Dartmouth’s Book Buddies have put their second single out into the world, flung far and wide across the internet, with a simple message: social media is kind of awful.
“Dream Girl” takes a good critical look at the constant barrage of negative impacts we enduring, one post at a time, in our ceaseless quest for keeping up with our digital Joneses.
Following Book Buddies single, “Neon,” lyricist and vocalist Rebecca Dalley’s unpretentious ode to her beloved old beater, “Dream Girl” is a call for all of us to live our lives a little more authentically (no matter what we drive).
“I wrote it a few years ago and it has had so many different meanings for me since then,” explains Dalley. “I really just wrote ‘Dream Girl’ as a way to just vent about the fakeness of the internet and the way that social media allows people into your life in a way that they feel they know you just from what they see online when in reality half of the shit we see isn’t even really authentic or real at all.
The song paints a pretty picture of a bright and shiny internet persona, the kind you assume either has to be too good to be true or the direct beneficiary of a healthy trust fund. The internet is full of them.
But like all things on the internet (present company excluded, we’d hope) we must take all of this with a grain of salt. For all that we see of our bright and shiny internet friends and those larger-than-life influencers, Dalley asks how much do we really know? And how much does anyone really know about us based solely on what’s available online? And how quickly are people ready to assume the worst like it’s some kind of online sport?
“I feel like everyone has felt misunderstood online at some point in time,” says Dalley. “The song is really a big vent about the way some people use social media to view others, giving them this feeling of knowing who someone is, being able to judge someone you’ve never met because you think you know everything about them because you’ve followed them online for a few years or something.”
Practically a lifetime ago, the impossible standards we were imposing on ourselves were, admittedly, impossible; they were movie stars and models, the 1%’ers at the crossroads of good looks and good luck. Now we’re constantly surrounded with filter-perfect images of people living their best lives with the expectation that we could and should be doing the same.
“It’s also something that I feel touches on your own insecurities with self-image,” adds Dalley. “The pressure that the internet puts on women to look perfect is so damaging and it leads into real life. Like growing up, I couldn’t go to the store without makeup on, couldn’t picture myself leaving the house without it. From that, then into photoshop and editing your appearance, the pressure to be that ‘dream girl’ is so damaging for so many women, and it causes a lifetime of insecurities to unlearn and then to try and love yourself for you is a whole other journey.
“I wrote the song to get through some tough times in understanding myself and the feelings I have towards the internet and I hope it helps others do that too.”
Social media is scary.
Book Buddies’ debut album is expected to be released during the Fall of 2021.