Lia🌙

generally speaking, but i want to talk about nepo babies and music.

this isn't a new discussion, we have all heard about king princesses great grandpa who founded macys and died on the titanic, and yeah, even if they didn't receive any sort of inheritance as they claim, there is still some generational wealth that allowed their dad to become a sound engineer and start his own business, which allowed king to get musical training and record music and blah blah blah.

but i don't want to talk about king princess i want to talk about this band called Lawrence.

specifically, these two: Clyde and Gracie Lawrence.

you may have seen them across other social media platforms. they identify as an R&B/soul group...

and they all look like this. which i guess is fine, live your truth.

but what is really interesting is the way they market themselves.

They often describe their collective as "just some siblings and friends making music." and it is really easy to take this at face value considering none of the members have their own wikipedia pages, despite the band having been established for over a decade.

However, if you go to the bands wikipedia page you can learn about The Lawrence Family.

What is the significance of the Lawrence Family? Clyde and Gracie's father is Marc Lawrence. Who's Marc Lawrence?

Marc Lawrence is a well established screen writer, producer, and director. His portfolio is massive and includes works such as Miss Congeniality and Did You Hear About the Morgans amongst other Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant collaborations. Suffice to say-- this guy is loaded.

This guy-- Marc Lawrence-- also has a habit of including his children in his work. When Marc was working on Miss Congeniality, he claims that Clyde (at age five) actually wrote the pageant song, thus making him the youngest ever inducted member of the Song Writers Guild of America. Good on you Clyde. From that point on, as a child, Clyde composed several songs for several of his father's movies, and Gracie acted in several of them.

Both Clyde and Gracie attended the prestigious Dalton School on the upper east side of Manhattan, and both of them went on to study at Brown, where Clyde eventually formed his band "the Clyde Lawrence Band" (classy).

But okay whatever, rich kids gonna rich.

Here's the part that i really feel is so insidious. As i've mentioned before, neither Clyde nor Gracie have their own wikipedia pages, EVEN THOUGH they have both been established in the film industry since childhood. I cannot comprehend how the youngest ever member of the Song Writers Guild of America and his child star sister are able to evade the all powerful forces of wikipedia and yet somehow they have managed.

What is doubly insidious is that their newest single is called "23," and it was released this year. The entire song is sung from Gracie's perspective, and the chorus goes:

"you said that 23 would be the best year,

well i'm 23 and that's a lie.

you said that 23 would be our best year,

but at 23 you said goodbye."

and all the marketing around this song has been birthday themed, as if to insinuate that Gracie Lawrence is 23 now, wrote the song as a 23 year old, reflecting on presently being 23.

and listen that's not me reading too far into it

that's

literally

what they are doing.

What's bonkers about this is i'm 23 right now. I graduated high school in 2018 and i graduated college in 2021. Gracie Lawrence graduated high school in 2015, took a gap year, and was set to graduate from Brown in 2021. So unless Gracie Lawrence skipped three grades in school, which seems unlikely considering that while she was in school she was also acting and touring with her brothers band...she's not 23, she's at least 26.

AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING 26, BUT THERE IS DEFINITELY SOMETHING WEIRD ABOUT GOING OUT OF YOUR WAY TO MAKE YOUR ACTUAL AGE DIFFICULT TO FIND ONLINE AND MARKETING YOURSELF AS A QUIRKY GIRL IN YOUR EARLY 20s.

which brings me to my next point. their wardrobe.

people can dress how ever they want, but the outfit choices made by clyde and gracie feel deliberate in two ways.

A.) Gracie's outfits look like they are meant to age her down:

it's a lot of school girl outfits and cheerleading uniforms and shit. furthering my theory that they are trying to make her actual age difficult to discern

B. their outfits are but ugly.

not to be a bully, but i'm going to be a bully here, because they can take it. They are poor-baiting. their outfits are all mismatched, sized wrong, generally thrift store coded. As above you can see gracie has no problem wearing boxy shirts and mixing patterns.

if we examine clyde's wardrobe we see a lot of jerseys, faded t shirts, ball caps, and sneakers.

again, it's all very boxy, casual, not as uncoordinated as gracie's attire, but still it maintains this blue-collar image.

also

this isn't related to anything, i've just seen this outfit so many times on social media and it makes me want to tear my hair out.

their lyrics also hold evidence of poor-baiting, for instance, this song "i'm confident that i'm insecure", which boasts the opening lines:

"well shucks,

i think i need to go to therapy,

but i'm tough,

so i'm just gonna cry in bed for free"

But why wouldn't they want to be perceived as poor? If you're going to call yourself a soul artist or a soul group, you need something to be soulful about. You need to have life experience or else your callowness will shine through in your shallow, heavy handed, tiktok lyrics.

I guess my whole point is... these people are freaks. I think it's difficult enough that the pop genre and other major media is over saturated with the children of last generations famous/grotesquely wealthy. It's bad enough that we normals have to live with the fact that we will never have the time or resources to reach success that these millionaires have. it's bad enough that these two definitely went into that pizza place to have a photo shoot and they have definitely never set foot in a cheap by the slice pizza place earnestly.

But you're telling me that with all those resources, with all the training, the ivy league educations, and all of daddy's money...

Bianca wiped the blood drip from her chin with the back of her left hand. “I thought it would at least taste better,” she dropped the now-dead man she was holding in her right. She held the hand up to her face and examined her still-fresh manicure. She had gotten her nails done that morning. Without looking up, she asked, “Is he going to come back?”

“You killed him,” Esteban answered.

“Didn’t you kill me?”

“I transformed you,” he said with a sigh, “I drank your blood, you drank my blood, and for a moment we were bonded together, one being, divine.”

“Hey now, don’t sound too excited about it,” she thought I really should have gone with the black.

“My apologies,” he was lying on the ground, a few feet away from the floppy corps. He was straight as a needle, stiff as a board. He focused on Bianca in his periphery. She had blood on her face, blood on her hands, blood on her neck. blood on her knees where he knelt. Picky eater. He cringed. He hated sloppy women.

“At this point, I think I would have rather just had sex,” she got up from the ground and kicked the body for good measure. “I guess it’s still an option...”

“Unfortunately, I have somewhere I need to be,” Esteban sat up straight as if propelled forward, and then up onto his feet.

“What, some sort of important vampire meeting,” she pulled out her best Dracula impression.

“Yes, something like that,” he was already walking away from her.

“Hey, wait,” she grabbed her clutch bag and chased after him. They were in the dark depths of an underground parking garage, but that was about all Bianca knew. She didn’t remember walking or driving there. “Was that offensive? The Drac thing?”

Esteban was moving fast, at a running pace, but still taking steady even strides, “No, I promise it isn’t you, I really do have to go somewhere now.”

Bianca was moving faster too, though she hardly realized it. She was too focused on keeping Esteban in her sights. She didn’t feel ready to stop hanging out yet. “Can I come?”

“No, it’s private,” he said over his shoulder, quickening his pace.

“Well, can I get a ride home or something? Is your car in here?”

“I don’t have a car.” They were both moving like road bikes now, unaffected by the upward slant, they were breezing past the levels, drawing closer to the exit.

“Can you at least CALL ME AN UBER!” Bianca yelled as they reached the outside. Her voice echoed louder than she had ever heard it before. It carried through the buildings and reverberated for seconds after. She stood in stunned silence, before she realized she didn’t want to sound so desperate. “I just don’t know where I am--”