One Direction is just another pop group that advises listeners to seize the day and take advantage of their youth.
2012 has undoubtedly been the year of YOLO.
The phrase “You Only Live Once,” popularized by Drake’s song “The Motto” (which was released in 2011, oddly enough), is the new “carpe diem” battle cry for reckless, exciting behavior.
It spawned a Twitter hashtag and online memes. Popular music, which aims to directly reflect general society’s feelings, jumped on the YOLO bandwagon as soon as it could. And it’s not letting go.
Remember the summer hit “We Are Young,” which urged its listeners to “set the world on fire”?
Recent hits epitomize the same theme. One Direction’s “Live While We’re Young” was released in September, about the same time as Ke$ha’s “Die Young.” The lyrics practically echo each other — “Let’s make the most of the night like we’re gonna die young,” Ke$ha sings; “Tonight let’s get some/ and live while we’re young,” One Direction begs in a set of rather provocative lyrics.
The influx of seize the day mentalities in popular music can be attributed to the quickly approaching Dec. 21 deadline, when the world is thought to be slated to end by the Maya prediction. Though it’s invalid to think all consumers of popular music believe in the forecast of destruction, the end of the world theme could play a small part in the increased consumption of YOLO music. Writers could be using the mostly ridiculed prediction as a peg for songs that call for a last hurrah.
More reasonable is an attribution to the impatient culture of popular music consumers. In a world controlled by social media, everything is demanded instantly. The idea of not wanting to wait is present in music culture, too — just as in “Call Me Maybe” and other recent hits, there’s a need to hit success quickly. The new mentality is: Don’t wait. Do it now. Don’t look back.
Youth has always meant the liberty to be more reckless — providing a heavier sense of urgency, a higher likelihood of doing something just because it’s fun. The older you get, our society seems to think, the more you become bogged down with the worries of the world. It becomes more difficult to seize the day and live to the fullest when you’re worried about extraneous factors.
And maybe, in the past year, life has grown more precious. Steve Jobs, Etta James, Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston all died — all were relatively young.
Then, a summer of shootings. Aurora. A Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Times Square.
A bitter election cycle. Chaos in the Middle East. A potential fiscal cliff.
Turning to music is an escapist tactic, a comforting method that tells us to live while we’re young and push away the fear of the unknown. Because there’s a lot of unknown out there.
“Young hearts, out our minds/ running like we outta time/ wild child’s lookin’ good/ living hard just like we should,” Ke$ha sings.
But if popular songs are teaching a younger generation to live as if they’re younger than their actual age (so 13-year-olds act like and have the responsibility of 7-year-olds), everyone will grow increasingly younger; a world of progress will be lost.
And yet, those are all really speculations. Tomorrow’s world is a mystery. All we know is that some myths prophecy the end of our lives in 16 days. So we might as well live them like we’re gonna die young.
