Gen-Z singer, Billie Eilish, doesn’t know who Van Halen is, and although we probably shouldn’t be surprised that a 17-year-old pop artist doesn’t know about a hair band from the ’80s, she’s getting dragged by fans anyway.
For anyone out there wondering what “ok boomer” means, this is basically it.
Billie Eilish is being dragged by, presumably, her older fans, for not knowing who Van Halen is.
While Van Halen is an extremely well-known band from the ’80s, it seems that their legacy isn’t quite reaching the younger generations as well as we’d all hoped.
But in the words of Van Halen’s “Jump”, we gotta roll with the punches .
On “Jimmy Kimmel Live” when asked to “Name a Van Halen”, Billie responded, “Who?”
To be fair, I’m 99.9% sure that none of the members of Van Halen know who Billie Eilish is either.
“I’m gonna start crying,” Jimmy jokingly responded.
Just to put things into perspective, Billie wasn’t even born until 215 years after Van Halen’s first album came out.
Just saying.
To put things even more into perspective, Billie Eilish was born one year AFTER the release of “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring”.
Really think about that…
This person pointed out that anybody up in arms over Billie Eilish not knowing who Van Halen is are the same middle-aged dads that probably don’t know who Lizzo is.
Or Shawn Mendes, or Halsey, or Ariana Grande — the list goes on.
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Furthermore, anyone that has taken an issue with Billie never having heard of Van Halen has probably never seen this photo:
Case and point!
Some fans are actually jealous of Billie for not knowing who Van Halen is.
She has the chance to never have to listen to “Hot For Teacher” — a chance the rest of us never really had…
Others are having fun with the concept of younger generations not knowing about things that were relevant to pop culture a million years ago.
The same way that anyone born this year will probably have no idea who Cardi B is when they’re teenagers.
It’s the pop culture circle of life.
Anyway, the internet is absolutely out of control over Billie not knowing who Van Halen is, even though it’s not a big deal whatsoever.
I mean, Van Halen is trending on Twitter for the first time in, probably, decades.
All of this chatter eventually reached Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolf Van Halen. (Eddie Van Halen is the founder of the band, BTW).
He brought up a very important point.
“If you haven’t heard of @billieeilish , go check her out. She’s cool. If you haven’t heard of @VanHalen , go check them out. They’re cool too,” he tweeted.
Thank you, Wolf Van Halen, for being the voice of reason. We appreciate you.
“Music is supposed to bring us together, not divide us,” he added.
” Listen to what you want and don’t shame others for not knowing what you like.”
We have confirmation, however, that even though Billie doesn’t know about Van Halen, she is aware of a few other big names from the ’80s.
When asked, she was familiar with Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Huey Lewis.
What do you think of Billie Eilish not knowing who Van Halen? Yay or nay?
Let us know if you think it’s unacceptable for a 17-year-old to have never heard of Van Halen!
