Entertainment

Kendall Jenner Is The Star Of Fergie's New Music Video For A Very Good Reason

by S. Atkinson
FergieVEVO on YouTube

If you've watched the latest from the former Black Eyed Peas vocalist, you might be confused, because, really, why is Kendall Jenner in Fergie's "Enchante" music video? On one level, this makes little to no sense. Why wouldn't the musician star in her own video? But, after listening to the lyrics, the whimsical video and its casting of an Instagram icon as its star suggest that, actually, Jenner is the ideal woman for the job. Because it seems like both the song and its video are all about the joy of social media.

The model isn't alone in the video; she's accompanied by different versions of herself, all in various outfits. This multiplicity of selves is partnered with furniture, opening on three identical but slightly different colored beds. And it's important to note that these multiple selves might be a reference to Fergie's latest album's title, Double Duchess, which Pop Crush has called "her most personal work yet." It's hard not to interpret both the video and the record title as a nod to social media, in which a singular platform can witness a dozen different versions of ourselves in a day (that selfie of you #adulting in a work outfit, a picture of your lunch, a drunk party pic later, etc).

This would be supported by the choice of casting, because it's hard to overstate how influential Jenner is on social media — and especially Instagram in particular. At the time of writing, she has over 24 million followers on Twitter, 16 million likes on Facebook, and a whopping 83 million followers on Instagram. As such, it's hard to not think of Instagram when the video opens on the 21-year-old gazing upwards out of her bed, like a sultry selfie before getting out of bed as Fergie sings: "Enchanted, delighted to meet you, excited, the people." This feels like a comment on the way we can interact with each other and meet new people all from the comfort of our bedrooms, a la social media and sliding into DMs.

Fergie segues into what sounds like a description of the joy of the internet, the sheer quantity of content each day ("The people, the music, I want to consume it") and then into what sounds like social media in a nutshell: "The first time impression, your truest expression." After all, many of us stumble across musicians, artists, influencers for the first time via their Instagram or Facebook pages and thus we really do form our first impression of them via something as arbitrary as their facial expression.

This parallel all sounds very abstract in theory, but there's a clear sense that Fergie isn't singing about meeting people in real life when she says, "If I could reach and hold your hand, I would," implying that, while she's mingling with people, it's all virtual. This social media theme also seems more obvious on watching the video, where the many Jenners constantly preen themselves in front of mirrors (again, so selfie-like) or prance around in the sort of attention-grabbing fashion that dominates Instagram (see: her pink pumps in the second scene, the neon yellow dress, the blue sequinned sweater, the translucent raincoat at the dinner table).

There aren't many moments of discomfort about social media in the song. The one moment of uneasiness seems to come in a couplet that switches from the social media scroller's perspective in the first line to the influencer's perspective in the second. Fergie croons, "The details, the levels make me want to revel" before continuing "Inside your perspective, I swear I'm objected." And sure, that's presumably a very real danger both Fergie and Jenner are subjected to. Despite opening up their lives on platforms like Instagram, it's easy to become objectified as a celebrity.

Still, for the most part, the lyrics make social media interaction sound as carefree as the video itself, shrugging off the uneasiness about privacy often cited as a reason not to use social media when the 42-year-old sings, "Why can't we be showing our secrets, the magic?" and later suggests to followers, "So come and go my way, let's do this every day."

But this is exactly what makes the former television personality a perfect fit for the song. Just like Fergie, she's an internationally famous celebrity who also happens to be really prolific on Instagram. So is there anyone better equipped to sing a love song to social media? Probably not.