Taylor Swift vs. She and Him

So, I decided to do a comparison between the coveted video of my friends and I for the past few months, She and Him’s In the Sun and the most recent Taylor Swift video Mine, which has been coveted by some of the tweens and teens I happen to know.  She and Him have put out a more recent video, but it hasn’t had the same popularity amongst the people in their 20’s that I know as In the Sun.  I find it interesting how certain groups of people identify with certain bands and musicians.  Taylor Swift happens to be the most common artist that I notice being brought up in conversation with this group of tweens and teens, while my group of friends all either want to be/or date Zooey Deschanel or M. Ward.

She & Him - In The Sun from Merge Records on Vimeo.

The similarities I noticed were how fashionable everyone was in their music videos.  The first contrast I noticed though was how Taylor Swift’s video concentrated on a serious relationship between characters played by herself and Toby Hemingway.  Throughout the video the two fall in love, move in together, get married, and have children.  Swift is 20 and has a busy career, so the images portrayed in the video are probably very different from her real life. 

The same goes for Deschanel and Ward, who return to high school for their video.  In this video, one student, played by Deschanel tries in vain to catch the attention of her blasé classmate, played by Ward.  The song is about being rejected by a crush.  In real life Deschanel, 30, recently married Death Cab for Cutie’s front man Ben Gibbard and M. Ward, 36, is married to an academic who tends to enjoy remaining nameless.

I wonder why the lighthearted atmosphere with a tinge of melancholy in the setting of a well maintained high school, a place where many of my friends and I would care not to revisit, is so appealing to us, while the idea of living happily ever after in domestic tranquility might be appealing to Swift’s fans, many of whom are tweens and teens.