Written and performed by Katy Berry and directed by Berry and Jon Mayer, Thirty Pain is a fraught missive to every snowflake-bearing baby-boomer, a big fat “What the fuck did you bring me into, Mom and Dad?†set to a Casio keyboard beat.
There are dozens of these though, right? Music video “raps†about relatable life milestones blasted onto underfollowed social feeds? Yes, that’s true, but Thirty Pain – with more than its fair share of references to millennials as a spurned generation – offers something many of those other videos don’t: strong, pointed jokes.
Take this couplet, for example:
I started getting stretch marks when I was a teen,
So now my ass looks like it lost a fight with Wolverine.
Or this one:
I have three roommates, all stand-up comics in their forties,
They whine “Why don’t women like me?†while they quote Rick and Morty.
Less so this:
Sallie Mae, can you please get off my dii-iii-iii-ii–ick?
What this little diddy (that’s “Puff Daddy,†for all you 30-year-olds) lacks in avant-garde sensibility it more than makes up for with its earnest ode to a generation that grew up in a time when hopes were higher than Trump Tower and YouTube was just something we turned on to watch Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell rap about cupcakes.
Luke is executive producer at Big Breakfast and a watcher of many web videos. Send him yours @LKellyClyne.