Two songs that sit at the top of the charts offer very different messages to young girls. While it might seem that Orianthi’s “According to You” is preferable to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”, I see it as just the opposite. Because while I don’t condone the promo for a party-girl lifestyle that Ke$ha spouts, I much prefer her girl-in-charge focus to Orianthi’s diatribe about what boys think of her.
Let’s look at Orianthi’s message a bit. She laments what an ex tells her about herself and delights in highlighting what the new man thinks. Here’s a sampling:
“According to you, I’m stupid, I’m useless
I can’t do anything right
According to you I’m difficult, hard to please
Forever changing my mind”
And it goes on:
“But according to him I’m beautiful, incredible
He can’t get me out of his head
According to him I’m funny, irresistible
Everything he ever wanted.”
So while it might seem at first that Orianthi is throwing her new man’s appreciation for her into her ex-boyfriend’s face, it actually sounds a bit too much like she’s defining herself by what these boys or men think of her. She never mentions herself, as in “according to me, I’m fabulous.”
Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”, on other hand, can be a bit offensive to parents. After all, who wants their child to listen to a girl who claims to brush her “teeth with a bottle of Jack,” because when she leaves for the night she “ain’t comin’ back”?
But, let’s examine her message further. “Tik Tok” is a feminist anthem for party girls the world over. They are in charge of their fun, their evening and even the men who come along to crash their party.
“And now the dudes are lining up because they hear we got swagger
But we kick ‘em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger”
(Shouldn’t that be “IF they look like Mick Jagger? But I digress.)
Ke$ha’s party girl even argues that “the party don’t start ‘til I walk in.” How can you argue with that kind of confidence?
Although it’s not necessarily a positive thing for kids to hear someone make a positive case for partying all night and picking up random strangers, that’s easier to explain to children and teens than the message that you’re not good and right and worthy unless some boy says you are.