Rosalind Wiseman

It’s been just about a year since Denver-based electronic/hip-hop group 3OH!3 released their debut album Want, but the hit single “Don’t Trust Me” continues to dominate radio playlists as well as the iTunes top 100. The song’s unique beat is great to dance to, and you’ll probably have to hear it all of 3 times to remember enough lyrics to sing right along. In fact, chances are good that if your kids like this song you may have already heard them singing the following lines:

“She wants to touch me, woohoo, she wants to love me woohoo, she’ll never leave me, woohoo woohoo! Don’t trust a ho, never trust a ho, won’t trust a ho cuz a ho won’t trust me!”

“Shush girl! Shut your lips! Do the Helen Keller, and talk with your hips!”

Not surprisingly, you may have whipped your head around when you heard them belting this and said something like, “Do the Helen Keller? What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Did your kid just roll their eyes at you and say something like, “I don’t know, it’s just funny! What’s the big deal?”

“Don’t Trust Me” is a great conversation starter, both because of the song’s lyrics and the music video, which I’ve embedded below. It’s a fantastic example of a song with a really fun beat but with esoteric lyrics and absurd video that not a lot of people seem to understand conceptually–not even your music-savvy teen son or daughter. Below are some viewer comments from YouTube that echo the general consensus about the video:

badboiz40: i just love the way everyones like bad vid etc… not all videos to songs have to be perfect you know, i bet they’ve had such a laugh making this vid and good on them. break the mold.

PrettyLush956: lol “I said shhhh girl shush your lips do the helen keller and talk with your hips.” My friends crack up everytime i say that I love this song it’s the best!

Bidz19: Luv the song!! Video is pretty random,the girls are like totally slutty and the Helen Keller bit is a bit off!!Bad form! oda dan dat, I love it!! Shud come with warning, very catchy content!

What is pretty clear from the get go is that girls aren’t respected in the song or in the video. So if the artists, the lyrics, and the video are all just having fun, is it worth analyzing or complaining about?

Here are some questions I’d ask your son or daughter if 3OH!3 is getting heavy rotation on their iPod, in your car, or elsewhere.

• Do you think the guys in this song are calling all girls “ho’s” or just certain girls? What defines a “ho”? What does a girl have to do to be labeled one?
• When a girl is labeled a “ho”, is this always fair? Is it something she’s stuck with?
• What do you think these guys wanted to say about themselves with this video?
• If it’s just a joke, what happens when someone thinks it isn’t funny? Do people listen to them?
• By saying “Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips,” the artists are actually making fun of deaf people. What do you think about this? Would it be socially acceptable if they were making fun of people with other disabilities? Do you have to find this funny in order to like this song? If it was one of your friends that said that and not the artist, what would you think?
• How important is it for bands to have empathy or be “politically correct”?

If you want to take it one step further, you can also ask them if they’ve seen the “girl version” of “Don’t Trust Me” that was made by a teen girl and posted on YouTube. Essentially nothing is different about the song except that she did her own video and sings verbatim over the lyrics, but it’s interesting to look at considering the content of the song she’s singing.

• What does it say to guys when girls sing along to songs that say “shush girl, shut your lips” or “never trust a ho”?

What are your kids saying about “Don’t Trust Me” and what do you feel about the song? Is it all in good fun? Or are you uptight if you don’t get the joke?