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Alanna Burchett

Blouch

CCP English 1201 - K12

February 5 2020

The Ballad of the Burnt Out Celebrity

The original video to “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” starts with a man walking up to the camera as it

slowly focuses on him. He lifts up a stack of cards, and the song starts. Compare that to the

remix, where a man stands at a mirror holding a pill, he smiles once at the mirror, takes a drink

from the sink and swallows the pill. He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them

he sees a massive paper mache head where his own reflection should be. These two very

different openings show the main difference between these two videos. “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” by

Mike Posner and its remix by Seeb that share the same name, use the same lyrics and melody,

but use very different videos in order to display the shallowness of a dead beat past celebrity.

The writer of “I Took a Pill in Ibiza '', Mike Poser, is an American songwriter and singer who

is known for his hit song “Cooler Than Me” from 2010. Mike Posner, faded from the spotlight

soon after this hit and through “I Took a Pill in Ibiza”, he laments this. Mike Posner wrote this

song entirely for himself, he is the main character of the lyrics, and of his original video. His

video, while also being not aesthetically appealing, doesn’t go along with the lyrics. While the

lyrics talk about feeling alone at a party, not knowing who to trust while on drugs, and the

hollowness of past fame, the original video is just of Mike Posner standing in the middle of a

street. There is no use of rhetoric in this video either. The original video only stands to highlight

some of the lyrics through Mike Posner literally writing them down for you.

Seeb, the creator of the remix, is a Norwegian EDM record production team and is known

almost exclusively for “I Took a Pill in Ibiza”. Which is properly deserved seeing how they

properly displayed the ideas of this song tenfold when compared to the original. Instead of Mike
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Posner simply standing there, they introduce a random character who kicks off the song by

doing drugs. Instead of the original telling you about the trip in Ibiza, the remix shows you the

trip. The video focuses on this character and his exploits through the party; he dances, sings,

and vomits with complete strangers. The use of complete strangers helps the viewer be put into

the shoes of the main character, who also is alone with these acquaintances.

This videos properly uses color in order to display emotion through pathos. Instead of the

black and white of the original video, the remix uses neon bright colors throughout, in order to

match the feel of being at a party. The video also uses a sickly green as an emotional cue for

the audience. This green appears at the beginning before he takes the pill, the end when he

gets sober, and in the middle when he’s on stage. This color is meant to display the emptiness

of the main character. He feels alone before the pill and when he's on stage, and even after

being at a party around all these other colors, he is unable to stop himself from becoming alone

at the end of it. The video feels like a loop, and helps you empathise with a man who is unable

to make personal connections, even when he is the life of the party.

The remix also uses a giant paper mache head in order to represent the main character

through symbolism. Paper mache is layered paper glued together, which is meant to symbolize

that the main character is fragile, defensive, but in a trap of his own making. Even if he tried to

stop smiling, he couldn’t. He’s wearing this mask to protect himself. The lyrics of the song much

better fit with this version too. The remix shows that “you don’t wanna be stuck on that roller

coaster all alone”(Posner), by us being stuck on that roller coaster and not wanting to be in that

situation, which varies from the original where Mike Posner tells you what you don’t want.

In conclusion, the two videos for “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” show a past celebrities lament of past

fame and their lack of personal connection to varying degrees of success. The original fails to

show you its themes in the video and it provides no visual stimulus that adds to the songs story.

The remix succeeds in that by showing you its themes through the eyes of a man taking a pill

and going through the events of the song, which adds an extra layer to the songs story. The
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remix also displays the themes of the song through it’s video, it shows a disconnect between the

main character and other, a endless cycle of parties, and a hollowed out man incapable of

change. Mike Posner tells you, Seeb shows you.

Works Cited

Seeb. “I Took a Pill in Ibiza (Seeb Remix) (Explicit).” YouTube, Mike Posner, 26 Feb. 2016,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=foE1mO2yM04.
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Posner, Mike. “Mike Posner - I Took a Pill in Ibiza (Original).” YouTube, Mike Posner, 15 Mar.

2016,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41GZVVcxQps.