“Girls like Girls” by Hayley Kiyoko, a push for lesbian representation and the perfect pop jam. The song sends a powerful message to young adults who might be struggling with sexual identity and self-acceptance. 

 

If you watch the video, it tells the story of a teenage girl who realizes that she has feelings for her female friend. But, the friend has a boyfriend, and so she is being forced to deal with certain emotional and physical adversities as she begins to come in terms with her feelings. 

 

The song is described as an inner monologue, where a girl wishes that she was confident-- in both character and emotion. The video provides a platform for woman-loving-women representation   during a time when many may feel innocent and fragile in the moment of self-discovery. With the song, Kiyoko is establishing a platform for young lesbians who never had such an outlet.

 

Overall, the song is an anthem for a girl stealing a guy’s girl, a play on the common theme of guys stealing other guys’ girls. The song respects the reality of the situations that some with self-discovery and life in general; it keeps it real, and that’s a major point of it. The song is great in terms of acceptance and love, and it’s unfortunate that there has been some aggressive attack by those that dispute lesbian and bisexual rights. They tarnish the song under the psychotic idea that lesbian and bisexual people are for some reason “stealing” their partners— however, the song captures the obvious fact that “girls like girls like boys do, nothing new,” and that it doesn’t necessarily mean that lesbian and bisexual people steal partners.

 

The song encourages lesbians in the reception to publicly come out, as Kiyoko did after the popular release of the song. Fun fact: Hayley Kiyoko even acquired the nickname “lesbian Jesus” for being the savior of queer pop music.