I LOVEEEEE THIS FOR YOU BABE
Tapping into the nostalgic internet, 'ugh my youth' feels, and the exploding ever-adolescent heart.
So, I posted some videos to the internet that had my phone blowing up for days. I kept getting TikTok comment notifications all of last week while I was on my writing retreat (which was awesome and wildly productive, despite the digital distractions, thanks for asking).
Just a few characteristic comments:
Yes sis!!
I respect you so much for this.
You got me cryyyyinnnn
OBSESSED
This is kinda so beautiful đ„č
Iâve found MY PEOPLE
This is so nostalgic girl! Good for you đ
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LIVE MY DREAMMMMMM
Yes! I donât know you but this makes me so happy for you!
This is beautiful inner child work!
What, you might ask, inspired such an outpouring of enthusiasm and support? I tossed up a video from my Mexico City trip earlier this year for my 40th birthday. The clip was just me narrating to my friend the very important cinematic history behind the iron gate outside Chapultepec Castle. It shows up in a pivotal scene in Romeo + Juliet, right after the star-crossed lovers meet at the costume ball. I added the text: âPOV youâre a millennial in CDMX and you realize Baz Luhrmannâs Romeo + Juliet was filmed here.â
Not the most accurate: I had already known the movie was filmed there and even took screenshots of key shooting locations on the flight down. The movie turned me into a Leo obsessive back in 1996 at the age of 12, when I launched a fan website and daily newsletter. Like I wrote before: âI hadnât chosen Mexico City for my 40th birthday trip because of the Romeo + Juliet filming locations, but once I squeezed them into our itinerary, it seemed like a kind of poetic revisitation of my youth ahead of this big milestone, and I leaned into it.â
I mean, man, do I enjoy leaning into things, obsessively and absurdly.
Case in point, these videos. The first one got some traction, people seemed to like it, so I did another video of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, where Romeo and Juliet get married and die. And then another video of the balcony at Chapultepec where Lady Capulet iconically calls out for Juliet. And then another video of the iron gates, because I did some forensic-level analysis to figure out exactly which part of the gate showed up in the movie.
With the second and third videos going pretty viral, people started calling for a tour (âGirl, start a tour!!!â). I also started to notice variations on the same sentiment:
I LOVEEEEE THIS FOR YOU BABEđ
I love this for you!
Omg!!!!! Love this for you!!!
I love this for you.
I love this for you!!
I love this for you. â€ïž
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!
Love this!!!
đ I love this
Love this!
This is SSSOOOO sweet đ»đ»đ» love this for u!!!
This was not the sarcastic or subtle shade-throwing form of âI love that for you.â It was full-on earnest, the equivalent of 4th-grade-me clutching her heart while singing along to Mariah Careyâs âHero.â I have been writing on the internet for a very long timeâalmost three decades if you count the Leo newsletterâbut Iâve never experienced such an outpouring of positivity. One single person weighed in to say that the film sucked, but everyone else showed up with triple-exclamations and heart-eye emojis.
There were women who had R+J-themed weddings, women who still, inexplicably, loved Leo (âLeonardo DiCaprio el es el amor de mi vida!â), and women who claimed that they will now make the same pilgrimage for their birthdays. âThe way the algorithm knows my 15 year old heart by having this in my FYO đ„Čđ,â wrote one woman. Another said: âUgh my youth.â
The 15 year old heart. Ugh my youth.
That was my experience for several days, watching the flood of comments pop up on my phone throughout the day, this melange of heart-exploding excitement and you-go-girl-isms, along with wistful nostalgia for that era when those same things were perhaps more intense, immediate, and plentiful. But also: permitted and expected? That has always been my feeling: hetero adolescent girlsâ boy-craziness is normalized at the same time that it is belittled, caricatured, and time-boxed. A discrete phase.
I often look back at myself in that era and think, âThat was my truest self,â which is perhaps why I so often look back at that era, and attempt to return to it, even. The boy-crazy bit is part of that âtruest selfâ feeling, but more so the way that âcrazyâ was part of a broader enthusiasm, obsession, goofiness, and earnestness that was slowly drained from me on the other side of 13, when I walked into a hall of mirrors where my desires became menâs desires as refracted through pop cultural stereotypes, you know?
I know these commenters know. I think itâs why they âLOVEEEEE THIS FOR YOU BABE.â
âYou donât have to be afraid of what you areâ đ¶đ”