Everybody Wants to Rule the World

A couple of days back, the shiri-tori request on the radio was Tears for Fears' "(Everybody Wants to) Rule the World".

I looked it up on youtube and watched the video again, trying to remember what it once meant.

There was a comment in there, somewhere, something about "those wonderful '80s, when videos didn't have to have anything to do with the lyrics."

No way!

The video was very definitely the lyrics.

"Rule the world." was a meme. But it wasn't about trying to control what other people do.

It was about doing what you wanted, even if you really didn't know exactly what it was you wanted.

Looking cool while you were at it was just extra points.

The last decade or so, we've seen a lot of "[X] Rules". This is the exact opposite.

Controlling others, making everybody else join your project, actually being king of the hill, all of that was minus points.

Ruling the world was about ruling yourself.