Billie Eilish and Why the Kids are Not Okay

Photo by Cezar Sampaio on Unsplash

Billie Eilish is a young pop star. She doesn’t sing country music. She’s from Los Angeles and dyes her hair “funky” colors — the kind that conservatives hate on young white women. If you’re familiar with her music, it’s regarded as “inclusive,” or even timeless, meaning that her songs cross racial, gender, and age barriers. While most of her fans are certainly young, white, and female, there’s nothing about Eilish’s music that would give anyone pause who’s not when it comes to liking a song, or two, of hers. In fact, a couple years ago, I met a friend from childhood’s daughter at a family function. In her early teens, I asked her about school and her interests, and she excitedly told me she loved both music and Billie Eilish. I told her that while I knew exactly who Billie Eilish was, unfortunately I did not know any of her music. That changed last year with “Birds of a Feather,” a song by Eilish that was the fourth-bestselling song of 2024. The radio played it nonstop, and it seemed like no one could get enough of it, including me. While that one song didn’t make me an Eilish fan, it did make me think of a quiet young Black girl, who opened up and who’s eyes lit up as she excitedly discussed her love for all things Eilish.

In 2019, Vogue India actually did a feature on the singer entitled Why Billie Eilish is the most important pop star of her generation. On her young…