“It’s brutal out here.” Olivia Rodrigo wasn’t lying. The way people highlight their Instagram reels, muddy up their LinkedIns and dance like nobody’s watching on TikTok, one would think that everybody was living out their dreams, certain of their future, with it all together.
At least somebody’s keeping it real and making us laugh at the same time. Rodrigo’s latest music video for “Brutal” gives the feeling of sunshine and rainbows in a chaotic, slow-burning hell. In the Petra Collins directed video, the singer wears her emotions on her bare shoulders as she sings about her innermost insecurities further indoctrinated by social media, peer pressure, conventional news, and school. She sings,
“I’m so insecure, I think
That I’ll die before I drink
And I’m so caught up in the news
Of who likes me and who hates you
And I’m so tired that I might
Quit my job, start a new life
And they’d all be so disappointed
‘Cause who am I, if not exploited?”
“Who am I, if not exploited?” Whew, that’s deep right there. Let’s give humans the benefit of the doubt that there are still some people left who aren’t chasing fame and don’t equate success with being famous. To be honest, even doctors, lawyers, pet groomers, and nannies have their own curated world where they are overly exploited.
We can blame the thirsty obsession to be acknowledged, liked, and accepted on social media platforms intentionally creating addictive constructs to entice its users. A red heart and a thumbs up have a lot of power. It can make you feel on top of the world or smothered underneath the crusty, fungi-filled craters of the world’s underbelly.
Teens and adults can both agree that it’s a burden to carry all of these illusions of importance and needing to care so much about what others think.
“If someone tells me one more time
“Enjoy your youth, ” I’m gonna cry
And I don’t stick up for myself
I’m anxious and nothing can help
And I wish I’d done this before
And I wish people liked me moreAll I did was try my best
This the kind of thanks I get?
Unrelentlessly upset (ah, ah, ah)
They say these are the golden years
But I wish I could disappear
Ego crush is so severe
God, it’s brutal out here
(Yeah!)I feel like no one wants me
And I hate the way I’m perceived
I only have two real friends
And lately, I’m a nervous wreck.”
At the end of the day, everything comes down to currency. As Rodrigo’s “Brutal” illustrates, while the years fly by, it becomes strikingly evident that life is overrated. Overrated for those who are sucked into the continuous mindf— of being popular, pleasing others, and putting up fronts or flexin’.
The quickest way to happiness is to do you, at all times. Want to drop out of law school to take on kinesiology, or dump your loser girlfriend to meet the woman of your dreams? Or move to a new country and shut down all your social media accounts? Do you, boo! Life’s too short to live it under the dry, wrinkly thumb of Internet trolls and judgmental friends and fam. You don’t want to end up like Rodrigo in the video with a “broken ego, broken heart.”
