Surely we all looked dramatically out a rainy window at some point in our childhood, pretending to be in a music video? Remember when we 2000s babies actually could make it a reality?
This is for anyone out there who is missing the time when life was simpler. A time when it was considered cool to put a filter of a slow motion poorly rendered rainbow over video footage of someone running through their grandma’s garden. I’m talking about the peak of the music video-making app, Video Star.
I swear Video Star changed the brain chemistry of so many of us 2000’s babies. Suddenly we had access to a repertoire of popular songs and the technology to be our own little directors. I remember making a music video for Taylor Swift’s All Too Well that was complete with the crumpled up piece of paper lying there and the pink sparkly scarf from the drawer. I don’t think eight-year-old me understood what a breakup was, but she was a little actress at heart. When Cher Lloyd released her hit song, Sirens, suddenly I was portraying the role of the wife, the abusive husband, and the helpless daughter. That’s what I call range.
Little me was ahead of her time when she made the edgy video to Potential Breakup Song by Aly and AJ. I wore ripped black leggings with a slip in between them and a sparkly black tank top. With that outfit, I whipped my hair back and forth as Willow Smith had told me to at the time. The music video started dramatically zooming in on my face with the black and white tv effect over it. Again, the girls who get it get it.
The great thing about Video Star was that you were the cool kid for using it. Generation Alpha would roll their eyes so far back into their heads if they watched one of the video stars from the 2000s, but we know what it did for the world. Writing out lyrics on whiteboards or filming in mirrors was the peak of innovation. The only thing is we get to say we did it before Tiktok.