go crazy over Taylor's looks bec *gestures around* but him being such a dog dad makes me love him more.

You’re so right anon. He’s such a dog dad.

I just know this man yells puppy anytime I encounters a dog in the wild

I’m begging him for a cash update now that he’s finally not in Europe anymore.

[glorious-destruction]

when taylor swift said “he was sunshine, I was midnight rain” she was talking about razumikhin and raskolnikov

[battleangel]

4 Minutes Is An Eternity

I am 42 years old.

I was in college 20 years ago in 2003.

In just 20 years, I have noticed a profound shift in society.

I was born in October 1981 so I am considered an older Millennial.

I have noticed a signficant macro difference between Gen X & older Millennials vs younger Gen Z and Generation Alpha (the generation after Gen Z).

What is the one change across society in the past two decades that could account for this change?

The total ubiquitousness of social media.

Whats the change?

The shortening of attention spans and the shortening of the mind.

Songs used to be, on average, approximately four minutes long.

Go back and look at the Billboard 100 in 2003 and look at it today.

Something should immediately jump out at you.

Songs today are much shorter than 20 years ago.

Songs today are typically just under 3 minutes long.

How did we lose a full minute in only 20 years?

Billboard also recently announced they established a TikTok chart to track the success of songs on TikTok, which is the new radio.

You may not know who Flyana Boss is but if I say, "Hello Christ?" if you were on social media at all the past few months, your mind probably automatically filled in the next bar, "I'm bout to sin again".

"You Wish" by Flyana Boss was literally all over TikToks for you page and later Instagram Reels to the tune of over a billion combined views.

They cleverly had their director film them while they ran towards him in public places as the director ran backwards in front of them with a camera on top of his head.

It is an arresting visual and the views racked up as Flyana Boss started to get requests from local businesses in LA begging them to run through their restaurants and stores for the publicity on TikTok.

Flyana Boss are Black female rappers, eclectic and a total callback to 90s rappers like Missy Elliot.

The kawaii aesthetic, elf ears and relatable clever lyrics about life and sex resonated with people.

They provide an alternative to the Ice Spices shaking their ass in a deli.

They also represent the Sexyy Red "Skee Yee" phenomenon.

Sexyy Red was the first artist to top the newly established TikTok Billboard 100 chart (she debuted at number 1).

Whats the Skee Yee phenomenon?

Its never about the actual song anymore.

You've probably heard "Skee Yee" by now.

Or maybe you saw Sexyy Red in the MetLife VIP area meeting the Jets owner with a stack of 100s held up to her ear.

The truth is, despite literally billions of views on TikTok and Instagram, almost noone has heard the full songs for "You Wish" by Flyana Boss and "Skee Yee" by Sexyy Red.

Because of TikTok, all you need today as a music artist is a catchy 5 to 7 second jingle, verse, hook, chorus or bar and if you can film viral content to it that people either imitate or watch, you can launch yourself into music superstardom.

Flyana Boss has already toured with Janelle Monae.

They were virtual unknowns prior to Summer 2023 with a few hundred views on their respective Soundcloud profiles.

Sexyy Red released her first mixtape, "Ah Thousand Jugs", in 2018.

The Hood Hottest Princess had been grinding away for the past five years on mixtape releases and trying to go viral on Triller.

"Dogg Pound Town" blew Sexyy Red up earlier this year.

Its the song about her toes and ass being ate while she eats Popeye chicken.

She has fire engine red hair and facial tattoos.

If you have a TikTok or Instagram, there is literally no way you havent scrolled past Sexyy Red at this point.

This is the new way to make it in the music industry.

We see Lay Banks, a 19 year old female rapper, utilize this formula to great success with "Ick".

Lay hired the same director that Flyana Boss used for "You Wish".

Instead of running in public places, Lay was filmed rapping "Ick" at a gas station.

"Ick" is about a guy with a foot fetish and bad credit who kills Lay's lady boner and gives her the "Ick".

The hook at the beginning of the viral clip is "Lady boner gone".

Lay is an extremely high energy rapper with hard hitting beats, a sick flow and clever and humorous lyrics complaining about men being in their soft girl era with their credit cards declining.

Its the updated 2023 Missy Elliot "I dont want no one minute man".

Lay is also strikingly beautiful, young and knew that "lady boner gone" waa a viral TikTok catchphrase that would catch on and go viral.

She also cleverly asked female viewers to film themselves rapping the lyrics to "Ick" if any guys had ever given them the "Ick" and then she reshared hundreds of these Youtube Shorts, TikToks and Reels to her personal social media profiles.

Lay has already charted on the TikTok Billboard 100 chart and she has millions of combined views.

This is clearly the new path to musical success as Billboard has recognized by establishing the TikTok Billboard 100 chart.

What have we lost in the process?

To be very clear, I love all three songs and all four rappers (Flyana Boss is a rap duo), especially Lay Banks "Ick".

That doesnt mean that this is a good change for society as a whole.

We, to speak on a macro universal level, dont listen to full songs anymore.

Everything became a sound bite, a viral clip on the for you page before you scroll on to the next video.

TikTok replaced radio.

New music is now discovered on TikTok.

But only in 5 to 7 second snippets curated to blow up on the for you page.

What happens to the Radioheads, Slipknots and Deftones in this brave new world?

What happens to us on a macro level when our attention spans have been so shortened by social media we cant even be assed to sit through a four minute song?

Social media, including messaging apps, is constant and ubiquitous.

It is a pervasive and constant distractiveness and mindlessness.

Its constant scrolling, constant notifications for discord servers & Whatsapp group chats, likes on Instagram & TikTok, trending hashtags on Twitter, new uploads on Youtube.

Constant validation, constant distraction.

Doom scrolling, scrolling for likes, scrolling for vanity, scrolling for boredom, scrolling for depression, scrolling for jealousy and envy, scrolling to endlessly compare.

When TikTok surpassed Google as the number 1 website in the world last year per number of visits, Google removed the pages in their results and made their results pages endless just like TikTok's for you page.

Googles results page was the new limitless rabbit hole of Youtube Suggested Videos -- it never ends.

No more iconic "Gooooooogle" at the bottom of the search results with a different colored "o" above each individual page number.

Nothing ever ends anymore.

Coupled with nearly limitless options to binge watch on streaming services where all episodes are released instantaneously and noone ever has to wait for anything, there are no weekly episodes anymore, no mid-season hiatuses, there are no repeats, season finales that are breathlessly anticipated...

Everything is immediately and constantly at your fingertips.

Its a total closing and shortening of the mind.

It is the evisceration of our collective attention spans.

Multiple screens at all times -- flat screen TV, smartphone, tablet, laptop, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Live, Playstation Network.

Multiple inputs -- music on Spotify, podcasts on Youtube, streams on Twitch, sports games, competition shows and reality TV on regular cable, streaming shows on Netflix/Disney+/Hulu, multiplayer online games on Xbox, Playstation & Nintendo, group messaging chats on discord, Whatsapp, iPhone, Facebook Messenger & Instagram.

Everything is always on, especially you.

Theres always a buzz, theres always a noti, theres always an active discord server, theres always something to check, theres always something happening, theres always something to distract your mind.

Do not disturb is only for when you're asleep.

We were not designed for these constant notifications and interruptions.

They are short circuiting us as a species by design.

Everything became bingeable, nothing ever has to be waited for.

Once the show is released to Disney+ & Netflix, I can binge to my hearts content.

It is a relic of the old days to have to wait a week for new episodes of a favorite show and to have to wait months for a highly anticipated season finale.

Everything is bingeable, including you.

Everything is easily consumed and passed through like the ephemera it is, including you.

There is no permanence, there is no gravitas.

Everything is trending, everything is the now.

Everything is forgotten in 24 hours.

What genocide in Palestine?

There are people trapped on the Gaza Strip?

Emergency medical supplies, food, fuel , water and electricity are being cut off to the Gaza Strip?

Did Travis and Taylor already break up?

Its the shortening of collective memory, the evisceration of our attention spans and the shortening of the mind.

Everyone has already forgotten that Sexyy Red supported Trump on a podcast and posted a sex video of herself on her Instagram stories (right after the Trump story broke so no I dont believe Sexyy was hacked) -- both of these things happened last month.

Does anyone remember Biden brazenly, unapologetically and inhumanely telling reporters on video, Aviators firmly in place, that he guarantees "there will be no ceasefire" between Israel & Palestine despite 13k+ Palestinian civilians being murdered by the Israeli Defense Force over the past two months in one of the worst instances of ethnic cleansing this century?

That literally happened this month and its already been collectively forgotten.

Theres always a new Skims ad for undergarments that give you the perfect nipples.

Taylor Swift was being discussed on NFL broadcasts more than Patrick Mahomes while dating Travis Kelce -- now she has been disappeared from all NFL broadcasts as if she had never been endlessly discussed to begin with.

We are no longer being shown Taylor sitting by Kelces mom and Mahomes' wife and daughter.

But there has been no corresponding commentary at least making a joke about a breakup and a possible Taylor Swift song about same.

The NFL literally had Taylor Swift as their header on Twitter and now she is gone and they are acting like the above never happened.

I get it, the NFL wants female Gen Z to tune into their games but they literally had a slow mo of Taylor walking into Arrowhead Stadium.

Thats not drumming up female viewership, that is patently insane.

They were slow mo'ing Taylor high fiveing Kelces mom when Kelce scored a touchdown.

That is just downright bizarre and is not about increasing the young female demographic that watches NFL games.

It was creepy in how over the top it was.

Taylor was now the big topic of discussion during pre-game analysis of the Chiefs instead of Mahomes, Kelce, MVS, Pacheco, Chris Jones, Andy Reid.

It was an all out blitz for a month that went so far as Kelce being described as "Taylors boyfriend" instead of as a 3-time Super Bowl champion and star tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Kelce was always the new Gronk, the current poster child party boy of the NFL.

But the slew of commercials, brand sponsorships and SNL hosting gig didnt come until Taylor.

Predictably, young female NFL viewership went up over 300%, Kelce gained hundreds of thousands of Swiftie social media followers then Kelce stopped attending Eras tour shows, Taylor stopped attending NFL games, the NFL dropped it like it never happened and switched their header to Vikings QB Dobbs.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Movies are going to head in the same direction.

2 hours will no longer be the default film duration.

These conversations are already happening within the film industry as studios are pushing a "crowdsourced film by committee", a Choose Your Own Adventure clusterfuck where multiple endings are filmed for each movie and each individual movie theater audience decides the ending in real time as they watch.

Everything is instantaneous, everything capricious, everything fickle, any demand can be met.

What happens to a directors vision if the audience can just decide everything?

And bet that studio analysts and executives will be closely monitoring what audiences vote for and will change future films to align with those votes.

What happens to A Clockwork Orange?

What happens to the Stanley Kubricks, George Romeros & Quentin Tarantinos?

What happens to taking risks?

Will there never be another cult classic?

Will there never be another Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Would these future audiences have changed the iconic twists in classics like Empire Strikes Back and Sixth Sense?

Will all the sharp edges go away and will we be left with a frictionless existence?

Wheres the space for a nearly six minute operatic genre defying theatrical dramatic essence of drag singular revelation like Bohemian Rhapsody?

Will everything be safe, sanitized and sterilized?

What happens to horror movies that take risks and confront their audiences and skillfully mix gore, humor, satire, societal critique, snark, comedy, slapstick, survivalism, political commentary, dystopia, sci-fi and parody?

Will every rough edge be sanded away?

Do we want an existence like that where our art mediums no longer challenge, repel, confront, repulse, enlighten, elucidate and force us to take a look at ourselves?

Do we no longer want art that takes the piss out of us as an audience?

Do we just want all of the art and media that we consume to be like the Netflix algorithm, endlessly adjusting to our every whim and preference, tirelessly trying to please us in every way, never offending?

Do we never want to be shocked or angered by our art again?

Isnt that what art was supposed to be?

Do we always want to be perfectly happy and satisfied with everything we see?

What will happen to movies that are so bad they're good?

What will happen to guilty pleasures?

Will everything be bland and vanilla, too dull to offend or tittilate, instantly consumed and forgotten with all of the other endless media we are constantly bingeing?

Our existences have been Doordash'd & InstaCart'd.

Everything can be done for us, delivered to us, driven to us, picked up by us, ordered for us, shopped for us, cooked for us, prepared for us, written for us, applied to for us.

Theres an app for almost everything.

The age of inconvenience and frustration is over.

Everything is frictionless -- even our art and entertainment.

What happens to quirky oddities?

Random ideas and concepts?

Harebrained notions and acid dreams?

Paranoid androids and visions?

Night terrors and daydreams?

All of the above have led to crazy innovative mindfucky scripts, films, songs, album concepts, music videos and movie shorts.

Where is the space for body horror films and Takashi Miike?

When do songs become 2 minutes vs the current 3 minute average?

When do songs become 1 minute?

When do songs cease to exist and people just start to record the chorus or the catchy part for TikTok virality since thats all anyones listening to anymore anyway?

When do 2 hour movies become 1 hour?

When do 1 hour movies become 30 minute shorts?

When do movies in general just become instantaneously streamable shorts that are a few minutes long available simultaneously on every platform?

When will the concept of a full length movie that anyone would have the actual patience and attention span to sit through become anachronistic?

When do single player video games go away because noone has the patience to sit through a solo adventure and play through the game for the plot, storyline, twists and turns and all anyone wants to do is get online and just play against each other?

When do we lose our humanity?

[runwayblues]

not my boss (jokingly) accusing me of faking covid because of ttpd 😭😭😭

[evermoredeluxe]

i think “idgaf taylor” is in my top 3 taylors

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

.

[ilikepipecleanerswitheyes]

at least larries were just 13 year old deluded teenagers on tumblr who later outgrew that phase, some groups of g*ylors who believe everything she does is a stunt are millennial white woman who should be working a job, but instead spend their days away bullying their favorite artist for not coming out

[cayslongliving]

HELP

@taylorswift , WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT THE LOWERCASE CAPTIONS GIRLY POP

[itspileofgoodthings]

don’t be a Taylor hater just because she has the precision songwriting engineering skills of a Swedish record producer.

[sincenewyorks]

genuinely wondering what his myspace looked like