Unapologetically a Teenager: Olivia Rodrigo Is Not Holding Back

Olivia Rodrigo saw her life-changing abruptly with the release of her debut single “Drivers Licence” on January 8 of this year. TikTok decided to take her heartbreaking lyrics personally and investigate an old drama, supposedly, with her co-star, Joshua Bassett in the Disney Plus show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. She became a phenomenon in less than a week and the new Internet sweetheart after a great match with producer Dan Nigro. But we all know how social media has a reputation of turning their backs to people they once put on a pedestal, so Olivia wasn’t different, it was just astronomically fast. Why? Because “she talks too much of Taylor Swift” and “she’s obsessed with her ex”, “petty”, “overrated”, “childish”, “cringe” and the list goes on. The only answer I see for this is because Rodrigo is not afraid to be a teenager and people in their twenties seem to forget that.

After four months since the debut and two more singles, Olivia released her first album called SOUR and added a few more record-breaking to her list. The eleven tracks show how she is a very talented songwriter and knows how to explore really well all these raw feelings we have when we are seventeen. 

Girls start being told what to do from a very young age, we can’t be too dramatic or no one will like us, we can’t be too loud, always have to look pretty and be understandable. This leads to teenagers bottling up their feelings when all there should be is pure rage and Olivia knows that, she doesn’t hold back to make it clear that everything makes her angry, anxious, insecure, jealous, and that being batshit crazy is actually very cool. That’s why as a twenty-something myself, I can't understand how adults have a problem with a pop star that’s out there validating emotions of such a vulnerable audience just by being herself. 

I remember having Lorde when I was thirteen and that was an out of body experience (still is), there was a girl only three years older than me on the radio singing about killing time with her friends, do silly things in a small city, how scared she was of growing up and the way we were already letting the Internet control our lives. That mattered a lot to me because that’s what art is, right? Touching people. I was very grateful to have that so, naturally, I want early Gen Z to have that too, and it makes me happy that Olivia seems to be the one delivering this to them. They both might not talk about the exact same things, but still are two teenagers that gained a big platform while songwriting about their experiences at the moment.  

Growing up, we tend to forget about little things that seemed huge when we were younger, maybe that’s the root for all the weird backlash that Olivia Rodrigo is receiving. Maturing is realizing that yes, a bunch of our teenage years was made of embarrassment and cringe moments but it’s okay because those experiences made us who we are now, we can’t forget that. It's bittersweet when we acknowledge that we'll never have those moments again, they just became tiny fragments of our adulthood. Remember that you were there once too, living in your own teen bubble and now you have to respect other people's process and cheer for them because it is so easy to lose yourself at this age and once you grow up and pop the bubble, it’s a whole other story.

Where is the problem in dedicating an album to a single boy or having sure the world is against you and your anxiety? What about spending an obsessive amount of time on Instagram stalking pretty people so you can ugly cry in your bed later? A classic. Good for her. Stop harassing teenage girls for being themselves while masking it as “just an opinion”, you’re not obligated to like Olivia Rodrigo’s songs but you have to understand that her success is not overrated just because it is not directed towards you. She is a woman of color telling kids to not be afraid of who they are and what they feel because it’s normal to have brutal and weird thoughts while going through tough times. To allow yourself to let it all out is very brave, something that is not very explored in the mainstream for girls.

You can tell how important music is to Rodrigo and how she learned from the artists she grew up listening to. I can’t imagine myself going through freshman year of college without Melodrama and that’s what's so majestic about art because these incredibly talented women have the privilege to be vocal about their feelings and teach other ones how to be vocal about it too. Certain artists' content might not be for you but it doesn’t invalidate how special it can be for others, when you see from this point of view you can maybe understand why it became so special for a certain audience, it’s a piece of art they will carry with them for life. 

Olivia is construing a path to find her own voice and journey in the music industry, discovering what she likes and what she doesn’t, who knows, maybe in a few years she will look back to her debut album and have a lot of different opinions to it and use this to create something even more unapologetically her. Which is the whole point. I’m very excited to see her coming of age while maturing as an artist because I know she will make something beautiful out of it while being followed by a million people that are on the same page as her and will learn through her lessons, mistakes, and joys.