Are Spotify playlists the new millennial way of protesting?
It could very well be, judging by a group of students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) who have come together to vent out their frustrations regarding a town hall conducted by NUS over the Monica Baey sexual misconduct case.
The town hall was roundly criticized by students who attended the event for allegedly not having accountability in the review process, with NUS officials routing student queries to a committee that does not have student representation in it.
While more than 300 students have come together to sign an open letter criticizing the town hall (which you can sign at this link if you are a university student), some students are choosing to channel their frustrations into a more… tongue-in-cheek avenue.
The Town Hall Blues playlist was thus created on music streaming service Spotify and contains more than 100 songs addressed to campus administrators.
The playlist is also captioned rather cheekily: “When administrators refuse to hear and address us”.
Coconuts Singapore was first alerted to this playlist on Saturday by a student who attended the town hall, and we understand that more songs are still being added to the playlist.
Some of these song titles induce a ton of shade towards the administrators, including:
- “I Don’t Know”, by BTOB
- “Don’t Let Me Down”, by The Beatles
- “All I Ask”, by Adele
- “They Know Nothing”, by Kings of the City
- “What About Us”, by P!nk
- “Communication Breakdown”, by Led Zeppelin
- “What’s the Use?”, by Mac Miller
- “Lies”, by Chvrches
While we think this is a rather cheeky and non-violent way of sounding off frustrations, the indignation coming from the students has riled up political commentator Bertha Henson who wanted to move on with the matter:
The NUS president himself has come out of the woodwork to apologize for how the university handled the case, forcing Monica to go to social media instead to seek the justice that she felt was deserved.
“We fell short in providing her support from the start,” said Prof Tan Eng Chye. “We hope to set things right.”
