This post is dedicated to my brother, Doji.
I was caught on Instagram again. Per usual, the reels got me. And I have to say it, TikTok is to blame1.
Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts, these are both just attempts to take a slice of TikTok’s pie. And it works. On YouTube, I’ll watch shorts of comedians doing crowd work and let it play on repeat, maybe two or three times while I go and grab a bowl of cereal or some other quick, innocuous activity.
And while writing that blog post about changing my goals with the casual ramble posts2, I got caught watching some dumb Instagram Reel that replaced the music from a certain Pokemon 2000 scene with “Again” by Fetty Wap. I was confused at first because, having never listened to Fetty Wap in my life, I thought it was actually the music from the scene.
I chuckled and I actually liked the song. So much so that I went and listened to it a couple times while writing. The first bar was great, and it worked on a level that wasn’t even romantic to me; in some ways it felt like a cry to the self. A declaration of reclamation after having being lost in the proverbial sauce for a while.
“I want you to be mine again, baby/ I know my lifestyle is driving you crazy”
And then I noticed something after it ended. This was the third time I had given the song a full listen.
“Oh hell, yeah, this kinda has the ‘Valerie’ Effect.”
What is the Valerie Effect you ask? Well, it’s the idea that a song on repeat will fall right back into itself immediately, as if the song had never ended. The name comes from the song “Valerie” by Steve Winwood. Play that song on repeat and the main keyboard riff will never end. It picks up immediately where it left off and, suddenly, we’re right back in it wondering how Valerie does it.
I’m sure there’s some other, more technical name for this effect, and there are plenty of other songs that experience that effect (I’m just too lazy to list ‘em out). But it will always be called the Valerie Effect to me because of one hot summer day in college when my brother Doji and I were coming back to our fraternity house after a beer run.
We had “Valerie” going in the car on repeat—par accident—bullshitting about whatever was on the top of our minds and then noticed this whole effect going down. Next thing we know, we’re both just jamming to this song in the parking lot of the house, without a care in the world.
And I guess that’s what makes this effect so great on personal level, even if it’s not completely the same. I notice it kinda happen on Fetty Wap’s “Again,” and I’m instantly transported to that moment, living it again. There’s no “living in past” or “back to the future” about it, either, that moment is happening in whatever moment I notice the Valerie Effect go down.
It’s something no reel or short on repeat can match. And I love it every time it happens. I will drink every second of it. And Doji will be right there as it happens, every time it happens.
1 For being someone who is anti-TikTok, I sure do not mind that type of shortform vertical camera content. I want to point out that I’m not anti-TikTok for any geopolitical grandstanding. I just think Vine was better. And that’s kind of what TikTok is: the evolution of Vine. No longer bound to 10 second videos, our technological advances in the last 10 years have come with a commensurate expansion of allowable video lengths, and thus, attention span.
2 Listen (or read, I guess—language is weird), I had a lot of thoughts that morning and so I’m just gonna lay my cards on the table and say many of the past and upcoming blogs were all written that morning. Doesn’t mean I’m not still doing one every day, I just figured I gotta work while the iron is hot.
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The Casual Ramble 