Three observations:
1. nepo babies
Since about late 2020, since Cazzie David published the essay “Too Full to F****” on The Cut, social media has been talking about nepotism in Hollywood. The actress, some agreed, was only able to publish this essay, or rather her first essay book “No One Asked For This”, because Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) is her father. She is a Nepo baby.
It’s a new pejorative term used in conversation to morally discount the likes of others. “You like Cooper Hoffman, the guy who played the cutesy Gary Valentine in ‘Licorice Pizza?’ It’s Nepo Baby, and that’s the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman.” In “Nepo Baby” lies both the insinuation that those designated with it are only where they are because their parents paved the way for them, and the realization that we actually do not live in a meritocracy.
“She has her mother’s eyes. And their agents” is the title story of the “New York Magazine”, which revives the debate and now also in the DACH region – attractive industry slang for: Germany, Austria, Confoederatio Helvetica – enlivens. Stefanie Sargnagel tweeted: “Thread open for a list of Austrian nepo babies. I’m not responsible.” And when the online feuilleton “54Books” asked what topics it should tackle in the near future, the writer Didi Drobna wanted research on the subject of Nepo Babies in the literature industry.
2. boom boom boomerang
Hailey Bieber, wife of Justin Bieber and daughter of Stephen Baldwin, is a model and public relations agitator. She posed in a white T-shirt with the sans serif text “Nepo Baby.” The defamatory term is already being appropriated by those affected and reinterpreted in a positive way. By the end of 2023, Nepo Baby could be the new “bitch”. Until then, we can watch Kate Winslet and her daughter Mia Threapleton together in I AM, or Dustin and his son Jake Hoffman in Sam and Kate. Or, of course, listen to ENDLESS SUMMER VACATION, the new album by Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter.
3. I stay cool, no feeling
Because of its character limit, Twitter spawned a number of new abbreviations. Perhaps the most appropriate: “tl;dr” for “too long, didn’t read”. The shorter attention span triggered by TikTok has now created its own genre of music, or rather remixes. Speeded-up songs are accelerated versions of current or old pieces. Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary” (2011) experienced its second spring via Sped-Up this winter. There are long lists of user-accelerated songs on YouTube. The market is now also adapting and releasing Gen-Z-savvy singles as a sped-up – most famously Domiziana’s “Ohne Gasoline”.
Characteristic of sped-ups is that they erase the characteristics of the singing voice. A computer mouse seems to be the interpreter of all Schnellis. So what always applies applies: In the user-generated content universe, the authors disappear, the beat gets faster, and yet everything is pervaded by a pleasant nostalgia. This is how all the sped-ups sound like “Computerliebe” (1995) by Das Modul or “Blaue Augen” (1998) by Blümchen – who in turn, of course, were also sped-ups – by Paso Doble (1985) and Ideal (1980) .
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 03/2023.