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# If a J-Pop Girl Group Took Over Your Smartphone
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/if-a-j-pop-girl-group-took-over-your-smartphone/
- Published: 2016-04-22T22:06:38.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:29:29.000Z
- Description: Japanese hip-hop idol group Lyrical School's newest video, for the track "RUN and RUN," is a bit like an iPhone ad on acid, or a Luddite's nightmarish parody of what goes on in the worlds of screen-addicted teenagers.
- Author: Carey Dunne
- Tags: Art, J-pop, Review, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

![giphy (4)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/giphy-4.gif)

Lyrical School, “RUN and RUN” (2016) (GIF by the author for Hyperallergic)

Japanese hip-hop idol group [Lyrical School](http://lyricalschool.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com)‘s newest video, for the track “RUN and RUN,” is a bit like an iPhone ad on acid, or a Luddite’s nightmarish parody of what goes on in the worlds of screen-addicted teenagers. The vertical video unfolds as a series of bubblegum clips and snapshots displayed within various app interfaces: iMessage, iPhoto, Twitter, Gmail, FaceTime, Vimeo. Think of it as a player piano for the digital age — as Lyrical School [puts it](https://vimeo.com/161487817?ref=hyperallergic.com), “You might feel as if your smartphone is taken over and operated on its own!” Or hacked by the group itself.

[Idol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese%5Fidol?ref=hyperallergic.com) [groups](http://noisey.vice.com/en%5Fuk/blog/the-j-pop-world-why-one-anti-idol-group-is-covering-themselves-in-fake-semen-akB48-dis-2014?ref=hyperallergic.com), for the uninitiated, are young stars marketed as *kawaii* role models and fawned over in [J-pop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-pop?ref=hyperallergic.com) culture. In this four-minute hyperlapse, Lyrical School’s [six female idols](http://tokyogirlsupdate.com/featured/lyrical-school-interview.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) bop around in matching tennis outfits and terrycloth sweatbands, take grinning selfies and text at the speed of light, then dissolve into a dizzying infinite regress of tweeted photos. If it’s all a little disturbing, that’s probably because it’s like watching your whole technology-consumed life flash before your eyes.