Unwriten Law ＂Teenage Suicide＂ - Unwriten Law ＂Teenage Suicide＂

What this video is

Released in 1998, 'Teenage Suicide' by Unwritten Law emerged from the Southern California punk scene that had grown through surf and skate culture pipelines championed by filmmakers like Taylor Steele. Interscope Records' investment in the band marked a major-label bet on post-Offspring, post-Green Day SoCal punk. The song's subject matter—teen depression masked by social performance—arrived during a period of…

Why it matters

An artifact of the SoCal punk-pop wave that preceded Unwritten Law's commercial breakthrough with 'Seein' Red.' The collaboration between the Malloy Brothers and Taylor Steele on this video is an early example of surf-culture filmmaking infrastructure crossing over to produce mainstream MTV…

The director

The Malloys (Brendan and Emmett Malloy) are self-taught LA-based directors who built careers through surf films before transitioning to music videos and features, including Blink-182's 'The Rock Show' and the 2017 film The Tribes of Palos Verdes. Taylor…