Dance music acts Krewella and HeadHunterz teamed up recently for the uplifting track, “United Kids of the World”, a song celebrating individuality and condemning bullying both on and off the internet. It’s an anti-bullying message for a new crop of Millenials who have grown up with a screen almost always stuck to the tip of their nose and realized, as their parents and elders did around the time the AOL guy was still running across our screens, that it is much easier to passive-aggressively put others down using the World Wide Web.
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In talking about the motivation to do the track, HeadHunterz had this to say: “Social media is a safe haven to say anything that comes to mind, but what we do with this freedom is our own choice. We can use it as a weapon or as a self-defense mechanism. ‘United Kids of The World,’ with Krewella, was not written to point fingers at anyone, but to spread a compassionate message. All three of us have experienced being bullied in our youth, and the only thing that was causing that was a lack of self-awareness. That is where bullying starts. So world, dear reader, listener, it is time to become aware of your role in this, your actions and their consequences.”
There have been several national stories in the news as of late dealing with young teen suicides as a result of bullying on the Internet, one of the most publicized being the Missouri mother, Lori Drew, who bullied a girl on Myspace for her daughter that led to 13-year-old Megan Meier taking her own life just before her 14th birthday. Stories like this, and the number of shootings and suicides that have plagues our communities because kids these days spend too much time behind a screen, saying things without being held accountable.
With the proliferation of young adults gravitating toward EDM and the larger-than-life DJs that make up the artist side of things, along with the fact that the genre essentially lives on the Internet where the bullying is taking place; Krewella and HeadHunterz release could possibly have a decent impact. I’m never one top put much into these “uplifting anthems” because I don’t believe music necessarily spurs action all the time in these situations, but it is refreshing to see artists on top of their game taking some time to do something a little extra. Krewella and HeadHunterz teamed up with DoSomething.org, where you can buy the song, “United Kids of the World,” here.