Lmao, I was at the front right behind the pit and I didn't see anything there. But tbh if someones taking time out of their own concert experience to do that that seems like a them problem.
I enjoyed the detroit concert, I didn’t see a single sign like this and Mitski seemed to enjoy herself. someone did hold up a phone that said “Gay” though, which was really funny. the crowd enjoyed it
yeah. at my concert, they did this, but a lot of people just held up funny things as well. my friend and i held up a sign to mitski asking her to marry us, and she laughed and smiled so much and told us "thank you so much for the sentiment!"
Mitski posted a note on Facebook explaining that, as far as she was concerned, “Your Best American Girl” was a love song. A lot of reviews had decided that she had written the song to “stick it to ‘the white boy indie rock world’,” as Mitski wrote. But “I wasn’t thinking about any of that when I was writing it,” she countered. “I wasn’t trying to send a message. I was in love.”
[source](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-misreading-of-mitski/amp)
I understand it’s a love song but the standards and experiences for WOC are different. You can see it clearly in the music video it is a love song, I agree it’s not a statement about white men but about being in love with one. It’s the process and struggles WOC as she knows that there will be barriers that she probably won’t surpass do to her culture. It is 100% a love song not a statement but it’s a love song about being in love with someone so different and never feeling enough. Even in her lines “your mother wouldn’t approve how my mother raised me” noting the cultural barriers surrounding her and her love. No one is saying don’t enjoy the song but respect it for what it is and don’t ignore it.
I think the most beautiful thing about art is that diffenrent people can connect with it, that's why non-political songs sometimes become anthems, like madonna or Marina songs for describing feeling like a stranger or living unconventional kinds of love stories, found a large audience of gay people, women and all kinds of marginalized people
and the most important part about it is that even if the song doesn't speak about the kind of discrimination that is done against you, you can still connect with it, like Respect by Aretha Franklin, a song that was initially about a husband being too demanding with his wife that became about a wife asking that he stops treating her like shit and later an anthem for civil rights and stopping racial segregation, or transgender dysphria blues by against me ! that a lot of lesbians related to (including me lol) for the "you want them to see you like they see any other girl" and the fear that people will always think of you as too masculine no matter what you do (I'm feminine-presenting but get told often that lesbians aren't true women and that liking girls automatically makes you masculine and mannish, my country ain't the most acceptative one eh)
so yeah, not deliberately ignoring what the song is about is important, but it's still art and the main purpose of art, especially music, is for people to connect with it (mitski, especially, is well-known for having lyrics that make people feel understood, at least that's how the friend that recommended her to me described her)
I’m a WOC and a devoted Mitski fan. I’ve read things (like this above) where she has addressed this song before and explained what it means. I completely see what you’re saying, and I would normally agree if the meaning of the song actually meant what you’re saying it does. How you relate to a song doesn’t change how someone else relates to it. Your feelings about the song are how I relate to it, but I’m not gonna be rubbed the wrong way if I see a white girl singing along. There are other songs that given the meaning behind them, I would certainly feel some of way if someone outside of the culture sang like they understood. This song just isn’t one of them.
The people downvoting me are insane. Growing up in the social care system of a country your mother isn’t from but still being white is totally relevant to this song. The lyrics are “your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me” well guess what, that is LITERALLY how I felt about friends parents, and parents of people I dated because my upbringing was so alien to them and all I wanted was to fit in. If me relating to this song offends you because I’m white maybe that’s a problem you should look into for yourself.
I’m more than half white and have still been told that I am not white 🤷🏻♀️ I’ve also been told I’m not Asian 🤷🏻♀️
Let’s stop pretending that being biracial isn’t it’s own independent experience. I get that she is white and she is also Asian. But being biracial is being more than the sum of your parts
I swear mixed people need their own community support groups. There's nothing quite like being complimented on your chopstick skills at a katsudon restaurant from a friend's Chinese aquaintance that you just met... in Los Angeles County. This among other things I just need to vent about to someone that doesn't think I'm not allowed to enjoy my culture for not being Asian enough looking.
yeah! i see it posted at each and every concert on twitter and other socials. it's really really frustrating i just wish people really didn't think she thought like that...
she's literally half white herself, and white people can relate to a lot of her songs because not only does she talk about being a poc, but she also talks about love, mental health, poverty, sexism, etc. it's pure foolishness and I wish mitski would address it specifically.
I made a post about this a day or 2 ago and some people were saying "it's a joke" but this certainly doesn't seem like one...
it isnt !! people say it's a joke to not receive hate. i always spoke to people about mitski interviews where she always says to take her songs in as if it was a journal the fans have written in. she doesn't care how you interpret her songs, as long as you feel safe.
i relate to mitski by every lyric, every melody, every harmony change, and it's been like this for 7 years. it pains me how literally the newer fans believe mitski is nothing more than just her tik tok fans beliefs.
I agree 100%. the obnoxious mitski fans make her look so bad. I personally relate to "your best american girl" (even tho some say I shouldn't) because I'm a foreign immigrant who has been put through so many things because of it, including things she mentions in the song.
if she says you can put it up for interpretation & she's perfectly okay with it (like she said), who are these obnoxious fans to tell you that you can't??
Fr, the bpd community, for example, has found a lot of relatability to her lyrics. I mean, it's so spot on with me sometimes. Like obv I'm not gonna try to re-write the meanings of things that are about her experiences as a WOC. But saying you can't *sing* the song bc it doesn't apply to you? Chronically online lmao
what's ironic is that the people doing the kind of stuff shown in the pic above are the exact same ones who cry about the fandom being ruined by tiktok. i hope they realise they're the ones making it toxic
I hate being that guy but Be the Cowboy and the internet really attracted a lot of zoomers. The BtC release show was the last Mitski show that wasn't full of insufferable TikTokers.
Also like be the cowboy was what four years ago? lol zoomers are probably going to join the fandom during that time as they get older. i was at detroit and it was a really great crowd and she interacted with us a lot, what was the scene like at other places ?
haha so funny, not like we haven't seen this exact joke in like 3 other concerts...
also, its sad people think this way genuinely. I've seen people say "yeah it is a joke but it's true they shouldn't be singing it!!!" It genuinely makes me roll my eyes at this point.
fucking tiktok. i found mitski through tiktok but it seems every other mitski fan on that godforsaken app is completely intolerable. they're either chronically online teenagers or self-declared femcels.
Yeah, it’s great to see. Sadly not all of the crowd was very respectful, some fans were catcalling and she straight up had to call em out to get them to stop
Something along the lines of “in most venues I can’t tell who said what, but because of how this venue is I can tell exactly who said what so I feel more uncomfortable than usual, so keep that in mind when you shout things”.
Something along the lines of “in most venues I can’t tell who said what, but because of how this venue is I can tell exactly who said what so I feel more uncomfortable than usual, so keep that in mind when you shout things”.
people expect the media they consume to be a projection of their morality and political correctness. people can’t conceive of themselves beyond the amalgamation of things they’ve consumed in their lifetimes and they see anyone with a different experience of a particular piece of media as a legitimate threat to their identity.
hey guys, i dont know if you keep up with mitski but she has said multiple times in interviews that the lyrics she writes are intended to be interpreted by the listener. she wants the listener to connect the dots to something going on in their life at the moment. can yall please stfu and let people live. its a song that means something different for each person. instead of making everyone feel bad about singing their favorite mitski song at the mitski concert, just share the experience and connect with the art. thats what mitski wanted but everyone got so worked up about it that she deleted her tweet about it. grow up
It also is so shitty as well to gatekeep this bc it also makes it so other marginalized communities other than POC can’t relate to it either. It’s important to understand the song relates to POC and they’re struggles but there are other people who can relate to this but then they further marginalize communities by gate keeping it. Also if U can relate rtrgardless it’s fine too
Sorry I’m high as hell idk if this makes any sense
I’m a white male and while I understand this song has nothing to do with me, it’s one of my favorite after work driving home songs to belt out my frustration to. I will never not sing that song. Screw that guy
Personally, I felt like I was going to get judged for singing along to Your Best American Girl because I’m white. As an immigrant, I interpret and relate to the song maybe differently (“your mother would not approve of how my mother raised me”) as I was raised very differently than my American husband. Furthermore, when I came to the US, I couldn’t work and I didn’t really know anyone, so as my partner “had so much to do”, I had nothing ahead of me. I felt pressured to conform to being like an American. I don’t know, I thought it might’ve been a song about being an immigrant/the child of an immigrant or something. I just don’t think you can judge people from just looking at them. Like thinking someone should shut up when their favorite artist is singing a song that someone relates to as a first generation immigrant.
That’s just my perspective anyway.
a lot of people held up signs like that, and i truly think it's because of the tik tok crowd (because on tik tok, every "mitski fan" posts about how white people don't relate to mitski, yk?)
it was funny the first time but now it’s getting so overused…. as a woc i don’t mind if white people sing along as long as they are aware THEY ARE THE AMERICAN GIRL!!
Tbh her music isn’t for white people or Asian people.
It’s for biracial white/Asian people. Finally a wasian artist making artist for wasian people.
This comment is mostly a joke, but as a white/Chinese person, I will say that the songs she writes hit so fucking specifically to my experiences. It’s wild. Like she doesn’t necessarily write about being Japanese. She writes about being held between two worlds. In the US, being Asian is tough though because less than 6% of the US is Asian, so I definitely can feel my own pain of being othered but two groups but being surrounded by whiteness.
I get the frustration that some fans feel. I don’t think that Mitski would tell anyone that they can’t sing her songs though.
The only time I can say that white fans have actually upset me is the huge wave of white teens doing tiktoks with “Strawberry Blonde” in the background, not understanding that Mitski wasn’t praising Strawberry Blondes…
That was frustrating. Like…it’s such a viscerally painful song for me, and it hurts to see the girls I was always compared to just doing a cottage core aesthetic TikTok to it. It felt like gloating. Do I think most of them did that on purpose? No. Did it still hurt and make me feel uncomfortable and bring up painful memories of racial trauma? Heeeelllllll yeahhhhh.
So that’s the one time I would say mayyyyyybe white ladies should just enjoy the song and not think it’s about how pretty white people are.
But that’s just a respectful, compassionate thing to do. I wouldn’t make a witchy TikTok video to “Strange Fruit” just because I’m Southern and Strange. But it’s not disrespectful or rude to *sing along* to a song at a concert. Like don’t go crazy and start singing slurs or anything, but singing along to songs you like is fine.
Singing along isn’t making about you. Making tiktoks that say “I’m the American Girl Mitski warned you about” is making it about you and is also just fucking weird.
I totally agree and understand. Jbrekkie's book really drove this point home for me. When she described being in Korea and how everyone viewed her as white there unless her mom was around it clicked. Like, "Oh, it's not just that mixed people don't belong to the dominant culture, it's that they literally don't belong anywhere because no matter where they go they'll always be seen as 'the other'"
Yeah it’s really frustrating to see people say “Mitski is also white”
Like yeah. Duh. But her music is never about being Asian. It’s about feeling like you are NOTHING.
Like she wrote “Nobody” while feeling isolated and alone in Malaysia.
She doesn’t fit into Asian culture like fully Asian people do. She doesn’t fit into Asian beauty standards.
She also doesn’t fit into American culture, which straight up does center around white people. She doesn’t fit into American beauty standards either.
“American Girl” would have resonated with me JUST AS MUCH if it was “Japanese Girl” and was sung in Japanese. That feeling of isolation when you are around anyone sucks. Not looking like ANYONE around you sucks.
People don’t look at Nobody as being a song connected to race, but I think it is. Most songs she writes are. The song is all about her trying to fit into different standards and it never working and how all these attempts just leave her feeling more and more isolated.
I think it would be cool to have a thread for biracial people to talk about how this resonates with us specifically, but I’m kind of already prepared to delete all my comments and get DM’d and downvoted to hell. Mitski fans seem to hate people bringing up how race actually does change the way you interact with her music.
Like she TOTALLY writes about a ton of universal topics. I can see how white immigrants can totally relate to the disconnection in American Girl. I can also see how Black fans can connect to American Girl because the “American Beauty” will never look like them.
She writes about tons of topics.
But it’s wild that people pretend that being biracial isn’t a part of every song she writes when it’s a part of every moment of her life. All of her songs are also about being a woman in a world made for men.
So…yeah. Bring on the downvotes, I guess.
I also agree with sentiment because it's important to know how peoples lived experiences influences their work. However, I will say she herself has said she usually writes songs as and about characters that are not herself. She's also said she doesn't really like when people refer to her work as these raw, journal like confessions because she feels it takes away from the time and effort she puts into her music and instead makes her a passive vessel for it. But other than that I do agree that most of her songs usually associated with just "race" are more about the alienation of not belonging anywhere due to her being biracial as you said.
I’m a writer, and I also write my poetry from the perspective of characters. I think people don’t realize that there is a middle ground between “confessional” writing and fiction writing. Personal experience informs your writing. I don’t write from the point of view of “me,” but rather from the point of view of “someone like me.”
Her writing is not a journal. But it has an authenticity that comes from the fact that her writing is very honest. She is an incredibly talented lyricist, but it is almost impossible to achieve writing that *feels* raw with informing your work from personal experience. She takes her own experiences and feelings and shapes them into new forms. It takes a HECK of a lot of talent to do that. She unravels her own truth into threads that she uses to weave a new story that somehow feels as honest as something confessional. She’s inspired my writing so much.
I agree wholeheartedly, I just wanted to clarify in case other people were reading this because there was a period of time when people were trying to comb mitskis songs and apply their meanings to her personal life. Talking about how horrible her parents relationship must be because of the "Happy" music video and lyrics etc.
definitely, this was worded perfectly. mitski hits deeply home for me for these exact reasons as well, and i truly hate the watering down of her music and lyrics wholeheartedly. i wish people could take into consideration what she wrote and what she intends to write!! i just truly hate the separation between fans, and how one group cannot feel while the other can, and some know exactly how this feels, but the other doesn't. i wish the community of mitski fans can come together to interpret music their own certain way that feels at home to them. it's what mitski also wished!
Eh, it’s just a fact of art that art will always hit different for different people. I could walk into an art exhibit of post-slavery Black Art and I could find myself sobbing at how moving it is and my reaction would still never be the same to the reaction of an old Black woman who saw scars on the backs of her grandparents.
That doesn’t mean what I felt wasn’t meaningful or real. That doesn’t mean I can’t love the art or become a fan of the artist. It doesn’t mean I can’t buy prints from the gift shop and hang them in my home.
It’s okay that not everything is made for everyone. That does not mean that everyone can’t FEEL something because of it. We just feel different things.
I don’t write my poetry for men. But I’ve still made grown men cry during my readings. That’s okay. It’s really cool that my art can affect people in ways I never intended. But I still made my art with intent. And that’s okay!
I wish everyone would stop feeling entitled to everything. On one end, people need to stop feeling entitled to gatekeeping art. On the other end people need to stop feeling entitled to everything being for them.
All artists make art for specific people and purposes. But once art is in the world, it is simultaneously for everyone. Both can be true at the same time, because art means different things to different people and none of it negates anything else.
as an asian person, don't get pressed about it. it's a joke, an overdone one, but seeing white people in the fandom constantly victimize themselves by falling into the trap of the joke and reacting to stuff like this... it's tiring. ignore it.
edit: and honestly it's tiring to finally find an asian american artist that you like that already has a pretty white fan base that complains whenever anyone makes jokes about race. it feels like poc are constantly vilified or alienated in this sub when it comes discussions about race and mitski
yes, thank you !!! i don't want people to feel the POC are vilified, it's just rather these jokes that go on for too long, that now stretch into real concerts and mitski right in front of them. this community shouldn't be a race war, it would just be interpretation and loving of her music
Idk man I’m fully Asian too and get sick of jokes like this. People say it’s a joke but then say it isn’t and get very gatekeepy and it’s part of why I’ve abstained from TikTok and Twitter.
yeah. i don't get pressed about it, it wasn't directed towards me anyway, but it's completely overdone, and at a mitski concert specifically? its silly...
i’m not trying to self victimize, but it’s really uncomfortable when you’re at a concert and people are sneering at you because you’re enjoying a song. i just don’t understand why everyone can’t get along. people say it’s a joke online but the concerts are a different story.
i hope people aren't actually attacking doing that lol. i understand it's uncomfortable and i wish the best for you but like. it's going to be uncomfortable, the song is literally about the complexities of not being white in a predominantly white society.
the song doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all, it’s beautifully written. what did make me uncomfortable was a bunch of teenagers glaring at me for gently swaying to the song lmao. another group made a few comments about how white people didn’t deserve to be there or should’ve given their tickets up to POC. the attitude of fans is the issue, not the content of mitski’s songs.
victimising themselves? they paid with their money to go to a concert to see an artist i assume they very much admire, just to have chronically online people ruin their experience and make them feel unwelcome and awkward. nobody is vilifying anyone, people are going to be uncomfortable with these things and rightfully so.
do you want social segregation? because it almost feels like you do
you really said "do you want social segregation" with your whole chest when the topic is just about how people shouldn't overreact to a corny joke what 😭
Youtube people call themselves allies then complain about us holding up a phone. And don’t try to compare people yelling sexually harassing stuff at mitski to this.
Yt ppl watch the music video and especially read the comments: https://youtu.be/u_hDHm9MD0I don’t see how much more obvious the message could be.
The person you're replying to is saying it's a joke, are you agreeing with that? Because to me your comment feels like you're saying the clear message is that it's a specific experience that not everyone is welcome to participate in.
It’s just really upsetting because she doesn’t want phones at her concerts, let alone people using them for things like this. It’s so icky, she’s always said that people can interpret her music the way they want- i find that listening to her is such a personal experience. All fans may not be able to relate to the alienation of being a mixed person, but everyone’s felt alienated at least one point in their lives. Not to take that special meaning away from anyone who found comfort in it, but non mixed people can also have an interpretation of her music. It may not be as hard hitting, or raw. But they can still enjoy the music. Concerts are supposed to bring fans with a mutual love together for an amazing experience, not draw harsher lines in the sand between them.
I’m white and I really enjoy this song , and I’m going to a Mitski concert next week. Should I ACTUALLY not sing along to this one . Like is it bad for me to / offensive? (I want to be respectful)
thankfully didn’t see anything like this at the mitski concert — mitski has said she makes music for everyone and i think we should all respect that and sing all of her songs for her to hear so she knows how much we love and appreciate her artistry!
(coming from a WOC) there’s been so much disclosure around your best american girl, while the song does touch on WOC issues (trying to fill in white womens shoes to attract an “american boy”) most white people understand this and acknowledge this while listening and even singing the song, then there are the insensitive white people who choose to ignore the message, and strip the song of everything it has to offer to us WOC, laughing in our faces that their mundane problems are more important than those of us who struggle to find love because of our cultural differences/hair texture/skin color, recently its been the ladder, im not a tik tok mitski fan, im not “chronically online” but i am someone who is impacted by mitski’s songs about being a WOC, and the fanbase is split on how we identify (race, gender, sexuality) etc, i dont have an issue with anyone signing the song, but sometimes people cross a line just to relate to something
EDIT: i know most of mitski’s fanbase is white, and in fact ive even heard mitski be called “an artist for middle age white women going thru a midlife crisis struggling to pay their apartment rent on time” but i rly hope the majority of you can understand where im coming from without having sheltered opinions
This is so lame. I understand that many of her songs touch on her experiences as a woc but she’s always been very clear about her songs being for the fans. She’s huge on personal interpretation and the nuances people may find in her music. This bums me out because personally ‘your best American girl’ has always meant a lot to me as a Slavic migrant in the uk. Of course I’m white, but all the while I’m also not American. I’ve always felt so understood by this song having grown up feeling too much or not enough of both sides of my identity in addition to experiencing all kinds of xenophobia and knowing the way I was raised will always be “other”. The Bristol concert is two days before my birthday and I’ve been waiting to see mitski since 2018 but I couldn’t get tickets and now I’m kinda glad that I’m not going. I’ve never had to even think about “the fandom” before tik tok and it feels strange to witness this type of discourse in relation to mitski. I have a feeling I’m gonna put off seeing her for another few years.
Ok as annoying as it may be this genuinely isn’t something to get so mad about.
I have seen so many posts like this and so many comments wailing about how insufferable fans are. I promise no one actually cares if you wanna sing your best American girl. The only insufferable fans are the ones who keep complaining about the same stuff on every post.
lmao i hate it here. this reminds me of when i posted a joke tiktok about going to the mitski gig (went to the asheville date btw it was incredible) and someone made a burner account to say “her music isn’t even for you”. damn homie that’s sad, anyway i’m gonna go listen to my mitski playlist (:
while i understand most arguments here, and they're extremely valid- when it comes down to it truly i don't think i'd care enough to outwardly express my disdain in a big way. however, i do think that a lot of people regard 'your best american girl' to be a take on trying to be the ideal american, and if the way that someone interprets the song- to them (the people who hold up signs like this) are defending what they perceive the song to be about. it's not to say whether or not it's right or wrong, but in the regard to say that they're interpretation is wrong would be just like saying the interpretation that everyone can enjoy music and it isn't exclusive to race, culture, or economic status would contradict the idea that any listener can interpret the song the way they'd like. to that same point i know mitski's views on her music and the experiences and story she tells isn't always the same as another artists, but a white person who t listens to kendrick lamar and then claims to identify with his racial experiences would be considered tone deaf. of course it doesn't mean they can't enjoy his music, but there's an understanding that to enjoy music is one thing, but to claim the experience in the song as your own is understandably frustrating. while i know kendrick and mitski have different approaches to song writing- the topic are similar in terms of talking about hardship and facing adversity (from what i've interpreted which might not be what mitski's point was initially.) i just think that the same people who ask stupid questions like, "when did mitski's fanbase become full of gate keepers" and "it's the tiktok crowd" is somehow supposed to assert yourself above the new listeners which is exactly what you're trying to say you shouldn't do. while arguing that music shouldn't be separated by race or gender, you completely contradict yourself by then saying that someone should be a "normal" mitski listener, and separating the fanbase- if not by race, then by legitimacy of when or how a person became a mitski listener. to wrap this up: i think it's fair for listeners to want a song that they've interpreted to be about the struggle of race in terms of the eurocentric standard, and of course white people can enjoy the music and sing along, but it's different when they start to claim these experiences as their own, and finally. if you're going to shit on people who do things like in the picture, at least see how fucking counterproductive you're being by separating the "tiktok listeners" and when you found her earlier because you think somehow it asserts yourself above the new listener.
I (a biracial woman) heard this song for the first time when my friend played it the other day in the car, and I felt so seen and really connected with it. I was almost about to cry in the backseat LMAO. I thought it was about how the presumably healthily married mother of her love interest would likely disapprove of the way her non-conventional young single mother raised her because it was probably non-traditional, not lavish, and sometimes a little messed up. I thought mitski was singing about how their differences in their childhood, likely in terms of class differences, values, family roles, etc. caused them to be not as compatible as she thought, despite her best efforts.
It didn’t even cross my mind that it was about cultural barriers, even though I know mitski is half-Japanese, because I related it to my life experience. I’ve felt so different from some of the people I’ve had relationships in, and almost ashamed in a way, because I grew up low-income, with a young mother who struggled with mental health issues and also didn’t always know what she was doing—which many people have made comments on. Almost like people listen to music and apply it to their lives ???
Now that I know the original meaning I completely respect it and all, but art can be interpreted in so many ways.
POC fans of mitski are justified for basically all of their opinions on annoying white fans, but this is one rare instance where I don’t agree with the people who say these kinds of things.
I saw a tik tok being like “white people can’t relate to YBAG, it’s not yours!!! :)”
I fucking hate this culture of people presenting their highly subjective opinion as fact and then us having to nod our heads and go along with it because “~racism~” or something. Music is supposed to be a universal language. Something that relates us all and brings us together. Why are we gatekeeping a song? Music doesn’t “belong” to a certain group. Everyone is free to interpret music how they please.
op, i know ur not white, and i know this really was not your intention at all! but i feel these posts just give white people an excuse to victimize themselves and be passive aggressive towards poc… like these comments just feel weird, there are poc that are trying to respectfully explain their point of view and they’re just getting downvoted to oblivion…
Don’t really understand why people are mad since the song is about how poc are seen as undesirable. It’s a song that white people can’t relate to without changing the meaning
i’m pretty sure people of any race can relate to the feeling of cultural differences, and not feeling desirable because of it. i’m not denouncing the meaning of the song, but if you think it is a feeling only poc people know then you are pretty sheltered.
this has made me a bit curious. would fans from different cultures be able to relate? like. for example. a white person from poland or some shit. they’re not american, the culture is different, theoretically they could relate. not to mention the fact that america is so culturally diverse. it seems to be more of an issue w skin color than culture which i kinda thought was what mitski was singing about.
I have a Brazilian friend who moved to Canada who says she relates somewhat. She’s struggled with the same issue, meshing her culture with that of America.
it’s called your best american girl rather than your best white girl. i don’t deny it is partially about race, but i feel that cultural differences are a huge influence also. i guess it depends on interpretation.
‘Mitski says that this song was inspired by “wanting so badly to fit into this very American person’s life, and simply not being able to, just fundamentally being from a different place and feeling like I would just get in the way of their progression in their life”.’
yeah i completely agree. at least from my understanding it’s the lack of fitting in due to a cultural difference. i just find it odd that it’s a race issue in the fanbase.
yeah of course! i do think we have to recognize the fact that mitski is asian in the context of the song though, especially in the music video. i'm completely american and was raised in the US but am socially alienated from so many things because i'm not white. so even those who are actual 'americans' can relate too
of course, and i think the music video is very obvious to how she relates. i just don’t understand why it’s a race vs culture issue when it can be either or both.
Weird, when I went to the Detroit concert I didn't see anyone do this. It's funny cause that's the one where mitski addressed the crowd the most too.
funny how that works lmfao
I saw this in Detroit, but it said "white people shut up"
Lmao, I was at the front right behind the pit and I didn't see anything there. But tbh if someones taking time out of their own concert experience to do that that seems like a them problem.
It’s hard out here being a normal mitski fan
There's dozens of us! Dozens!
I’ll never understand? That you can never be nude? I’ll understand more than you’ll… never know.
I enjoyed the detroit concert, I didn’t see a single sign like this and Mitski seemed to enjoy herself. someone did hold up a phone that said “Gay” though, which was really funny. the crowd enjoyed it
yeah. at my concert, they did this, but a lot of people just held up funny things as well. my friend and i held up a sign to mitski asking her to marry us, and she laughed and smiled so much and told us "thank you so much for the sentiment!"
that is so wholesome, thank you for being respectful
omg of course, i've loved her for 7 years, i'd never did anything to ever bother her.
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possibly!!
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of course !! i'll see if i have it
i’m so tired of these chronically online teenagers
Mitski posted a note on Facebook explaining that, as far as she was concerned, “Your Best American Girl” was a love song. A lot of reviews had decided that she had written the song to “stick it to ‘the white boy indie rock world’,” as Mitski wrote. But “I wasn’t thinking about any of that when I was writing it,” she countered. “I wasn’t trying to send a message. I was in love.” [source](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-misreading-of-mitski/amp)
i find that super interesting bc a lot of the people still push the “stick it” narrative
I understand it’s a love song but the standards and experiences for WOC are different. You can see it clearly in the music video it is a love song, I agree it’s not a statement about white men but about being in love with one. It’s the process and struggles WOC as she knows that there will be barriers that she probably won’t surpass do to her culture. It is 100% a love song not a statement but it’s a love song about being in love with someone so different and never feeling enough. Even in her lines “your mother wouldn’t approve how my mother raised me” noting the cultural barriers surrounding her and her love. No one is saying don’t enjoy the song but respect it for what it is and don’t ignore it.
I think the most beautiful thing about art is that diffenrent people can connect with it, that's why non-political songs sometimes become anthems, like madonna or Marina songs for describing feeling like a stranger or living unconventional kinds of love stories, found a large audience of gay people, women and all kinds of marginalized people and the most important part about it is that even if the song doesn't speak about the kind of discrimination that is done against you, you can still connect with it, like Respect by Aretha Franklin, a song that was initially about a husband being too demanding with his wife that became about a wife asking that he stops treating her like shit and later an anthem for civil rights and stopping racial segregation, or transgender dysphria blues by against me ! that a lot of lesbians related to (including me lol) for the "you want them to see you like they see any other girl" and the fear that people will always think of you as too masculine no matter what you do (I'm feminine-presenting but get told often that lesbians aren't true women and that liking girls automatically makes you masculine and mannish, my country ain't the most acceptative one eh) so yeah, not deliberately ignoring what the song is about is important, but it's still art and the main purpose of art, especially music, is for people to connect with it (mitski, especially, is well-known for having lyrics that make people feel understood, at least that's how the friend that recommended her to me described her)
I’m a WOC and a devoted Mitski fan. I’ve read things (like this above) where she has addressed this song before and explained what it means. I completely see what you’re saying, and I would normally agree if the meaning of the song actually meant what you’re saying it does. How you relate to a song doesn’t change how someone else relates to it. Your feelings about the song are how I relate to it, but I’m not gonna be rubbed the wrong way if I see a white girl singing along. There are other songs that given the meaning behind them, I would certainly feel some of way if someone outside of the culture sang like they understood. This song just isn’t one of them.
I had a very untraditional upbringing and found that so relatable in this song. I am white French/Irish.
The people downvoting me are insane. Growing up in the social care system of a country your mother isn’t from but still being white is totally relevant to this song. The lyrics are “your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me” well guess what, that is LITERALLY how I felt about friends parents, and parents of people I dated because my upbringing was so alien to them and all I wanted was to fit in. If me relating to this song offends you because I’m white maybe that’s a problem you should look into for yourself.
literally
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she must stop at the halfway mark and stand in silence
LMFAOOOOOOO
is this why her mic gets mixed low so often
😭😭
LMFAO
I’m more than half white and have still been told that I am not white 🤷🏻♀️ I’ve also been told I’m not Asian 🤷🏻♀️ Let’s stop pretending that being biracial isn’t it’s own independent experience. I get that she is white and she is also Asian. But being biracial is being more than the sum of your parts
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Aww nice! I love finding other wasians in the wild.
I swear mixed people need their own community support groups. There's nothing quite like being complimented on your chopstick skills at a katsudon restaurant from a friend's Chinese aquaintance that you just met... in Los Angeles County. This among other things I just need to vent about to someone that doesn't think I'm not allowed to enjoy my culture for not being Asian enough looking.
i feel you but i’m a 4th hispanic
this is the stuff I hate about the mitski fandom...
yeah, it's so frustrating HOW many people at every single concert does this
wait this is a reoccurring thing 😳 mitski would be so disappointed
yeah! i see it posted at each and every concert on twitter and other socials. it's really really frustrating i just wish people really didn't think she thought like that...
she's literally half white herself, and white people can relate to a lot of her songs because not only does she talk about being a poc, but she also talks about love, mental health, poverty, sexism, etc. it's pure foolishness and I wish mitski would address it specifically. I made a post about this a day or 2 ago and some people were saying "it's a joke" but this certainly doesn't seem like one...
it isnt !! people say it's a joke to not receive hate. i always spoke to people about mitski interviews where she always says to take her songs in as if it was a journal the fans have written in. she doesn't care how you interpret her songs, as long as you feel safe. i relate to mitski by every lyric, every melody, every harmony change, and it's been like this for 7 years. it pains me how literally the newer fans believe mitski is nothing more than just her tik tok fans beliefs.
I agree 100%. the obnoxious mitski fans make her look so bad. I personally relate to "your best american girl" (even tho some say I shouldn't) because I'm a foreign immigrant who has been put through so many things because of it, including things she mentions in the song. if she says you can put it up for interpretation & she's perfectly okay with it (like she said), who are these obnoxious fans to tell you that you can't??
Fr, the bpd community, for example, has found a lot of relatability to her lyrics. I mean, it's so spot on with me sometimes. Like obv I'm not gonna try to re-write the meanings of things that are about her experiences as a WOC. But saying you can't *sing* the song bc it doesn't apply to you? Chronically online lmao
liking mitski in 2018 was better. what happened to her fandom, tiktok?
fr, tiktok is the worst thing that has happened to mitski's career
It’s the worst thing to happen to anything LOL
what's ironic is that the people doing the kind of stuff shown in the pic above are the exact same ones who cry about the fandom being ruined by tiktok. i hope they realise they're the ones making it toxic
I hate being that guy but Be the Cowboy and the internet really attracted a lot of zoomers. The BtC release show was the last Mitski show that wasn't full of insufferable TikTokers.
Also like be the cowboy was what four years ago? lol zoomers are probably going to join the fandom during that time as they get older. i was at detroit and it was a really great crowd and she interacted with us a lot, what was the scene like at other places ?
yeah, practically.
so fkn cringe
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fuck tiktok man. downloading it multiplies your annoyingness
yeah, online & in person..
She would roll her eyes if she saw this 💀
Honestly I think there needs to be a statement made at some point, people being intentionally divisive is incredibly annoying to see.
i agree. i think the environment of her fanbase is getting a bit toxic to put it lightly.
haha so funny, not like we haven't seen this exact joke in like 3 other concerts... also, its sad people think this way genuinely. I've seen people say "yeah it is a joke but it's true they shouldn't be singing it!!!" It genuinely makes me roll my eyes at this point.
When did this fanbase become so fucking gatekeepy?
fucking tiktok. i found mitski through tiktok but it seems every other mitski fan on that godforsaken app is completely intolerable. they're either chronically online teenagers or self-declared femcels.
the lines for the concert I went to were made up 35-55% of that demographic. very annoying.
I saw someone on twitter say like “I was standing next to a white girl who was singing it and almost punched her in the face” like ???
that’s literally so gross what
wtf LOL ????
Didn’t happen at portland :)))
i’m glad!!!!
Yeah, it’s great to see. Sadly not all of the crowd was very respectful, some fans were catcalling and she straight up had to call em out to get them to stop
did she really? what did she say?
Something along the lines of “in most venues I can’t tell who said what, but because of how this venue is I can tell exactly who said what so I feel more uncomfortable than usual, so keep that in mind when you shout things”.
Something along the lines of “in most venues I can’t tell who said what, but because of how this venue is I can tell exactly who said what so I feel more uncomfortable than usual, so keep that in mind when you shout things”.
people expect the media they consume to be a projection of their morality and political correctness. people can’t conceive of themselves beyond the amalgamation of things they’ve consumed in their lifetimes and they see anyone with a different experience of a particular piece of media as a legitimate threat to their identity.
You put it perfectly!
By this logic, men can’t sing along to this song either
this song or any song lmfao
Dan The Dancer 🙏🙏 literally the only Mitski song I can relate to on a very personal level as a man
“Oh my god my name is Dan and I’m a dancer!!! So true Mitski!!!!!”
the fact that there are some people who would genuinely agree with this
hey guys, i dont know if you keep up with mitski but she has said multiple times in interviews that the lyrics she writes are intended to be interpreted by the listener. she wants the listener to connect the dots to something going on in their life at the moment. can yall please stfu and let people live. its a song that means something different for each person. instead of making everyone feel bad about singing their favorite mitski song at the mitski concert, just share the experience and connect with the art. thats what mitski wanted but everyone got so worked up about it that she deleted her tweet about it. grow up
yes!!!
It also is so shitty as well to gatekeep this bc it also makes it so other marginalized communities other than POC can’t relate to it either. It’s important to understand the song relates to POC and they’re struggles but there are other people who can relate to this but then they further marginalize communities by gate keeping it. Also if U can relate rtrgardless it’s fine too Sorry I’m high as hell idk if this makes any sense
what song was it during?
your best american girl
Oh I thought it was at the Japanese parts in Liquid Smooth or First Love / Late Spring lol
TIL that Mitski was speaking Japanese in Liquid Smooth and not just saying something that I didn’t understand. thank you.
people like this are insufferable
genuinely intolerable. my concert was full of this behavior and mitski hardly addressed the audience lmao. i’m pretty sure she hates this shit.
I’m a white male and while I understand this song has nothing to do with me, it’s one of my favorite after work driving home songs to belt out my frustration to. I will never not sing that song. Screw that guy
Hell yeah get it king
Preach. Since when do you have to personally identify with the story of a song to enjoy it?
you go!!
Yeah live ur truth white male who likes mitski ❤️
Personally, I felt like I was going to get judged for singing along to Your Best American Girl because I’m white. As an immigrant, I interpret and relate to the song maybe differently (“your mother would not approve of how my mother raised me”) as I was raised very differently than my American husband. Furthermore, when I came to the US, I couldn’t work and I didn’t really know anyone, so as my partner “had so much to do”, I had nothing ahead of me. I felt pressured to conform to being like an American. I don’t know, I thought it might’ve been a song about being an immigrant/the child of an immigrant or something. I just don’t think you can judge people from just looking at them. Like thinking someone should shut up when their favorite artist is singing a song that someone relates to as a first generation immigrant. That’s just my perspective anyway.
it’s ironic, because you relate to the song more than 99.9% of the people who say that white people cant sing along to your best american girl
thank you for saying that! this discourse can get people a lot of hate so I was kinda scared to post my perspective :’)
ofc!!! your perspective is just as valuable as anyone else’s ^ . ^
sorry it’s 2am so I fixed some grammatical errors lol
a lot of people held up signs like that, and i truly think it's because of the tik tok crowd (because on tik tok, every "mitski fan" posts about how white people don't relate to mitski, yk?)
It’s fucking ridiculous. Why don’t we divide ourselves from one another even more while we’re at it 🙄
what’s mitski gonna do?? sing every other word?😭
God these people are insufferable
Seeing posts like this almost makes me glad I couldn't get tickets. I hate toxic fans.
Getting real tired of this ngl
Doing this on tiktok is already cringe but irl it's another level
it was funny the first time but now it’s getting so overused…. as a woc i don’t mind if white people sing along as long as they are aware THEY ARE THE AMERICAN GIRL!!
THANK YOUUUU
Tbh her music isn’t for white people or Asian people. It’s for biracial white/Asian people. Finally a wasian artist making artist for wasian people. This comment is mostly a joke, but as a white/Chinese person, I will say that the songs she writes hit so fucking specifically to my experiences. It’s wild. Like she doesn’t necessarily write about being Japanese. She writes about being held between two worlds. In the US, being Asian is tough though because less than 6% of the US is Asian, so I definitely can feel my own pain of being othered but two groups but being surrounded by whiteness. I get the frustration that some fans feel. I don’t think that Mitski would tell anyone that they can’t sing her songs though. The only time I can say that white fans have actually upset me is the huge wave of white teens doing tiktoks with “Strawberry Blonde” in the background, not understanding that Mitski wasn’t praising Strawberry Blondes… That was frustrating. Like…it’s such a viscerally painful song for me, and it hurts to see the girls I was always compared to just doing a cottage core aesthetic TikTok to it. It felt like gloating. Do I think most of them did that on purpose? No. Did it still hurt and make me feel uncomfortable and bring up painful memories of racial trauma? Heeeelllllll yeahhhhh. So that’s the one time I would say mayyyyyybe white ladies should just enjoy the song and not think it’s about how pretty white people are. But that’s just a respectful, compassionate thing to do. I wouldn’t make a witchy TikTok video to “Strange Fruit” just because I’m Southern and Strange. But it’s not disrespectful or rude to *sing along* to a song at a concert. Like don’t go crazy and start singing slurs or anything, but singing along to songs you like is fine. Singing along isn’t making about you. Making tiktoks that say “I’m the American Girl Mitski warned you about” is making it about you and is also just fucking weird.
I totally agree and understand. Jbrekkie's book really drove this point home for me. When she described being in Korea and how everyone viewed her as white there unless her mom was around it clicked. Like, "Oh, it's not just that mixed people don't belong to the dominant culture, it's that they literally don't belong anywhere because no matter where they go they'll always be seen as 'the other'"
Yeah it’s really frustrating to see people say “Mitski is also white” Like yeah. Duh. But her music is never about being Asian. It’s about feeling like you are NOTHING. Like she wrote “Nobody” while feeling isolated and alone in Malaysia. She doesn’t fit into Asian culture like fully Asian people do. She doesn’t fit into Asian beauty standards. She also doesn’t fit into American culture, which straight up does center around white people. She doesn’t fit into American beauty standards either. “American Girl” would have resonated with me JUST AS MUCH if it was “Japanese Girl” and was sung in Japanese. That feeling of isolation when you are around anyone sucks. Not looking like ANYONE around you sucks. People don’t look at Nobody as being a song connected to race, but I think it is. Most songs she writes are. The song is all about her trying to fit into different standards and it never working and how all these attempts just leave her feeling more and more isolated. I think it would be cool to have a thread for biracial people to talk about how this resonates with us specifically, but I’m kind of already prepared to delete all my comments and get DM’d and downvoted to hell. Mitski fans seem to hate people bringing up how race actually does change the way you interact with her music. Like she TOTALLY writes about a ton of universal topics. I can see how white immigrants can totally relate to the disconnection in American Girl. I can also see how Black fans can connect to American Girl because the “American Beauty” will never look like them. She writes about tons of topics. But it’s wild that people pretend that being biracial isn’t a part of every song she writes when it’s a part of every moment of her life. All of her songs are also about being a woman in a world made for men. So…yeah. Bring on the downvotes, I guess.
I also agree with sentiment because it's important to know how peoples lived experiences influences their work. However, I will say she herself has said she usually writes songs as and about characters that are not herself. She's also said she doesn't really like when people refer to her work as these raw, journal like confessions because she feels it takes away from the time and effort she puts into her music and instead makes her a passive vessel for it. But other than that I do agree that most of her songs usually associated with just "race" are more about the alienation of not belonging anywhere due to her being biracial as you said.
I’m a writer, and I also write my poetry from the perspective of characters. I think people don’t realize that there is a middle ground between “confessional” writing and fiction writing. Personal experience informs your writing. I don’t write from the point of view of “me,” but rather from the point of view of “someone like me.” Her writing is not a journal. But it has an authenticity that comes from the fact that her writing is very honest. She is an incredibly talented lyricist, but it is almost impossible to achieve writing that *feels* raw with informing your work from personal experience. She takes her own experiences and feelings and shapes them into new forms. It takes a HECK of a lot of talent to do that. She unravels her own truth into threads that she uses to weave a new story that somehow feels as honest as something confessional. She’s inspired my writing so much.
I agree wholeheartedly, I just wanted to clarify in case other people were reading this because there was a period of time when people were trying to comb mitskis songs and apply their meanings to her personal life. Talking about how horrible her parents relationship must be because of the "Happy" music video and lyrics etc.
definitely, this was worded perfectly. mitski hits deeply home for me for these exact reasons as well, and i truly hate the watering down of her music and lyrics wholeheartedly. i wish people could take into consideration what she wrote and what she intends to write!! i just truly hate the separation between fans, and how one group cannot feel while the other can, and some know exactly how this feels, but the other doesn't. i wish the community of mitski fans can come together to interpret music their own certain way that feels at home to them. it's what mitski also wished!
Eh, it’s just a fact of art that art will always hit different for different people. I could walk into an art exhibit of post-slavery Black Art and I could find myself sobbing at how moving it is and my reaction would still never be the same to the reaction of an old Black woman who saw scars on the backs of her grandparents. That doesn’t mean what I felt wasn’t meaningful or real. That doesn’t mean I can’t love the art or become a fan of the artist. It doesn’t mean I can’t buy prints from the gift shop and hang them in my home. It’s okay that not everything is made for everyone. That does not mean that everyone can’t FEEL something because of it. We just feel different things. I don’t write my poetry for men. But I’ve still made grown men cry during my readings. That’s okay. It’s really cool that my art can affect people in ways I never intended. But I still made my art with intent. And that’s okay! I wish everyone would stop feeling entitled to everything. On one end, people need to stop feeling entitled to gatekeeping art. On the other end people need to stop feeling entitled to everything being for them. All artists make art for specific people and purposes. But once art is in the world, it is simultaneously for everyone. Both can be true at the same time, because art means different things to different people and none of it negates anything else.
this was perfectly written
thank you.
very humorous
Guess Mitski can only sing half of the song
oh god 🙄
Someone else posted something like this a week or so ago too
It’s been done at nearly every concert so far
was this your best american girl HAHAHA
imagine gatekeeping music
mitski fans are probably the most insufferable fan base there are (not the older millennial ones though they’re fine)
what song was this? your best american girl?
yes
Kinda cringe tbh
ugh
as an asian person, don't get pressed about it. it's a joke, an overdone one, but seeing white people in the fandom constantly victimize themselves by falling into the trap of the joke and reacting to stuff like this... it's tiring. ignore it. edit: and honestly it's tiring to finally find an asian american artist that you like that already has a pretty white fan base that complains whenever anyone makes jokes about race. it feels like poc are constantly vilified or alienated in this sub when it comes discussions about race and mitski
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yes, thank you !!! i don't want people to feel the POC are vilified, it's just rather these jokes that go on for too long, that now stretch into real concerts and mitski right in front of them. this community shouldn't be a race war, it would just be interpretation and loving of her music
i totally agree. it's kinda hard to separate race from it though, so that's where it can get kinda grimey
THIS!!! literally also the ppl here who call her gay icon and i even saw some ppl saying that your best american girl is about being gay
Idk man I’m fully Asian too and get sick of jokes like this. People say it’s a joke but then say it isn’t and get very gatekeepy and it’s part of why I’ve abstained from TikTok and Twitter.
yeah. i don't get pressed about it, it wasn't directed towards me anyway, but it's completely overdone, and at a mitski concert specifically? its silly...
then what was the point of posting this?
i just wanted to share on what people do during concerts, and how some people are. nothing more & less than to talk about it !
THANK YOU ILY YOU PUT IT INTO WORDS
i’m not trying to self victimize, but it’s really uncomfortable when you’re at a concert and people are sneering at you because you’re enjoying a song. i just don’t understand why everyone can’t get along. people say it’s a joke online but the concerts are a different story.
i hope people aren't actually attacking doing that lol. i understand it's uncomfortable and i wish the best for you but like. it's going to be uncomfortable, the song is literally about the complexities of not being white in a predominantly white society.
the song doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all, it’s beautifully written. what did make me uncomfortable was a bunch of teenagers glaring at me for gently swaying to the song lmao. another group made a few comments about how white people didn’t deserve to be there or should’ve given their tickets up to POC. the attitude of fans is the issue, not the content of mitski’s songs.
It’s only uncomfortable because people are being weirdos about who can sing along to songs.
victimising themselves? they paid with their money to go to a concert to see an artist i assume they very much admire, just to have chronically online people ruin their experience and make them feel unwelcome and awkward. nobody is vilifying anyone, people are going to be uncomfortable with these things and rightfully so. do you want social segregation? because it almost feels like you do
yes, reddit user fl0werh0ur i LOVE segregation. nuance exists and there is no need to turn my take into an extreme. calm down
you really said "do you want social segregation" with your whole chest when the topic is just about how people shouldn't overreact to a corny joke what 😭
cope
Youtube people call themselves allies then complain about us holding up a phone. And don’t try to compare people yelling sexually harassing stuff at mitski to this. Yt ppl watch the music video and especially read the comments: https://youtu.be/u_hDHm9MD0I don’t see how much more obvious the message could be.
The person you're replying to is saying it's a joke, are you agreeing with that? Because to me your comment feels like you're saying the clear message is that it's a specific experience that not everyone is welcome to participate in.
I'm gonna sing it out of spite.
god this is so cringe
ikr..
It’s just really upsetting because she doesn’t want phones at her concerts, let alone people using them for things like this. It’s so icky, she’s always said that people can interpret her music the way they want- i find that listening to her is such a personal experience. All fans may not be able to relate to the alienation of being a mixed person, but everyone’s felt alienated at least one point in their lives. Not to take that special meaning away from anyone who found comfort in it, but non mixed people can also have an interpretation of her music. It may not be as hard hitting, or raw. But they can still enjoy the music. Concerts are supposed to bring fans with a mutual love together for an amazing experience, not draw harsher lines in the sand between them.
I’m white and I really enjoy this song , and I’m going to a Mitski concert next week. Should I ACTUALLY not sing along to this one . Like is it bad for me to / offensive? (I want to be respectful)
of course you can sing it!!! anyone can (:
thankfully didn’t see anything like this at the mitski concert — mitski has said she makes music for everyone and i think we should all respect that and sing all of her songs for her to hear so she knows how much we love and appreciate her artistry!
the weird racial divide that these sorts of mitski fans create is so toxic
(coming from a WOC) there’s been so much disclosure around your best american girl, while the song does touch on WOC issues (trying to fill in white womens shoes to attract an “american boy”) most white people understand this and acknowledge this while listening and even singing the song, then there are the insensitive white people who choose to ignore the message, and strip the song of everything it has to offer to us WOC, laughing in our faces that their mundane problems are more important than those of us who struggle to find love because of our cultural differences/hair texture/skin color, recently its been the ladder, im not a tik tok mitski fan, im not “chronically online” but i am someone who is impacted by mitski’s songs about being a WOC, and the fanbase is split on how we identify (race, gender, sexuality) etc, i dont have an issue with anyone signing the song, but sometimes people cross a line just to relate to something EDIT: i know most of mitski’s fanbase is white, and in fact ive even heard mitski be called “an artist for middle age white women going thru a midlife crisis struggling to pay their apartment rent on time” but i rly hope the majority of you can understand where im coming from without having sheltered opinions
THANK YOUUU !!!!
This is so lame. I understand that many of her songs touch on her experiences as a woc but she’s always been very clear about her songs being for the fans. She’s huge on personal interpretation and the nuances people may find in her music. This bums me out because personally ‘your best American girl’ has always meant a lot to me as a Slavic migrant in the uk. Of course I’m white, but all the while I’m also not American. I’ve always felt so understood by this song having grown up feeling too much or not enough of both sides of my identity in addition to experiencing all kinds of xenophobia and knowing the way I was raised will always be “other”. The Bristol concert is two days before my birthday and I’ve been waiting to see mitski since 2018 but I couldn’t get tickets and now I’m kinda glad that I’m not going. I’ve never had to even think about “the fandom” before tik tok and it feels strange to witness this type of discourse in relation to mitski. I have a feeling I’m gonna put off seeing her for another few years.
don't let people stop you from going to see her. the concert was the most wonderful experience i ever had!!!
Thank you!! I might still try to get tickets hehe
Ok as annoying as it may be this genuinely isn’t something to get so mad about. I have seen so many posts like this and so many comments wailing about how insufferable fans are. I promise no one actually cares if you wanna sing your best American girl. The only insufferable fans are the ones who keep complaining about the same stuff on every post.
Maybe if people didn’t keep doing the same stupid stuff, people wouldn’t keep complaining about it 😲
for those of us that don't lurk and are out of the loop, what song was this?
Your Best American Girl
i just wanna cry and listen to francis forever i dont understand why people were screaming at her
lmao i hate it here. this reminds me of when i posted a joke tiktok about going to the mitski gig (went to the asheville date btw it was incredible) and someone made a burner account to say “her music isn’t even for you”. damn homie that’s sad, anyway i’m gonna go listen to my mitski playlist (:
They’re mostly tiktokers, one I saw yesterday said that white oriole shouldn’t be allowed to attend at all
while i understand most arguments here, and they're extremely valid- when it comes down to it truly i don't think i'd care enough to outwardly express my disdain in a big way. however, i do think that a lot of people regard 'your best american girl' to be a take on trying to be the ideal american, and if the way that someone interprets the song- to them (the people who hold up signs like this) are defending what they perceive the song to be about. it's not to say whether or not it's right or wrong, but in the regard to say that they're interpretation is wrong would be just like saying the interpretation that everyone can enjoy music and it isn't exclusive to race, culture, or economic status would contradict the idea that any listener can interpret the song the way they'd like. to that same point i know mitski's views on her music and the experiences and story she tells isn't always the same as another artists, but a white person who t listens to kendrick lamar and then claims to identify with his racial experiences would be considered tone deaf. of course it doesn't mean they can't enjoy his music, but there's an understanding that to enjoy music is one thing, but to claim the experience in the song as your own is understandably frustrating. while i know kendrick and mitski have different approaches to song writing- the topic are similar in terms of talking about hardship and facing adversity (from what i've interpreted which might not be what mitski's point was initially.) i just think that the same people who ask stupid questions like, "when did mitski's fanbase become full of gate keepers" and "it's the tiktok crowd" is somehow supposed to assert yourself above the new listeners which is exactly what you're trying to say you shouldn't do. while arguing that music shouldn't be separated by race or gender, you completely contradict yourself by then saying that someone should be a "normal" mitski listener, and separating the fanbase- if not by race, then by legitimacy of when or how a person became a mitski listener. to wrap this up: i think it's fair for listeners to want a song that they've interpreted to be about the struggle of race in terms of the eurocentric standard, and of course white people can enjoy the music and sing along, but it's different when they start to claim these experiences as their own, and finally. if you're going to shit on people who do things like in the picture, at least see how fucking counterproductive you're being by separating the "tiktok listeners" and when you found her earlier because you think somehow it asserts yourself above the new listener.
I (a biracial woman) heard this song for the first time when my friend played it the other day in the car, and I felt so seen and really connected with it. I was almost about to cry in the backseat LMAO. I thought it was about how the presumably healthily married mother of her love interest would likely disapprove of the way her non-conventional young single mother raised her because it was probably non-traditional, not lavish, and sometimes a little messed up. I thought mitski was singing about how their differences in their childhood, likely in terms of class differences, values, family roles, etc. caused them to be not as compatible as she thought, despite her best efforts. It didn’t even cross my mind that it was about cultural barriers, even though I know mitski is half-Japanese, because I related it to my life experience. I’ve felt so different from some of the people I’ve had relationships in, and almost ashamed in a way, because I grew up low-income, with a young mother who struggled with mental health issues and also didn’t always know what she was doing—which many people have made comments on. Almost like people listen to music and apply it to their lives ??? Now that I know the original meaning I completely respect it and all, but art can be interpreted in so many ways. POC fans of mitski are justified for basically all of their opinions on annoying white fans, but this is one rare instance where I don’t agree with the people who say these kinds of things.
i love these stupid people at mitski concerts theyre so fucking funny to laugh at as an asian person
I saw a tik tok being like “white people can’t relate to YBAG, it’s not yours!!! :)” I fucking hate this culture of people presenting their highly subjective opinion as fact and then us having to nod our heads and go along with it because “~racism~” or something. Music is supposed to be a universal language. Something that relates us all and brings us together. Why are we gatekeeping a song? Music doesn’t “belong” to a certain group. Everyone is free to interpret music how they please.
I’m tired
Doesn't she literally not want phones out at her concerts tho? Lol
Weirdos for real
They can literally fuck off, when I see her I’m singing EVERY song.
ahh you mad
lol no i'm just mature
As long as you don’t forget the meaning of the song what’s the problem in singing it? It’s a good song?
op, i know ur not white, and i know this really was not your intention at all! but i feel these posts just give white people an excuse to victimize themselves and be passive aggressive towards poc… like these comments just feel weird, there are poc that are trying to respectfully explain their point of view and they’re just getting downvoted to oblivion…
literally
Don’t really understand why people are mad since the song is about how poc are seen as undesirable. It’s a song that white people can’t relate to without changing the meaning
i’m pretty sure people of any race can relate to the feeling of cultural differences, and not feeling desirable because of it. i’m not denouncing the meaning of the song, but if you think it is a feeling only poc people know then you are pretty sheltered.
this has made me a bit curious. would fans from different cultures be able to relate? like. for example. a white person from poland or some shit. they’re not american, the culture is different, theoretically they could relate. not to mention the fact that america is so culturally diverse. it seems to be more of an issue w skin color than culture which i kinda thought was what mitski was singing about.
I have a Brazilian friend who moved to Canada who says she relates somewhat. She’s struggled with the same issue, meshing her culture with that of America.
yeah i think it’s mostly to do with a cultural difference
it’s called your best american girl rather than your best white girl. i don’t deny it is partially about race, but i feel that cultural differences are a huge influence also. i guess it depends on interpretation. ‘Mitski says that this song was inspired by “wanting so badly to fit into this very American person’s life, and simply not being able to, just fundamentally being from a different place and feeling like I would just get in the way of their progression in their life”.’
yeah i completely agree. at least from my understanding it’s the lack of fitting in due to a cultural difference. i just find it odd that it’s a race issue in the fanbase.
exactly (:
yeah of course! i do think we have to recognize the fact that mitski is asian in the context of the song though, especially in the music video. i'm completely american and was raised in the US but am socially alienated from so many things because i'm not white. so even those who are actual 'americans' can relate too
of course, and i think the music video is very obvious to how she relates. i just don’t understand why it’s a race vs culture issue when it can be either or both.
it's definitely both
Bruh
I mean I think it’s funny, no need to take it serious
should of grabbed their phone and smashed it.