As is the case with most of “Gen Z pop culture,” it’s usually grafted from the 2000s. The latest addition to that truism comes in the form of Madison Beer’s “Sweet Relief” video (marking the sixth single from Silence Between Songs). In many ways, it picks up where “Spinnin” left off, in terms of offering viewers a suburban milieu that Beer inhabits/generally frolics through. This time around, however, things are much brighter (and less desolate) than they are in “Spinnin.” For a start, the sun is actually shining for most of the video, save for during the “requisite” shower scenes of Beer (who seems to want to channel a bit of Miley Cyrus in “Flowers”), which serve no real purpose other than for her to memorex her “hotness” for future generations.
However, when she’s not parading her soaped-up body for the camera, she’s actually playing the part of a “nerdy” shy girl. Which, of course, per “2000s law,” simply means donning a pair of glasses. And, if anyone had a doubt that this “little narrative” wasn’t meant to be set in the 00s, one of Beer’s besties proceeds to take photos of the group in Beer’s room with her Canon digital camera. The fact that Beer and her friends are just hanging out in her room together also harkens back to videos of the 00s, when “room culture” was at a peak (see also: Mandy Moore’s “Candy,” Britney Spears’ “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” and Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love”—all released on the brink of Y2K). Not to mention that just about the only thing to do in suburbia is hang out in your room…unless you have a car, in which case, you can proceed to do donuts in an empty parking lot.
So it is that Beer and her friends, often inexplicably holding stuffed animals (like a teenage Britney for her 1999 Rolling Stone shoot), keep taking “prehistoric selfies” with each other, employing what would later be called a “MySpace angle.” Trying on clothes and putting on makeup—the usual “girlie things” that women in their teens (and beyond) are supposed to do when they congregate—it seems they grow bored enough of that to switch locations to another classic suburban backdrop: the yard. Complete with a trampoline and tire swing. And also—gasp!—boys. Some of them even smoking—double gasp!—cigarettes. And that’s also how you know this is supposed to be the 00s: no one is vaping. In fact, Beer has her “dweebish” eyes on the smoking dude as they all sit in a circle in front of the white picket fence (here, again, the Del Rey influence on Beer is present). And this is where the chorus of “Sweet Relief” applies to the “secret” glances being made as she sings, “It’s just something only we know/Baby, I can’t help myself/I’m seein’ you everywhere I go/I don’t dream of anyone else/All I need, sweet relief [obviously, a sexual euphemism]/It’s just somethin’ only we know/Something only we know.”
Or so they would like to believe. But at the next cliche suburban location change—the parking lot of a mall—the two are talking in such an obvious “I like you” way that it would be hard not to notice the attraction. Plus, Beer has taken her glasses off so that he can suddenly “really” see her. The moments of fucking around in the parking lot (including Beer being pushed along on a skateboard) channel many a 90s video (see: The Smashing Pumpkins’ repertoire). Not to mention the parking lot driving scenes from Lana Del Rey’s “Bartender” portion of the “Norman Fucking Rockwell” video. And then there’s even a dash of Madonna’s 1983 “Borderline” video as the two talk in front of a sign post together…except that Beer has more luck than Madonna at endearing her love interest to her in this particular scene.
The picturesqueness of it all stems from the simplicity of a group of youths actually doing things together, however seemingly banal, that don’t involve the distracting prop of a phone. Because sure, plenty of teens had cell phones “back in the day,” but never used so pervasively as they are now. After all, there weren’t even enough options on a phone to warrant being sucked into it so readily (unless you count playing Snake on a Nokia).
And yet, beneath the surface of this being a “quaint” town in the middle of nowhere, the reality is that the group is roaming the streets of North Hollywood. Getting ice cream as night falls, the innocence of that act is mitigated, to the trained eye, by the fact that they walk past a dance studio called Ararat. Conveniently located just across the street from VIP Gentlemen’s Club…which makes for a perfect transition for the little girl taking “dignified” dance lessons to eventually transition into the nearby strip club. Because, as David Lynch has taught us repeatedly, anything “innocent” is always belied by a seedy underbelly. Especially in California.
Getting slurpees at a convenience store and “messing around” at a car wash then serve as the precursor to the “grand finale” of the video: jumping into someone’s pool while fully clothed. All of these “millennial” activities (though the latter trio of scenes smacks more decidedly of Gen X) seem to further emphasize that maybe Gen Z kind of hates it here, in this era. Even in spite of constantly mocking those who are even five years older than them for being “boomer.” Sure, every generation tends to romanticize the time period of the one that came before it, but something about this feels different. As though Gen Z inherently knows they got the fuzzy end of the lollipop with regard to experiencing youth. Like, actually experiencing it…instead of just seeing it acted out on their phones.
And so, like most Olivia Rodrigo videos, Beer’s “Sweet Relief” offers yet another clear case of hauntology in pop culture. Not just because capitalism creates the conditions in which nothing can ever be new, but because it’s never been more apparent that, as Francis Fukuyama would say, we’ve reached “the end of history.” Or, perhaps more accurately, the end of human history, with nothing new left to say or do, as made increasingly evident by offerings like “Sweet Relief.” Yet even with the AI infusion that’s been infiltrating (and likely to infiltrate all the more) art, the “bots” are only repurposing (e.g., getting AI versions of singer’s voices to sing songs by other musicians) just as much as Madison Beer, or anyone else of her generation. Those who are caught between showing contempt for the narrow-mindedness of the past while still romanticizing it because the present is so utterly dystopian.
