Billie Eilish: The Philosophy Of An Outsider

How a mainstream artist is expressing what many of us feel deep down in our darkest moments

It’s strange that someone like Billie Eilish became so immensely popular. Don’t get me wrong, she has talent, but I’m more surprised of how unorthodox she really is for a mainstream singer. Her lyrics are dark, her mood is melancholic, brooding, and even nihilistic at times. But if you’ve paid attention to what is psychologically repressed in our modern age, then it all makes sense.

Our age presents itself as “the greatest time to be alive” — so many high-tech devices and so many good TV shows and travelling is more accessible than ever etc. Yet, if you look at the statistics, depression rates are the highest in recorded history and suicide rates are only going up in developed countries. How could that be? Here in the West, we seem to have it all, and yet we are so miserable.

Why? I think it’s because we’re not allowed to be sad. We’re not allowed to acknowledge that our life is meaningless at times, because how could that be? We have it all, don’t we? We’re living the capitalist dream in which we are materially self-sufficient, so how dare we be sad? Look at those African kids, dying of hunger, they are sad! You? How dare you be sad?!

The problem is, when we’re materially self-sufficient and we have so much…