In 1999, Gigi D’Agostino released the banger L’Amour Toujours, which has been enjoying a surprising resurgence in Germany, topping the charts once again. I believe it has something to do with this song being used as a dog-whistle for anti-immigrant sentiments, but these are all unconfirmed rumors. When I looked up the music video to that track, I was quite surprised. Well, maybe have a look at it yourself first:
What you see in this video is basically one hot chick after another. Imagine you were sixteen at that time. Surely, you could have put it to good use. We could argue if two of these chicks may be a 6 or a 7, but by far the most screen time is given to very good-looking women without physical flaws. None of them has visible tattoos. None of them is physically deformed. None of them meets diversity checklists and even if, it is only incidental. There are no piercings, no political messages, just hot chicks dancing. Also, they all appear to be in a good mood.
The year 1999 was roughly one generation ago. Today, media-endorsed images of women could not be any different. In fact, a video like the one above, released today, would cause an outrage of social media. While the DIE fraction has been taking some big L’s in recent months, they still have a pretty tight stranglehold on popular culture, so just putting one sexy chick into a video would be an achievement.
A related issue is that nowadays, it would be quite difficult to collect a bunch of women like the one in the video. A lot of women have tattoos and piercings, even though their numbers seem to be decreasing. There is also less of a focus on physical attraction nowadays. In the not-so-distant past, however, all women wanted to be slim. Even if they did not have a cute face, just by being slim they would get a bit of attention. While I do not want to put too much weight on one particular music video, a genre that has basically disappeared, it is nonetheless the case that our society no longer celebrates female beauty. The pendulum is starting to swing back, but I would not be surprised if it would take another ten or fifteen years, if not longer, until we can get back to where were where.
YouTube suggested this video of a cute teenage violinist to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fnXRNeQy9Q
Within two years, she managed to hit the wall pretty hard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr69ukpWqIU
In the first video, she is thirteen, in the second she is fifteen years old.
It’s appalling how far Western civilization has fallen in a mere twenty years. But as Hemingway said, you go bankrupt two ways: gradually, then suddenly.
This music video is actually an unofficial one, made in the last few years. I know it says “Original Version” in the title, but I think that refers to the music.
The girls dancing are contemporary e-thots. You can see their tags in the certain spots in the video, like nikolanna at around 0:45 and sofia_sofia9379 at around 0:55.
There’s been a trend in the last few years for girls to dance in this kind of way to “old” songs on YouTube.
Your point still stands in a way, though: this trend is definitely not part of the mainstream music business, but rather an Internet trend.
(I believe this is the official music video, from the Gigi D’Agostino YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w15oWDh02K4 )
I’m not much into music videos, but the esthetic of the one in the original post is very 00s. No wonder it passes for something made 20 years ago
Cycle Path:
Yeah, definitely. I believe the dance is based on the Melbourne shuffle, which according to Wikipedia developed during the late 80s and 90s, so the timeframe is about right.
Here’s another example, with French Affair’s 2000 hit Do What You Like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr0DTWzxxSs
If you do a YouTube search for your favorite song of the era with “shuffle dance” you can probably find a version. 🙂
This is the official video: https://youtu.be/w15oWDh02K4?si=dYjLABFKAn9D3l4A