The 3rd of December was just last week, which meant Conan Gray’s song ‘Heather’ was trending on Twitter and on TikTok. The 23-year-old released this song in 2020 and it has become a sensational favorite amongst fans since then because of it’s first lyric that says:
“I still remember the third of December, me in your sweater
You said it looked better on me than it did on you.”
The lyric was romanticized by many teens across all social media platforms and soon boyfriends/girlfriends began to give their sweaters to their partners. This became a trend and now people on social media reignite this trend every year and give their sweaters to their partners. Single people also joke about not having anyone’s sweater to wear. The point of the blog is that we do not even realize how mainstream media including songs such as Heather influence our daily lives and relationships. I have observed many of my friends and peers follow this trend and post about it just to create a happy, healthy image of their relationships.
This also takes me back to October, when Girl in Red’s song ‘we fell in love in October’ put pressure on teens to find a partner in October. So many people start to take these lyrics seriously and feel pressurized to find relationships that fit the narrative. However, these relationships might often be unhealthy or immature but just because they fulfill a trend they come off as fulfilling and healthy. This is quite problematic as people choose to stay in relationships based on how they look to other people instead of how they make them feel. These songs and lyrics are melodious and peaceful to listen to but create unrealistic expectations for people who are single or even in relationships. They put pressure on single people to find partners by a certain deadline and that is extremely unhealthy because people settle for toxic, abusive relationships this way.
I feel like relationships and generally life has become a lot more about perception and curation because of Tiktok and Instagram. Artists have always put out songs that romanticise situations, describe relationships, or put forth idealistic views. However, I think it's more of a 'trend' to focus on a few lyrics or words from a song, make an audio about it, or tweet about it, and suddenly everyone becomes interested. For example, when Heather came out, everyone wanted to be 'Heather', because she now represented something to aspire to. Heather encapsulated confidence, beauty, fulfilment, security. Whether or not this was Conan Grey's intention, it is how the song was perceived. Likewise, there was also a trend last year to make…
I really enjoyed your perspective on this since its a genre i have pondered over myself. The “3rd of december” lyric has toggled people down to believe that if your partner didn’t give you one, your relationship is meaningless. Last week, I came across a friend whose girlfriend had a fight with him because he forgot the “3rd dec” trope. The latter reflects on the perpetuation of romantic standards and idealistic notions that widespread media have on us. To majorly affect relationship expectations of interactions by a single lyric is a fault at the audience’s hand in my opinion. I agree that it has become a standard for reflecting “healthy” relationships since my Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok were going crazy…
I do agree with your arguments. Songs have generally created the concept of an ideal type of behavior that needs to be adopted in relationships. Two songs that come into my mind are Photograph by Ed Sheeran and Cigarettes after sex by Apocalypse.
The song by Ed Sheeran has the following lyrics:
You can fit me
Inside the necklace, you got when you were sixteen
Next to your heartbeat, where I should be
And the song by Apocalypse has the following line:
Sharing all your secrets with each other since you were kids
Sleeping soundly with the locket that she gave you clutched in your fist
Although both songs are intense and soulful, they create unrealistic expectations for teens and…
I also feel like musicians who portray ideas of wanting to be in a relationship come across as VERY relatable but they do not necessarily mean to evoke ideas within people of needing to be in a relationship. It is interesting, like you mentioned how it is the audiences, in this case that make "trends" out of song lyrics showing the often, unstoppable and unconscious influence that celebrities have. For instance, like Esha mentioned musicians use music as a way to vent out their personal feelings and sometimes I feel like we often forget that musicians themselves are impacted by societal demands as well. If anything, I feel like artists like Conan Gray resonate with young audiences so much becaus…
I think songs are a way for artists to describe how they personally feel. When these songs gain popularism, people start to generalise them to their own personal life experiences which leads to an unhealthy mind set. You may be in the happiest relationship but not get a sweater & I think that isn’t a big deal. But because we follow the crowd, whatever trends other people are following, we feel to do the same. For example, the AI trend that is going around on instagram. If this trend wasn’t popular, no one would even care what their AI characters look like but because everyone is doing it, we feel that so must we.