VVIBE CHECKING: PRESSURE MACHINE

I called it last year when I vvibe checked Imploding the Mirage, they have found their voice and now The Killers are back with a beautiful album.

It really surprised me when they announced another album so soon, especially after the 3 years between Wonderful Wonderful and Imploding the Mirage. I can’t say I was expecting it but it was silly not to, having found their voice, why wouldn’t they use it.

Although different from the previous albums, it doesn't feel experimental, it’s confident and graceful. It doesn’t waver like Lover by Taylor Swift or Father of all… by Green day, it plants its feet on the ground and tells a story.

Pressure Machine reminds me a lot of Sam’s Town, to me it’s their second album but earthy, mature and artistic. It’s not as personal but the recurring themes are still there; The difficult relationships, the small town blues, the wanderlust. 

This album has very little divine in it, there’s almost no sky, it feels grounded in many ways. The story that is told itself is one of people tied to a small town, to their “birthright”, people who would have been different in another place, in another life. People who wanted more.

It didn't make me cross my heart like Flesh and Bone or Neon Tiger, but it got me dancing at 8 am, it got me laughing just because the way it sounds makes me feel all this energy. My favourite songs were In The Car Outside and In Another Life, for some reason they are like tasting something that makes you wonder how you lived without it until now, they just taste like the first jagerbomb I ever had that good in the mouth, the kind of song that every line, every progression, hits you like it wasn’t what you expected but it’s so, so much better.

I feel like it's a fever dream album, it’s conceptual, there are characters that I haven't understood just yet because I only listened to it like 3 times. Much like folklore and evermore by Taylor Swift, the personal elements are weaved through the lyrics in a way that’s almost imperceptible, something that is very new to this band. Brandon has always written lyrics that are closely tied with his own experiences and views on love, religion, everything really, so it’s amazing to see this kind of distance because it feels new to us but it’s probably also new to him and the rest of the band. 

In my last post about them I said Imploding the Mirage, an album that I am dying to listen to live,“was like hearing someone who finally got to the place they were supposed to be, like breathing deeply after holding your breath for a little too long.” and this is what happens after. Pressure Machine feels like having fun in this immaterial place, like vvibing just because they can, so there are violins and harmonicas, songs that feel like theirs but another side of them, a side we haven’t seen until now but it’s amazing and exciting and I hope to see more. 

KIND OF A VVIBE: A VERY EMOTIONAL REVIEW OF SHADOW AND BONE

 So I’ve been reading Shadow and Bone after watching the netflix show and I’ve read that the Darkling is based on the author's own story of abuse and I respect that, but she wrote him in a way that I can’t help but sympathize with him. The entire first half of the first book of the series writes him as someone who’s not really that bad, I mean, apart from murder and treason, that isn’t really shown until the second half, he’s just a powerful troubled man, who’s quickly falling for this promising young woman, and doesn’t know what to do with his hands. From what we gather when we first meet him in the book, he wants to give Alina everything and more, he wants her beside him, powerful, brilliant. 

What is not to like? Am I supposed to delete that from my brain after 3 pages of Darkling slander? I mean sure this is a murder machine we are talking about but hey, the author ended up writing a lovable murder machine and there isn’t much I can do about it. This man wants to see Alina in her glory, he wants her to shine, to be a saint, to learn how to use her powers and be healthy (the whole grisha thing about having to use their powers to keep their good health), above everything he gives her security, comfort, support and a good environment to grow in the little palace, well until she runs away, betrays his trust, tries to murder him and gets back with that annoying little bitch aka Mal.

Like I am not saying he is a good person and that he did all of these things out of having a good heart and a caring disposition. He did plan to use her power, but he wasn’t exactly an asshole about it from the beginning. I honestly think, in the way the story is told it just seems like he wanted to give her all of that and have her by his side willingly, the entire romantic subplot is a separate thing, it’s a coincidence that happened out of this man’s 500 years of waiting and finally she is there, and she glows and she laughs and smiles and he is smitten, but it was his plan to have her willingly by his side all along. If the author tries to paint him as a mastermind, a brilliant manipulator, she failed hard because he’s either very bad at it or his intentions were too hidden from the reader, like, even a scene that felt suspicious, like Alina listening to something she shouldn’t have, out of context but still weird enough to have her alarmed could have helped set him in this role better than the sequence passionate, sincere, heated kiss, argument with Mal, Bahgra and running away.

I am not saying he wasn’t gaslighting her when he pulled the whole “did you think about how I felt?” card but 1) he may be onto something because back in the little palace it was Bahgra’s word against his; 2) this man is doing his best to protect the country and his people, even if his personal best is bad, like he is ruthless but he does have a point, even if the way he is trying to make his statement is fucked up. When Alina goes back to Mal, she becomes that sick, weak girl again and she has to worry about him and what he thinks of her every step of the way. She constantly has to make herself smaller to fit his life and it just doesn’t sit right with me.

If Mal had been accepting of her powers than I could have given him a chance, but he just acts like Alina is supposed to be the sickly orphan he always knew, instead of letting her be the powerful, beautiful, ambitious woman she was not only born to be, she starts showing signs of wanting to be in Siege and Storm when she’s negotiating the terms of her return to Os Alta with Nikolai. I’m still in the middle of the second book so there’s still a lot to uncover.

And I don’t want to be all Darkling about it, but Alina wasn’t born to be a good wife to a soldier and live a simple life on a farm and raise Mal’s kids. If she wasn’t fit to do it before she had powers, why the fuck would she be fit to do it after becoming one of the most powerful people in Ravka? Like, to me, Mal just wants to bring her down, back where he had her before, a girl with a crush on her best friend, because it made him important and it made her invisible. It’s selfish and cruel. I don’t agree with Aleksander in everything, I mean, he is a murderer after all, but I can’t help but think Alina would be better off with him, someone who not only matches her power but wants to see her thrive, he wants her to see him and still love him, he wants to corrupt her and it still sounds better than whatever the fuck she and Mal are doing up until this point, because as Aleks and Nikolai have pointed out, this girl has the power to save the country and she was running away; at this point, say what you will, but her hands are just as bloody as anyone else’s, even if she didn’t want the power, even if she didn’t want to be a symbol of hope.

Personally, I have reached a point in my head that is more “let Alina be corrupted for all I care, if it means she is loved, if it means she is adored” and less “let’s see Aleksander’s redemption arc”, because let’s face it, none of his actions put her in a bad light, he always framed himself as the villain, she was always supposed to be the one people loved. I’ve seen spoilers, I know how it will go but it doesn’t stop me from thinking about it because at this point in my life, I am a good person and I will continue being a good person, but it’s what I would’ve wanted for me. I don’t want to reform anyone, I want to be adored and loved and I want to give it all back, I don’t want the trouble of making a man better if he already loves me, or even the trouble of having to cut out parts of myself to fit somebody else’s idea of me. I want both me and Alina to have the damn cake and eat it too.

I identify with her a little too much, but as someone who had a relationship with someone older who showed her affection no other boy has ever come close to compare, I would rather have it from the deranged old dude, and feel worshipped, loved, secure, knowing it’s us against the world, than to have a third of it from the boy I left in my past back when I didn’t know what love was supposed to look like and thought if he was willing to be with me, even if he never bothered to make me feel secure, it should be enough, I should be grateful.

In conclusion, I think Mal is toxic and Alina doesn’t deserve this kind of “love”, the Darkling wasn’t right but he did have a point and people who can’t recognize it are in a state of denial, and that’s not any of my business. Nikolai is nice but he has too much gemini energy and it annoys me sometimes because I am a gemini myself.

VVIBING TO: OLIVIA RODRIGO AND TEENAGE RAGE

I started out on the wrong foot already, I listened to SOUR at work. I held on tight for most of the album but hope ur ok broke me.

Her debut album is definitely a no-skip and God, Olivia is doing her shadow work. Listening to this album felt healing in a weird way, like my inner child being seen, maybe it’s because she is half asian; But she really dived deep in her own feelings and had the courage to sing about all of them, even the “ugly” unpopular ones no one likes to admit they have, and I think that as much as it made me cry and it hurt a little bit, it was like hurting with her and running my hands through my inner child’s hair, like “hey, look, this young girl is also going through it, see how much she is loved even if she’s singing about the things you don’t say out loud? Maybe you’re not as bad as you think you are”.

I don't relate to Olivia Rodrigo exactly, I mean, I don't even know how to drive, but there are snippets of her lyrics that are like being stabbed, just the way she says it, it's just like the rhythm thoughts come when you are breaking down and I relate to that.

The way it starts slow, and then it builds up and gets agitated, the feeling gains confidence, it starts being mean, and then it screams in sadness and rage, it has bitterness in its voice, and then it gets quiet, it's just sad, like acceptance.

Miss girl really managed to make an album that, although I can't relate on a subject level, I can relate in a cadence of thoughts level, it's like girly bottled up every breakdown I've had through my teens and almost 20s in this album.

She managed to sing in detail the feeling of when its cloudy and late in the afternoon and the cold wind hits you when you are walking somewhere and the sadness of grief slowly builds up on the way, and your thoughts start racing until it makes you want to scream and then it's quiet, a tiny voice, childish, barely a whisper, that says "I miss you".

I may be projecting hard here but a mixed kid raised by a white mom gave us SOUR. This kind of rage, loneliness, and jealousy, brutal self-awareness, is something I’ve never seen someone who is not “different” show. Like not that other people don’t show “ugly” feelings like this but I have never felt more seen in music, I swear to god, those were my adolescence struggles and also I have carried some of them into adulthood.

I mean she never says anything like that in the songs with all the words and like I said, maybe I am projecting, but I feel like even if you have friends and feel loved, being bi-racial makes you crave belonging in a way that is rarely talked about. So when you finally do and you feel like it’s you and them against the world, and the person ends up breaking your heart, I feel like maybe it cuts a little deeper. And it takes a little longer to heal. But when you drop the act, all the things you do to get closer to belonging, you find your own select group of castaways.

As much as it hurts and grieving relationships is hard, things get better, I swear. One day that whispery voice becomes a casual visitor in your head, you welcome it like an old, old friend, let it linger for a bit, you ask it how it’s been and if it needs something. Sometimes it needs a scent, sometimes a song, sometimes it’s just there to congratulate you on how far you’ve come; and then you say your farewells and hope it doesn’t come back soon. One day you look around and there's nowhere else you want to be, you finally belong with yourself and to yourself.

VVIBING ON TAYLOR SWIFT AND HER NEW GRAMMY, AND LIKE IN GENERAL

So Taylor Swift won another Grammy. GOOD FOR HER OH MY GOD SHE DESERVED IT.

Men, cis, and straight mostly, hate Taylor Swift, we all know that. They will go out of their way to tell you how her music is bad, how she only sings about breakups, how she’s lame, without ever stopping to listen to one of her songs.

Well, I personally think they are afraid of her. I think men, guys, boys, are afraid of the young pretty girl who calls them out on their bullshit, who sang “Well maybe it's me and my blind optimism to blame // Maybe it's you and your sick need to give love then take it away” at 20 years old. They are afraid because Taylor profits off their lies and lives her best life. Girls, gays and theys who listen to Taylor Swift are not afraid to be soft but are not to be messed with, at least not since Blank Space was released. So men act like her songs are boring and childish.

But they don’t get it. They can’t even begin to fathom that maybe the reason why we love Taylor Swift so much, and scream-sing her lyrics like they are sacred texts, is because she writes about a thing that’s fundamentally human, relationships. Mostly heartbreaking ones.

And it doesn't matter who breaks your heart, it doesn’t matter if it's a boy from college, or high school, or Jake Gyllenhaal; heartbreak is heartbreak, and an universal feeling that unites people all over the world singing All Too Well crying at 3 am.

She started her career with cute songs about love then grew up to be one of the most successful women in the music industry and GOOD FOR HER. She is loved by millions of teenage girls around the world because she sings about men breaking her heart, and not something considered cool and edgy. She sings about highs and lows, and sometimes things we feel, ugly things, that we can’t even admit to ourselves. 

(click the pic for source)

And Taylor Swift puts all those feelings, the emptiness, hopelessness, heartache, envy, jealousy, anger into lyrics, and that’s very brave of her. She helps us put the feeling into words, so we don’t have to do it alone, and feel seen and heard, comforted; because then we know for sure we are not the first, nor the last to feel like their heart might as well implode and take your body with it so you can stop crying over a stupid guy. Yet, as much as her lyrics are sad, they are hopeful, there are good relationships in the world too, there are better days to come, this sadness is not everlasting, it can’t be. If she is alive and well, you too will heal, you know?

That’s the beauty of her discography. She calls men out the way we wish we had the courage, or the words, or the chance to do; she keeps writing from the heart, even if the media comes after her again and again, and she wins every time because they can break her heart and say some nasty things about her but they can’t stop her. She sings with us through nights of dreaming, of grieving relationships, and promise after promise to never be caught in a situation like this again, still, her songs won’t ever judge if you ever do.

To me sitting with my headphones on, listening to Taylor Swift is comfort. It’s knowing if she got over Harry Styles, you can get over that crusty dehydrated guy; it’s knowing there’s always a new beginning and you’re gonna be ok and find someone who you would marry with paper rings. 

VVIBE WITH ME: a loving review of Father of All Motherfuckers by Green Day

The fanbase hated Green Day’s latest album, Father of All…(implied motherfuckers bcs I’m sure Spotify would have flagged it) but I didn’t, and here is why:

I did not vvibe deeply with it, I’m not gonna lie, but Green Day has had a very long journey in the industry and they finally have the autonomy, the respect and the means to do whatever they want, so I don’t think it’s weird that they wanted to do something experimental.

That’s how this album felt to me, experimental, like American Beauty/American Psycho by Fall Out Boy, the pop mess that was so fun to listen to but wasn’t really that cohesive, got a little tiring after a while and it really felt like an album made for testing out what the band was capable of doing but still very enjoyable. 

It feels like this is exactly what this new album is supposed to be, fun to make, a little raw and a little messy, but the blueprint of an absurdly good next album, like Fall Out Boy’s Mania, which not only made a lot of sense as an evolution from AB/AP but it felt glorious, new and timeless at the same time, the kind of album that quickly became one of my favorites and had so many feelings tangled in it that even though I rarely listen to it these days, I absolutely adore it, 3 years after it’s release it provokes emotions so intense that it feels like the first time I heard it.

Green Day is a band that has evolved and keeps evolving album after album, to me it was actually weird to see them release Revolution Radio, an album that seems to me like a copy of American Idiot. They have grown and their albums sound like that, they sound like men who keep getting better and better for themselves and not for their audience, so I think Father of All… was a courageous fuck you to the music industry and to some of their fans still stuck in a 1993 album and I vvibe DEEPLY with that. 

I absolutely adore Green Day and have been listening to them since I was 7 and they have been a band longer than I have been a person. I mean 34 years to 22? The band was already in middle school by the time I decided to show up. And they have grown, from young adults when they released Dookie to actual middle-aged men, and I don’t like this culture of expecting artists to keep making the same things through 30 years, I think it’s what people think they want but when it happens, see Red Hot Chilli Peppers, they don’t like it. 

I believe fans exist to support and to understand artists and their decisions. As a fan of Green Day, I think we have to be grateful that they are still a band and still releasing new songs, also, still giving 300% of energy at every single concert. I always say a Green Day concert is an experience in itself, the way Billie Joe leads the crowd, the way he is 100% present, it’s a difficult thing to find these days, it’s raw, it’s glorious.

So I think Father of All… is good, not because I love it, but because I feel like I understand where it comes from, and am just happy they are still growing and experimenting and happy to be doing it as a band and the fact that they decide to share it with us, I love that. I think, considering the albums that come before, but not Revolution Radio, so yeah, the trilogy, it’s simply growth, evolution and I can almost feel them laughing through it.

In conclusion, I don’t think Father of All… is their best album, but I think it is the first glance we got of one. 

A VVIBE: Arctic Monkeys live

I was thinking about it yesterday and I really wish I could see them live again. The way Alex Turner writes lyrics, it just charms me, because it’s so easy to feel them under your skin. I feel like the lyrics to Alex’s love songs melt in your mouth like chocolate when you sing them, they feel so good on your tongue. Actually, Alex’s songs, in general, feel good in the mouth, all of them, there’s a sensation that accompanies his lyrics that I can’t describe, it’s like saying the right thing at the right time maybe? Anyway, it feels good in your ears, when you hum them under your breath, and even better when you scream them in a crowd at the top of your lungs.

And I feel like they are personal to him, they are far from vague but in the vaguest way possible if that makes any sense. It’s like he knows how to talk about things in a way that’s vague enough to resonate with other people, yet the details he gives us are sometimes so specific that you can’t help but feel like this was part of his life? I was talking to a friend about it and it’s a little cringy when you think about the songs because of this, but when you are actually listening to them, it’s a completely different feeling.

Suck it and See is personally my favorite album by them, the second half is raw in a way that truly describes what heartbreak feels like and I just vvibe deeply with it. It also talks about love in a way that really pleases me, it feels real. From falling in love to falling apart, it’s a journey that I feel like Alex just knows too well, actually, I know he does because he writes about it in a way that only people who have truly been to heaven and hell know how.

That’s why I think an Arctic Monkeys concert is so personal, take The Killers for an example, their concert is a divine experience, it feels like your upper body is radiating light, to me most of the songs feel like a connection with God and divine energy that Brandon knows how to put in his songs, but in an Arctic Monkeys concert everybody sings 505 to a different person, everybody screams “I crumble completely when you cry” for a personal and particular reason and it’s about the crowd, it’s about you and the taste you feel in your mouth. I personally feel the taste of youth when I sing 505 because it reminds me of my teenage years and the way I wish someone had felt like about me back then.

These songs just hit different live, not that they weren’t already an experience in my earbuds but I remember thinking I had to listen to them live just to have this moment, just so I could scream the lyrics at the top of my lungs because they feel so right and they feel so good.

What concert would you like to see again? Why?

"no thoughts, head empty"- Alex Turner, 2018 alt. title: VVIBE WITH ME: a review of tranquility base hotel and casino in leopard print and shorts

vvibing to the Arctic Monkeys' The Ultracheese, I'm a firm believer that if you didn't like Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino you are just not really listening to it and letting it tell its story. It tells you everything you need to know to like it, from the moment Alex sings that he just wanted to be one of The Strokes at the beginning of the album to the moment he sings that he's probably not deep in thought, that's just his face.

The evolution from AM to Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is delightful to see, AM being the top, the maximum fame that Arctic Monkeys has ever had with the catchy songs and the construction of Alex's character during that period; You know,  going from the whole bad boy look of the 50s, the way AM talks about parties and bars and people to TBHC being the opposite of it, talking about the illusion of fame with a debauched tone but at the same time with a touch of loneliness, like a drunk person who makes fun of the situation he is in but knows that in the background there’s a little bit of truth to the jokes. The way it talks about dressing up like a fictional character from a place he calls America seems to me like a perfect response to the life he lived back in the AM era.

AM is a peak album, an album dazzled by a surreal American world and perfect to conquer American youth and TBHC is a deep dive in this tattered illusion, a beautiful album about decadence. In a way I feel like AM has an adolescent energy, perhaps because I listened to it a lot during my teenage years, but also because of the way Alex Turner describes things in such a dramatic way, full of life or death, love or hate, in the lyrics and sounds like someone who's drunk on teenage power. The disappointment of AM is not the same as that of TBHC, the disappointment of the former is singular, it’s a person; while in TBHC it’s the world, it’s the creative scene, it is the industry. I feel like the band but mostly Alex, understood that trying to make another AM was simply ridiculous so even if unconsciously they embraced the idea that the thing after that was decadence and they built an entire reality around it, like what would decadence feel like? How does it sound? How does it look? And to them it looked like the vacation spot on the moon, far away from humanity but still human, being treated like a god and then being forgotten.

The criticism towards society is also so on point in this one, while AM was quite empty in this subject, a thing that pops up every now and then in Arctic Monkeys’ songs, see Teddy Picker for an example, Tranquility Base just goes deep into it, from technology to politics and not in a forceful way, I mean it’s clearly there, but it’s also not just about it and it’s not a political album like the openly critical about the government American Idiot by Green Day. Alex sings very delicately about the way social habits have changed in the era of social media in The Ultracheese, talking about freaking out from a knock at the door when you haven’t been expecting one, and satirizes advertising in Four Out of Five with the idea of selling people things in the verge of an apocalypse.

The way he does not demonize any of these things, but just kind of brings it up, makes me feel like there’s a bright future for the band even after the great success of AM and the popular hate on TBHC. It feels contemporary, I feel that in a personal level Alex is aware he’s aging and he doesn’t try to stop it, he embraces it, he collaborates with new younger artists and he is not the young and wild rockstar anymore, and I am talking about the way I read it, but he feels secure in his age and it shows so much that it feels like to the outside world he is perceived as cooler than he has ever been because Alex writes about this part of probably his career without making us listeners feel like it’s just an old man's complaint.

One other thing I really like in this album is this dark and golden vibe it has, the '70s inspired aesthetic, I think it ties well to the idea of decay and rejection of modernity right now since the '70s were an era of embracing modernity and rejecting tradition, people who didn't agree with the technological advances of the time or failed to open their minds to a new moment in history were left to decay and be forgotten. I think the fastest way to decay is to not accept and embrace modernity like I can see this in my own generation in the way people reject Tik Tok just because it’s new, it’s young and dumb when in reality it being young and dumb is what makes it so amazing. Being open-minded and getting in touch with another generation and at least partially understanding them is a blessing and I think the band understands this so although people hated the album back in 2018, I feel like it’s on the way to becoming a modern classic.

vibing in leopard print shirt from Zara (R$119, 2018), running shorts, that I bought because "make some noise" is written on them and I just really like MCR, from Renner (R$69, 2018), sunglasses (R$40), old ass picture of NYC that is around 11 years old (R$??????)

What did you think of Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino? How are you feeling about the end of the world?

VVIBE WITH ME: a very emotional review of Derry Girls

I have watched Derry Girls more than 3 times, I watched it with my brother, I forced my parents to watch it with me and long story short, I just vvibe with this show.

I love Derry Girls for a number of reasons, most of them related to the fact it’s beautifully written. It’s the most delicate and realistic show about teenagers that I’ve ever seen even though it’s a comedy. I have yet to see Euphoria, but honestly, I don’t think there’s a show airing that understands so gracefully how messy being a teenager really is. It reminds me a lot of Inbetweeners but it’s so much better, it’s not only written by a woman, it shows women, young and old, in a realistic and funny, yet not disrespectful, way.

I love the way Erin’s parents are written, Mary and Gerry are a wonderful couple and Mary clearly runs everything but Gerry is not just a dad, he is the dad, he picks up food, he wants his kid to be happy, he loves his wife and her family and even though Grandpa Joe is always being rude. I love how stuff doesn’t affect Mary and Gerry’s relationship, they are just good parents, they are well-written parents.

There are two moments that make me think of this, one is when Gerry sees Erin and the crew at the concert in Belfast, never fails to make me cry happy tears, the other is when Mary doesn't give Erin money to buy a dress for the dance, but genuinely cares about Erin going, even when her date doesn’t show up.

Erin is ambitious, Michelle is unapologetic, Clare is smart, Orla is crazy, the kind of person who could be a star in the creative world. But they are far from perfect, I mean, an American rewrite would make Erin a journalism prodigy, Clare the perfect A student obsessed with Harvard, also Michelle would be the most beautiful girl at school and Orla an art genius, but they are not that, they are weird because they are not who they are supposed to be yet.

An American rewrite would also make Jenny a mean girl but that's the beauty of Derry Girls, Jenny is not a mean girl, she's just annoying like most people you'll meet in real life who are not bad or mean or cruel, they are just annoying and boring, and that's fine.

Let's be real, we all know a Jenny in real life

Now talking about being a teenager, as much as I like to pretend that my teenage years were wild, they were actually pretty boring, besides almost hooking up with a teacher and pining after a guy 8 years older than me that has always been ridiculously respectful, it was also throwing up in front of said guy and sitting alone at a party wishing said teacher would pick me up. I did kiss a boy who was in a band, that was cool, maybe the coolest night of my high school, my friends were doing body shots between their boobs and I was kissing the most handsome boy at the party, it was the adolescence Skins had promised us I guess, I mean I never watched Skins, because, when I was 15, I was watching Doctor Who and Sherlock, I was, even if I didn't want to admit back in the day, still a kid.

Anyway, being a teenager is usually an awkward act of pretending you know what to do until you figure out what to do and by the time you figure it out, you’re probably around 20 or 21 and being a teenager is disappointing too, you spend your entire childhood imagining and watching things about being older and going out and living incredible things and when you get to it you are just pimply, awkward, restless and you have no money or permission to do things like go to the places cool older people go like bars and parties. So it’s an age of frustration and learning to deal with it and also the pressures of the real world.

And no one tells you that being a teenager is ridiculous and frustrating because kids just don’t know it yet and adults like to pretend their adolescence was perfect and wild and fun and even when they talk about the bad moments, they tell you about it in such a nostalgic way like even the bad moments were good you know? I wonder if that could be one reason for such high rates of teenagers suffering from depresh.

In conclusion, Derry Girls just gets it, the lack of power in being a teenager but also thinking you are unstoppable and immortal, and not in a Euphoria or Skins way, but immortal as in giving yourself too much importance when honestly you are just 17 and no one really cares about what you do and the stuff you are up to or will care in a couple of years. I think what most shows don’t get about adolescence is the fact that teenagers want power, they want freedom or at least their image of freedom. Maybe it’s traveling with their friends, maybe it’s being heard, maybe it’s being able to do things without getting permission from your parents. But the fact is that Derry Girls gets it, it’s about the longing for freedom and power and not actually having it, because all the girls have parents that show up constantly throughout the show, and more than that those parents are people too. They are not just filler characters, in the Take That concert episode, when all the moms are having tea discussing what they are gonna do when the girls get back, it’s so real, it feels like a conversation my mom would have had 7 years ago with my best friends’ moms and it feels nice.

All stills were taken from the Derry Girls IMDB page.

VVIBE WITH ME: to Conan Gray's Generation Why

I am 22 and I feel quite lost. I truly don’t know what to do with my life, I can’t bring myself to believe in the system we live in and I don’t know how to deal. I feel like a spoiled child who has now discovered they have to work to be able to live, so when Conan Gray said:

“We are the helpless, selfish, one of a kind
Millennium kids, that all wanna die
Walking in the street with no light inside our eyes
We are the worthless, cursed with too much time
We get into trouble and lose our minds
Something that I've heard a million times in my life
Generation why”

I really vvibed with that because I was born in 1998 and although I always knew I’d have to work, since I was born middle class in an emergent country, it infuriates me that the idea of success to the world these days is basically selling your soul for money and status. You have to give up everything to have a successful career and, if you wanna have a “real job” in anything, it’s expected of you to give up your health, your happiness, your sanity, all of your time, to make money to other people (because they don’t pay much even if you are doing yours and other 3 people’s job) so they can pay you a mediocre health insurance until maybe one day if you are really, really lucky and you find a fucking pot of gold, you can actually make money too.

And we are fucking depressed, it’s too much since the day we were born; have good grades, get into a good college, the phrase “work while they sleep”, just let us chill for one second, geez. I mean we are gonna end up losing our dream job to someone whose daddy is in the business anyway.

vvibing in a green plaid shirt ($15 in a nyc clearance store), a double-sided jacket I made for my sportswear class (R$400, the fabric was custom printed), black high waisted shorts from forever 21, (R$70, 2014), lobster cap from renner (R$30max, 2018)

Then there’s the problem that rich people have been saying young, poor and basically working people should die left and right these days. And we have to work for them? Kiss the ground they walk on? Be thankful for the scraps from their table? What the fuck?

No wonder my generation is trying to make money selling foot pics instead of getting a job where they will be treated as a disposable part in a machine that doesn’t care if they die. Have you seen job applications lately? It’s insane, you go looking for a receptionist job and they want you to have 5 years of experience. And then they treat you with no respect for a salary that won’t even let you move out of your parents’ house.

We have all the right to be confused and depressed and anxious you know? Look at the mess they put us in.

Anyway, how old are you guys and how are you coping with the collapse of modern society?