Originally published in print February 2021.
Last month, Olivia Rodrigo released her debut single, ‘driver’s licence’. The song dominated the charts, topping the Billboard 100, and breaking the Spotify record for the most single-day streams on its fourth day of release. Seventeen-year-old Rodrigo, who was most famous for her role on the Disney+ programme High School Musical: The Musical: The Series became an overnight sensation. Social media soon began to speculate over the meaning of the song.
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, unaware of the alleged drama, here’s a quick recap. In ‘driver’s licence,’ Rodrigo sings about recent heartbreak. Her former beau seemingly leaves her for an older “blonde girl” who is “everything [she’s] insecure about”. Before the song’s release, there were already rumours that Rodrigo was involved with her co-star, Joshua Bassett. Bassett was then photographed with Sabrina Carpenter – who, incidentally, is twenty-one years old and blonde. Coincidence? It doesn’t seem likely when there have already been a string of songs released that seem to take digs at the other members of the party. Most infamously, Carpenter released ‘Skin,’ which is essentially about getting into a new relationship and trying not to let your partner’s clingy ex bother you. Interestingly, while the trio haven’t confirmed the rumours, they also haven’t explicitly denied them.
There has been backlash to drama, mainly from those who believe it’s all a publicity stunt. Some have also criticised the public for their ‘overinvestment.’ Carpenter and Bassett both fell victim to hateful online comments. Some people have started binging HSMTMTS for additional background information. There have been thousands of TikToks made about the drama, with humorous skits imagining Bassett’s reaction to Rodrigo’s song and users compiling ‘evidence’ from the Instagram pages of those involved. The videos that I find the most interesting, however, are the ones of young adults recording themselves explaining the drama to friends and family members whilst ‘driver’s licence’ plays in the background. These YAs appear to be extremely invested. Obviously, people do exaggerate for comedy online. However, I am also forced to remember the voice-notes I sent my boyfriend explaining the situation, as well as the monologue I launched into when my mother heard me listening to the song and asked me about the artist.
As I spent most of my formative years on Tumblr, obsessive preoccupation with celebrity drama isn’t so strange to me. After all, I spent a significant amount of my early teenage years analysing the eye colours of Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriends so I could decide which guy she was singing about. Widespread public obsession with celebrity relationships isn’t a recent phenomenon either. The fictional feud between Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston over their relationships with Brad Pitt dominated celebrity news back in the noughties. Is there anything different about the Olivia/Joshua/Sabrina drama?
I think so. While my younger self was overly-invested in Taylor Swift’s love life, this only came once I was a fan of her music. Jolie and Aniston were two of the biggest names of the 2000s. Conversely, the majority of us – myself included – didn’t know who any of these Disney ‘stars’ were before ‘driver’s licence’ came out, as their shows were after our time. This is purely hypothetical, of course, but I do wonder if this phenomenon has something to do with Covid-19’s effects on our personal lives.
The pandemic is effecting everyone differently, but many YAs have found themselves in a particular kind of limbo. When college moved online, I, like many students, decided to move back home to the countryside with my parents. I’ve been in my old bedroom for months, surrounded by remnants of my teenage years including, but not limited to, posters of All Time Low, and old LC notes I’m still too traumatised to sort through. Many college students and recent graduates have talked about losing independence and feeling deeply isolated after moving back home. Our romantic lives have also suffered. It’s almost impossible to meet new people, and Zoom dates just really aren’t the same. I’m in a long-term relationship and struggling with the distance from my boyfriend. Besides these challenges, there’s less drama happening in our own lives. While this is ostensibly a positive change, I do think there’s a part of us that wants to indulge in some messy gossip – especially as many of us feel like we are reverting back to our teenage selves.
Maybe we’re trying to fill a void, maybe we’re reliving our messy teenage heartbreaks in a way we wouldn’t have if we were living out our twenties normally. Or, maybe, we’ve just fallen prey to a clever marketing scheme. In any event, it seems unfair to this generation to judge us for ‘overinvestment’ in some stranger’s drama. Let’s face it; we don’t have much else going on at the moment.
