This joint thesis, entitled “Live Fierce, Die Young,” is an exploration of pop culture and the idea of becoming empowered through the experience of rejection. As our band, We Buy Diamond$, we have created a live performance of original music with costume, set design, video projection, sculpture, lighting, promotional illustrations and band merchandise to achieve this end.

In this piece, we are utilizing a blue-collar, trashy-glam aesthetic that incorporates our sense of humor, our nostalgia for the media of our youth, and our unorthodox definition of glamour. It has been paramount that our work remains accessible and inviting to our peers, and our aesthetic stems largely from this goal. Through the act of performing songs that speak to our own experiences, we are allowing ourselves to become simultaneously vulnerable and empowered in front of a live audience. By laying bare our personal run-ins with rejection, we are placing ourselves on the same level as our viewers, identifying with them through shared emotions and shared experiences of pop culture.

This is a joint thesis with Kristen Wright