Pissed Jeans - The Bar Is Low

What this video is

Released February 24, 2017, 'The Bar Is Low' arrived at a moment of intense public discourse around male accountability, toxic masculinity, and low social expectations set for men — themes the song explicitly lampoons. The video's gym setting literalizes the song's thesis about performative male effort: the band's comedic ineptitude with weights satirizes male self-congratulation. The video was released alongside…

Why it matters

Represents a key document of post-2010s post-hardcore/noise-punk's embrace of low-budget absurdist comedy video production as a genre signifier — rejecting aesthetic spectacle in favor of deadpan conceptual humor. Anchors Pissed Jeans' place in the Sub Pop punk continuum and demonstrates the…

The director

Joe Stakun is a music video director with an established working relationship with Pissed Jeans, having directed multiple videos for the band including 'Bathroom Laughter' (2013), 'Romanticize Me,' 'Boring Girls,' 'The Bar Is Low' (2017), and 'Moving On'…