As one would expect of someone with face tattoos, Post Malone is a fairly direct and straightforward sort of person. This, too, applies to his declarations of affection in the moment via something as simple as the statement, “I like you.” In the present landscape of “dating,” that’s possibly the most a girl can hope for. Even someone as “fly” as Doja Cat (who doesn’t exactly exhibit an extensive vocabulary to express her emotions either). A girl that, as we all know by now, wanted Joseph “Eddie Munson” Quinn to tell her the same instead of getting into a weird beef with Noah Schnapp about it, even though she had already publicly announced to Quinn, essentially, “I like you” anyway when she tweeted, “Joseph Quinn fine as shit.“
So it is that “I Like You (A Happier Song)” provides the perfect anthem for the socially awkward to be as open and honest as possible about their feelings du moment. And, speaking of French phrases, because “true love” to most Americans seems to be automatically signified by use of French, the video opens with Post Malone painting a picture as a female voice proceeds to narrate, “Mes chers amis, rejoignez-moi dans le monde merveilleux de l’amour.”
Directed by child., no stranger to working with Doja Cat after creating the videos for “Woman” and “Vegas” with her, the visuals are part of a continued representation in pop culture that seem to be all too common at this juncture: getting back to nature (see also: Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Western Wind”). Perhaps that has something to do with our sudden realization that it might not be around for much longer (at least not in a pure, non-toxic iteration), or the mental state the pandemic put “everyone” (read: Americans who formerly had no idea there was more to life than work) in as they suddenly fathomed it was important to “drink in” the simple pleasures. To actually take the time to smell the proverbial roses. As though Blind Melon wasn’t championing that long ago in “No Rain,” with the famed “Bee Girl” a.k.a. Heather DeLoach only able to find people who “get” her in the wilds outside of L.A. Funnily enough, that place of “belonging” was filmed near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, he being among the presidents least associated with acknowledging the so-called “freaks” of the world.
In any case, Doja Cat has no problem being billed under the “freaky deaky” category (as a recent song of the same name assured). And maybe that’s part of what makes Post Malone continue to repeat, “I like you” to her as he paints her image in various styles on his array of canvases in a studio wallpapered in Vincent Van Gogh’s “Almond Blossoms” print. At one point he gets so enraptured in his work that he ends up being sucked into the canvas (sort of like what happens in that Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode “The Tale of the Unfinished Painting”), getting transported into the same “field of (lovers’) dreams,” so to speak, where Doja Cat appears.
After Malone briefly explodes into Gulal-esque paint before reanimating, he commences a new drawing of Doja (not the best rendering, one might add), who we see just slightly off to the side before child. cuts to a scene of her running through the fields with her censored ass bouncing up and down in a short skirt. In the next shot, we see she doesn’t bother at all with a bra or other similar “titty cover” that “normal society” would expect her to wear. Because, instead, she’s out here living her best naked life in Mother Nature’s open arms. The Garden of Eden-like allusions made by this setting are further pronounced by Doja Cat then revealing the full extent of her “getup” from the earlier scene where we saw her just off-camera. Turns out to be composed of a few bouquets of flowers strategically covering up the parts that have always been deemed by the “civilized” world as “NSFW.” Even so, we all know that, sooner or later, every girl gets bored in the Garden and ends up wanting to stir up trouble in the “real” world.
But it isn’t just Malone and Doja out there (the latter ostensibly demanding, “Draw me like one of your French girls”) mucking about without a care in the world. There are other couples of all stripes enjoying themselves, too. The only person who appears to be without a love to call her own is an old woman in a party hat (she later blows out a lone candle on a cupcake)—but she actually looks happier than anyone else in the video, which is perhaps a testament to the health benefits of lifelong singledom. Elsewhere, the video shows plenty of other couples frolicking among the fields together (including a close-up on two ladybugs humping).
As the third single from Post’s fourth album, Twelve Carat Toothache, one might find the combination of him and Doja to be unlikely in some ways. Yet in others, the two have much in common. For instance, the name Post Malone came from incorporating his real moniker into a “rap name generator” and it feels like Doja Cat might as well have done the same after taking “doja” from her favorite weed strain. At the same time, Malone gravitating toward a collaboration with Doja feels ironic considering he once commented in a 2017 interview with Newonce that hip hop is not a genre that features “people talking about real shit” (tell that to Notorious B.I.G.), further elaborating, “If you’re looking to think about life, don’t listen to hip hop.” That certainly applies to Doja Cat’s music, a barely discernible barrage of word salad that appears to be revered solely as a result of whoever is behind pushing her nonstop radio airplay, infecting everyone’s mind with her daft colloquialisms (e.g., “If they ever tryna neck, I’ll put my foot up in your caca”) billed as “earworms.” Nonetheless, here Post is offering up a single with one of the least profound hip hop musicians ever “made.” But what does that matter when a girl looks “bangable” in a flower loincloth?
As the video finishes with a pan-out shot of Post Malone standing serenely in the endless field, the French voice from before concludes, “Avançons ensemble avec passion, avec désir et amour.” Naturally, that’s much easier to do when one can create their own personal, private oasis away from the ills of civilization. For, as Malone said of “putting together” such a place in Utah, “I just want to relax and enjoy the simple things. Be like a kid again. Have no responsibilities, and everything is handled: your kids, your family, everybody is set and doesn’t need to worry, so you can just play games and play in the tall grass.” How very “No Rain” video indeed.
