Story Behind the Song: Tyler Rich, ‘Rather Be Us’
Tyler Rich's "Rather Be Us" was inspired by a particularly modern problem: social media. The song's lyrics tell a story of taking a break from Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, turning off the phone for a while in order to enjoy being with the people you love in real life.
It's easy to feel inadequate on social media, the singer explains, because although everyone posts their highlight reels on Instagram, their online presence doesn't necessarily reflect real life. Below, Rich explains to The Boot how he came up with the song, and why it was important to him to speak to this topic.
I think it's extremely important for everything going on in the world today, with the cultural phenomenon of obsessing over social media. There's so many amazing things that come from social media, but there's also so many not-so-amazing things that come from social media, like self-comparison, which is the worst, I think.
Everything about social media is everybody's highlights reel, right? It's my highlight reel; it's probably your highlight reel, too. People don't post the sad parts [of their lives], the post the filtered, good parts. And I wrote the song about just putting your phone down -- because [sometimes caring too much about social media] is just poison -- and about enjoying the moments of real life with the people that you're with.
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