Have you been on the internet today? Great, then you’ve no doubt come across Catey Shaw’s “Brooklyn Girls,” the mediocre pop song that is the new WORST THING EVAR. For today, anyway. We have a long tradition of being haters at Brokelyn (at least, I do). But why are we freaking out about this? It’s a shitty pop song that mentions Brooklyn, and the video was filmed in Bushwick. That’s it, that’s the whole story. If you’re freaking out about this song YOU’RE the problem, not Catey Shaw.
Stop and think for a second here. Has anyone come out forcefully in favor of “Brooklyn Girls?” Anyone calling it the song of the summer or pushing for it to be shown on MTV or…uh, Fuse? No one is doing that. Even the song’s strongest defender at Brooklyn Magazine had to hedge and call it both annoying and obnoxious.
It seems the only reason people wrote about this song at all was to try to be the first to declare how shitty it was and try to attach some ridiculous meaning to it, creating this idiotic echo chamber that we’re in now too. Foster Kamer said it was the end of Brooklyn, Gothamist said it’ll “make you want to move back to Ohio” and those poor sensitive souls at Noisey were so bothered by it they literally begged for a return of the Son of Sam to murder a few people, because too many people are having a good time in New York. This is not a song worthy of one murder, much less six.
Catey Shaw isn’t a Crown Heights Starbucks or rent increase or the people moving near Rough Trade and making noise complaints, she’s not the Williamsburg mansion or that stupid house in Ditmas Park run by a marketing team, she’s not Brett Yormark talking out of his ass about “the Brooklyn brand.” Paying attention to Catey Shaw like she’s any of those gives her power, like paying attention to Ann Coulter’s or Rush Limbaugh’s latest OUTRAGEOUS INSULT gives them power.
Shitty pop songs about Brooklyn is a thing that will happen more and more now, because people like Brooklyn. Every song about New York City or the people who live there isn’t great, neither will every song about Brooklyn. If the collective reaction to this mediocre song is this bad, your poor heart will not survive the next five. This could have just gone in the dustbin of history, unknown and unloved, instead of inspiring a literal call to murder. We don’t give a shit about this song and neither should you. Here, watch the new Weird Al video, unless you think it means that tin foil is totally overexposed and mainstream now.
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View Comments (4)
hey where was the outrage when this terrible Colin Quinn Tone Loc wannabe song came out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAExjfKDpf4
It's an extension of "Dunhamism." The natural law which dictates that all women must represent every woman accurately or face internet stoning.
I saw a bunch of posts about how awful this song/video are. When I watched it, I was kind of let down to find that it was just a shitty song and a meh video, not something horrifying like everyone was making it out to be. It's not even as bad as Iggy Azalea in terms of cultural appropriation and general ridiculousness, although her singing voice is pretty grating.
Why do they copy the 80's 90's generations styles ?