YOUNG people are more protected against sexist, racist and generally horrid content now. Which means if they watched these music videos they’d probably have to go to A&E.
Call On Me
The early Noughties were a different country. Back then you could broadcast three minutes of sweaty, spandex-clad models doing exercise porn and everyone accepted it for the blatant attempt to drive sales to teenage boys that it was. In a post #MeToo world though, Zoomers would consider its male gaze tantamount to a war crime.
Another Brick in the Wall
Today’s youth wasn’t subjected to the corporal punishment of 1970s schooling, so the message and disturbing imagery of this Pink Floyd classic will go right over their heads. Worst of all, footage of children with deformed faces being fed into a meat grinder doesn’t have an amusing dance they can imitate on TikTok and the casting isn’t very diverse.
Money For Nothing
Young people have high expectations of visual effects now, and even Avengers: Endgame looks embarrassingly out of date to them. The blocky graphics in this Dire Straits banger would be a horrific assault on their senses, never mind the controversial lyrics written from an arsehole’s perspective. Getting ‘your chicks for free’ is both sexist and devalues sex workers.
Smack My Bitch Up
The Prodigy’s first-person video was banned by MTV back in the day, so glimpsing even a second of it will cause a Zoomer’s brain to liquify and dribble out of their ears. Not because it depicts a wild night out of aggressive debauchery, but because of the twist ending which reveals it was a woman who committed these problematic deeds.
Somebody to Love
Not the original song by The Great Society, the 2003 remix by Boogie Pimps. Audiences at the time knew that the video, which featured babies skydiving towards buxom model Natasha Mealey writhing around in lingerie, was a clever satire of… something, but this imagery would give the average Gen Zer multiple heart attacks. If you’ve ever watched it, consider yourself cancelled.
