“Webcam Girls” in Paris: Shygirl Takes Over the Seine in “True Religion” Video

With Shygirl ramping up her “tour” of the world in support of her latest round of Club Shy dates with Boiler Room, it’s only right that she would also make a music video for “True Religion,” one of the latest singles from the freshly released Club Shy Room 2. And while PinkPantheress is noticeably missing from the video (unless, of course, she was the one holding the camera to film), Isabella Lovestory more than makes up for the lack of “the third” (Gracie Abrams-style), serving as Shygirl’s ultimate partner in crime as the two go buck wild on the Seine. Because, obviously, if you’re going to pay money for something like that, you want to milk the most out of the experience. 

And the two do just that as they showcase a version of Paris that is simultaneously realistic (read: gritty and grimy) and romantic. Hence, alternating between scenes in color and in black and white. It is those scenes in color that can’t hide the distinct, let’s say, murky green tone of the Seine, regardless of the video being shot at night. Or even with the ongoing flashing lights that make for a strobing (therefore, theoretically “beautifying”) effect, ergo a club-like effect—never mind that the two are on a boat. Because wherever Shy goes, she turns that “venue” into a mobile club. Whether on dry land or, in this case, water. In this sense, it’s no wonder that she’s long been so aligned with Charli XCX, who has her own enduring affinity with rave and club culture. 

While some might not be convinced that an entire video on a boat and “that’s it” could be dynamic enough to sustain interest, Shygirl is sure to make it as “energy-driven” as possible with “little flourishes” here and there. Including “effects” that make it appear almost “VHS-y” (a.k.a. a “scrambled” sort of aesthetic) in a way that also shows up on her album artwork for Club Shy Room 2 and its associated singles. Then there are brief moments of splitting the screen to double the image viewers are seeing play out. And other instances when the screen takes on a collage-like look, parading a series of scenes from the video all at once. 

An array of these editing techniques take greater hold as the video starts to reach its conclusion, almost as though Shygirl and Isabella Lovestory realized that, if you want to keep people interested—no matter how “low-budget” you are—you need to have at least a few “bells and whistles,” so to speak. And perhaps no one knows that better than “webcam girls.” The faction of sex workers that Shy and Lovestory pay tribute to in metaphor and simile form throughout “True Religion,” with both chanting throughout the chorus, “You know you love me like a webcam girl/Webcam, webcam, webcam girl/Pussy too tight, make the mandem purr/Mandem, mandem, mandem purr/Virtually lovin’, log in to me now/Put your digits in, run to the bank account/Only one love, got credited now/One love and another man down.”

With this “kind of girl” in mind, the duo “performs” for the camera in a very specific manner. Not just the average “generate likes and engagements” kind of way, but in the sultry, get-him-interested-enough-to-keep-paying-for-increasingly-salacious-content type of way. And this, too, is part of why choosing Paris’ iconic Seine and Eiffel Tower as the backdrop feels like a pointed decision on Shy’s part (whether she meant it to be or not). Because it subverts the notion of what it means to be “romantic.” And with Paris being the signature/cliché city intended to embody a traditional sense of romance, Shy is turning that notion on its ear by suggesting that “webcam girl” life has its own iteration of romance, too. What with such girls always having to pay such careful attention to detail in what they wear, how they act, how they allure. It connotes a certain level of romance to care that much about another person’s arousal, no? The kind of care that, often, can only exist at the beginning of relationships or, yes, because someone is being paid to care. Care so much that they would even go to the lengths of filming themselves on a boat in the Seine. 

As the video comes to an end, there is a final round of black and white shots featuring the river and its surroundings. Flashing us the Eiffel Town once more in this B&W format means that Shy and Lovestory have ostensibly settled on the notion of “classic romance,” subtly trying to reinvent the wheel of what that really means in the present.