It turns out that Dylan Mulvaney isn’t just terrible at being a woman. He’s terrible at being a singer, too.
Mulvaney — who, at this point, is probably better described as infamous more than famous — hit the headlines yet again for a video that’s a lot easier to boycott than Bud Light.
“Days of Girlhood,” released Wednesday on the YouTube account of the transgender “influencer,” has gotten more derision than clicks: a little over 30,000 views in 14 hours, not bad for your average middling viral star but hardly record-breaking numbers.
A 30-second clip of the song posted to Mulvaney’s TikTok account, where he has significantly more subscribers, garnered more attention: 177,000-plus hits, along with a lot of snark in the comments section. (One comment that got more than 1,400 “likes”: “Why does it sound like my phone has water damage?”)
The song itself is an unholy (in more ways than one, really) amalgam of bubblegum pop, hard rock, punk and grating autotune in which Mulvaney, still sporting XY chromosomes despite the fact he’s in dresses and lingerie, says that we need to “ring the alarms immediately / we’ve got a code pink emergency.”
“Calling women of all ages / girls like me gotta learn the basics,” sings Mulvaney before extolling the virtues of binge drinking and “pregaming.”
“Pull up the group chat, ‘Where you at?’ Drop a pin / We’re doing hot girl s***, get in,” he continues, before detailing a lyrical weekday to-do list significantly less enticing than The Cure’s in “Friday I’m in Love.”
In a farcical verse that slips into slant rhyme because, one assumes, he doesn’t have any better ideas and/or access to a thesaurus, Mulvaney sings:
Monday, can’t get out of bed.
Tuesday morning, pick up meds.
Wednesday, retail therapy, cash or credit, I say yes.
Thursday, had a walk of shame, didn’t even know his name.
Weekends are for kissing friends.
Friday night, all overspend.
Saturday we flirt for drinks,
Playing wingman to our twinks.
Sunday, the “Twilight” soundtrack,
Use my breakdown in the bath.
I suppose clicking on this thing is a little bit like cheating on your boycott of all things Mulvaney-related, but you really do have to appreciate how this man has managed to parlay his 15 minutes of infamy into a three-and-a-half minute single that makes Kevin Federline’s brief foray into music look like Radiohead’s entire career in terms of both talent and accomplishment.
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
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“These are the days / these are the days / these are the days of girlhood,” Mulvaney croons during the very, very original chorus.
He also seems to mention the Bud Light kerfuffle in one of the more ridiculous lines of the song: “Boys on the dance floor, it’s time to clear / the patriarchy’s over, you can hold our beer.”
You can imagine how this did on social media — particularly on X, where people were a bit more scathing than jokes about their phones sustaining water damage:
Nah this needs to be canceled.
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) March 13, 2024
My ears need bleach now. Thanks.
— JokerWonderWoman (@JokerWonderW) March 13, 2024
I wish I could go back in time to before I saw this.
— Paula Scanlan (@PaulaYScanlan) March 13, 2024
Barf
— Scarlett Johnson (@scarlett4kids) March 14, 2024
Naturally, this kind of reaction turned into a “Conservatives pounce!” story in the establishment, highlighting the fact that those on the right found the audacity to call the bravest man in women’s clothes alive what he is: a terrible musician.
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Mulvaney, Newsweek reported, “is once again facing backlash from conservatives after the release of her new song, ‘Days of Girlhood,’ while she pledged that all proceeds from the music video will be donated to The Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention.”
“Several conservatives attacked Mulvaney’s music video Wednesday, including Angela Morabito, spokesperson for the right-leaning Defense of Freedom Institute and a visiting fellow for the Independent Women’s Forum,” the outlet noted.
Dylan Mulvaney’s song features bubble baths, one-night stands, and prescription pills.
Nothing about contributing to the world in a meaningful way, like real women do.
If you’re going to pretend to be a woman, at least pretend to be a good one. pic.twitter.com/GtT79vohMW
— Angela Morabito (@AngelaLMorabito) March 13, 2024
Fact check: Accurate.
Pundit Liz Wheeler said, “The craziest part of Dylan Mulvaney’s new music video is even after hormones and surgery, he still looks like a total dude. Just an unhealthy one wearing girl clothes.”
“Dylan Mulvaney is not a woman and knows nothing about girlhood,” she added in a separate post. “He’s a man. Period.”
The craziest part of Dylan Mulvaney’s new music video is even after hormones and surgery, he still looks like a total dude. Just an unhealthy one wearing girl clothes.
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) March 13, 2024
Dylan Mulvaney is not a woman and knows nothing about girlhood. He’s a man. Period.
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) March 13, 2024
Fact check: Again accurate.
Also, let’s not pretend Mulvaney is doing the Trevor Project any favors by donating the proceeds to the group. The nonprofit would probably have better luck standing outside a Walmart with this atrocity on full blast through portable speakers, having people pay volunteers with the group to turn the racket off.
And, as always, this is hardly an attack. These people are pointing out two things that Mulvaney isn’t good at. The first, girlhood. The second, music.
The first, alas, he doesn’t have any choice in; he’s a man with XY chromosomes, and no matter how many surgeries he undergoes nor how he dresses, that’s how God made him.
The second he can simply cure by not attempting music again, lest he make as much a mockery of tunefulness as he has womanhood.
