YOLO!

Hey there! So, if you don't know what YOLO is, the acronym-cum-word means You Only Live Once. It is an American revolutionized version of saying "Carpe diem - seize the day". It's really just substituting one term for another (something I think America is also good at). But I realize in today's world that YOLO seems to be catching on with the younger crowd in our midst. YOLO to teenagers nowadays means partying, drinking, sexing and every other taboo or law breaking/ body-banging thing there is to do out there. It's seen mainly in today's music especially in mainstream pop and rap where almost every song nowadays is about living it up for the night until you pass out. Hence the music video I posted above, We are Young by Funn ft. Janelle Monae - it's about the act of living YOLO, but I think it slightly mocks the idea or at least gives us less idyllic or idealized notion of YOLO.

I notice that today's music (whether rubbish or not) has made major influences in the way teenagers decide to live their lives nowadays. Teens believe that they're having hard times with 'all that they have to go through as teenagers'. I do agree that teenagers in this world have many more distractions and a lot of issues to work through; (it's hard life for us with so many paths to choose and we just don't know where to go). Music it seems, is for us a good method to cool down and recollect any sense of peace we have with ourselves. However, I won't discount that today's music is much more than ever influential and I cannot deny that many of the things posted in videos, teens do or try out at home. Living the YOLO life is one of them. For today's teen populace, it may be the sure-fire method of letting out steam. On the other hand, the interpretation of carpe diem by today's musicians might be a little over the top but they sure appeal to teens more than anything else they see. Teens believe that since they're young, they should have as much fun as they can before they get older or before anything happens to them or just for the sake of enjoying life. Yet they disregard the consequences and only see the effects the next morning when they find out they can't remember the night before - (the hangovers, the vomiting, the nakedness is what they find when day breaks).

So, watch the video. It's a truthful and still fresh perspective of what exactly goes on when teens decide to try the YOLO experience. You get crazy trying to liberate yourself but then you realize you're only wasting yourself. The video is quite correct in portraying a fight in a bar scene - it happens all the time. One person gets utterly drunk and the silliest things trigger unnecessary violence. Soon, everybody partakes in the mob-like frenzy and then it becomes a 'REAL' party. (It's not a real party without breaking some bottles.)

Now, for all the parents out there, think about what your teenagers say when they claim they're trying to live YOLO. Teens, think about your life clearly when you state that YOLO is your life now (unless you have made the commitment to Die Young like Kesha says in one of her latest songs).