Feigned Smiles Over Broken Hearts: Lauv Unveils The ‘Modern’ Society In New Song

The way I see it. 

It blares in my head, echoes in my room, and beats with my heart. This one song shifted my perspective on the way I view our modern society.

A short film, centered around the various angles of every one of the raw and genuine personalities that we know we are conscious of but neglect, owing to the pressures of the outside world.

Living in a society where almost everything remains concealed behind a curtain of secrecy and deception, where the truth is often plastered and painted over with coats of falsehood, depicting nothing but only the sunniest days, the brightest smiles and just the most beguiling fabrications. A society where everything is expected to be black or white, when actually, it is every single color in between.

Society Is A Lie. 

My eyes widened with every minute of the music video, as every shot made my mind wander to the lesser-visited fragments of my conscious brain and pushed me to the edge of my seat, curious to see how much this song would widen my horizon.

What begins with a candid and heartfelt monologue reflecting the utter fickle mindedness of a man, and a classic example of overthinking, effortlessly transitioned into a series of euphonious beats coupled with some foot-tapping melodies, tied perfectly together with a lyrical harmony.

This song didn’t just give me another finger-snapping jam to add to my playlist, it showed me a new perspective, an angled stance towards our modern society.

Lauv’s hit song, Sims, focused on six distinct aspects of his personality. One happened to be a pessimistic and introverted one, who feels voiceless and victimized (denoted with a purple vest). Another, a free-spirited and jovial one, who seems without a single care in the world, just living and breathing in nothing but the merry parts of life, smiling through the pain (denoted by a pale yellow vest). There was even a ‘goofy’ and quirky one, unafraid to be himself, putting out his most unvarnished and candid persona, unbothered by society’s scrutinizing outlook.

Lauv’s short film opened my eyes to see that this so-called “modern” society isn’t as progressive and forward-thinking as we are all molded to believe.

We live in a community that plasters feigned smiles over obviously broken hearts.

Where the truth is often hushed away, for society is a fault-finding, soul-wrenching and scrutinizing place.

A place where blemishes MUST NOT appear, for we all must conform to society’s unrealistic requirements that perceive synthetic alterations as reality.

A place that encourages individuality as a unique and raw form of self-expression, however, spits on the idea of even the slightest shift from the monotony of society’s external, apparent perfection.

As far as Lauv’s new tune is concerned, it made me see the truth.

The truth that abides within each of us that we’re forced to keep hidden, for society is a hypercritical place that disapproves of anything but the plastered smiles on broken faces and the synthetic beauty of starving bodies and not to forget, the apparent mirage of happiness that we’re forced to put out as the fabricated reality.

It forces us to hide the real way we would like to express ourselves.

We live and breathe along lines of deception, under the impression that we’re fooling people.

Do you know who else fools people?

Clowns.

We all look like clowns.