Tacocat - New World

What this video is

Released May 2–3, 2019 as the lead visual for Tacocat's fourth album 'This Mess Is a Place' — their debut on Sub Pop Records — 'New World' arrived as the 2020 U.S. election cycle was beginning to intensify. The video embodies the album's poptimist ethos: a deliberately warm, absurdist fantasy of utopian reinvention as a coping mechanism against post-2016 political despair. Premiered exclusively on NYLON, the video…

Why it matters

Represents a defining artifact of late-2010s Pacific Northwest feminist pop-punk at its commercial and critical apex. The video's surrealist literalism and warm palette codify a visual language for 'poptimist resistance' — politically engaged indie rock that refuses aesthetic bleakness. Alongside…

The director

Sean Downey is a Seattle-based music video director, animator, and songwriter embedded in the Pacific Northwest indie underground. His directorial work spans the Seattle alternative scene, with credits including videos for Naked Giants, So Pitted, Dude York,…