#i've been so bad about remembering to promote this but!!! the release date approaches!!!!

[kayleerowena]

hey! did you know i have a book coming out in less than 2 months? THE WITCH'S WINGS & OTHER TERRIFYING TALES, an 'are you afraid of the dark?' graphic novel with three middle-grade horror stories based on hispanic urban legends, comes out october 3rd, and you can preorder it right now!

i'm super proud of the work i put into this book, and the other stories are also absolutely amazing. i hope you all love it as much as i do! i'd appreciate people spreading the word on this, since preorders are super important to a book's success!

[betterthanschindlers]

Unfriend You, by Greyson Chance

Ok so something I have a lot of thoughts about is a song/video that came out in 2011 called "Unfriend You" by Grayson Chance. He is/was a preteen who has an amazing voice and was on Ellen, etc. This was a single he released to little to no fanfare. The video stars a Disney-era Ariana Grande and I would like to just talk about it for a minute, please join me if you'd like.

If you haven't seen it (which I'm assuming you haven't) here is the video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rd-tfJRMLI. Let's begin.

1. The title and subject matter of this song is so earnest and hilarious to me, the idea of someone singing an ENTIRE song about their decision to unfriend someone + wielding the action of unfriending someone as a threat in any way is funny in the deepest place I appreciate humor. I feel like there's nothing anyone could TRY to do to be funny that would be as funny as this is unintentionally

2. The way that Greyson's lip curls up when he sings "you're beautiful and crazy too" (that line!!) is again, funnier than anything I've ever seen

3. The way he pushes "liar" into a single syllable is upsetting and bothers me each time he does it, which is a lot. He also uses it structurally wrong? He says, "You're the best liar ever knew" WHICH, you're missing the pronoun in that sentence and just capitalizing on the repeated sounds in the end of "liar" and "I" ?? It's terrible

4. When this video came out I was in college and I thought Ariana Grande was the most beautiful little girl. She's still incredibly beautiful but when she sings songs about how big Big Sean's dick is, this is who I picture

5. To earnestly look into a camera and say you're DELETING someone from your HEART, is again, the funniest thing I can possibly imagine

6. I love that these children are playing ping pong at their party. It's miniature and so are their emotions

7. His vocal slides and falsetto are really wonderful and I think the technical proficiency is a huge part of what makes the rest of this SO funny to me. Like if he just sucked or was a little pitchy it'd match the content/bad writing but since it's performed SO perfectly it jars my brain into feeling joy? How does that work

8. The lyrics are mostly innocent/dumb but when he does the key change for the third verse around 1:53 the lyrics get so slut-shamey and possessive!! Greyson!

9. At the party he starts dating his new girlfriend because she can do a backflip and I think that's a good basis for a relationship

10. There's a weird promotional shot for an off-brand peach soda called "Flav" around 2:07 that gives me more questions than answers. Did Flav approach YOU Greyson because they think you're a tastemaker? Do you love Flav and wanted to include it and its appearance is not contractually obligated at all? Why is the can of Flav a clear sawed in half liter-bottle with a metal pull top? Isn't it harder to make a product out of two disparate materials than if it was just entirely one of them? Why didn't you offer any to your new girlfriend? Didn't you see she has braces and probably didn't eat any popcorn and wants something with a little flavor?

11. After every single member of the party empties a can of silly string in the living room (inside?? why???) Greyson sings, "But I should have known right from the start/that you didn't have a human heart" which seems WAY out of line with the rest of the song emotionally. Up until this point, he's just unfriending Ariana because she's a liar (unconfirmed) and it feels so intense to say you think she's inhuman??? Like, you're both 12 Greyson, calm down

12. At the end, every child runs out of the house with a roll of toilet paper (must be a Costco house) and TP's Ariana's house!! When it's daylight and not Halloween?? It rings of an odd cruelty! ! And she comes out of her house with her new boyfriend (who looks 25) and is clearly hurt. Then Greyson puts an X over her face in the yearbook, (the ultimate dismissal) and LAUGHS to himself about it alone in a barn with his piano that he didn't play the whole time. The last 2 min seems honestly sociopathic

13. I can't talk about the clothes bc then this post would be double the size it is now but I will say that throughout the video he wears two gold charm necklaces that are very prominently displayed and maybe I don't remember 2011 that well but I don't think that was the look

14. Lastly, yes, I know it's 3:49 in the morning, but I have been thinking about this for 6 years and I've never been able to form clear thoughts and all of a sudden they all came to me and I knew if I didn't write it down right now it would never come again and also depression has many different forms