Billie Eilish is perhaps the most talented artist of our generation…and I don’t throw that around lightly. At only 13, Eilish wrote “Ocean Eyes” alongside her brother Finneas and launched her prolific career. And at the fair age of 22, Eilish has 24 GRAMMY Award nominations and nine wins, two Oscars, two Golden Globes, and countless other accolades.
Beyond that, she recently announced her third album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, to be released May 17, 2024. She spent the days leading up to the announcement building excitement by adding all of her Instagram followers to her “Close Friends” list. Eilish had the most Instagram followers in 48 hours…with her count increasing by 7 million followers total.
While her debut album, when we all fall asleep…where do we go?, was a chart-topper in its own right, it landed Billie every GRAMMY it was nominated for at the ripe age of 18…Eilish has solidified herself as one of the most revered and sought-after popstars in the world.
Eilish recently caught media attention for quietly revealing her sexuality. In an interview with Variety, she states that she’s always liked girls…and assumed people always knew that. In a viral snippet from her new song, LUNCH, she details a love affair with a girl.
But people don’t only adore Billie for her catchy tracks that consistently top the charts. It’s not just her songwriting ability and unique vocals that keep us hooked. People love her because she’s unafraid to speak her mind.
Whether it be complaining about too many influencers being at an awards show, or calling out other artists for using unsustainable practices…Billie does not hold back.
Billie Eilish On Sustainability
Eilish home
rethinkingthefuture.com
The Eilish home is iconic for many reasons: it’s where Billie and Finneas recorded her debut album, countless other songs, and EPs, in an effort to conserve water there’s no grass, and the roof is covered in solar panels. And being environmentally conscious extends beyond the four walls of their home.
When the hottest young talent is discovered at such an early age like Eilish, record labels are chomping at the bit to sign them. It’s like when a D1 athlete is ready to commit to college…you have your pick.
But what Eilish and her mom, Maggie Baird, were looking for wasn’t about money or label-perks…they were seeking a solid sustainability program. And while that may seem like standard practice, most labels didn’t bring up environmental policies during these meetings at all.
After signing to The Darkroom via Interscope Records, the struggle didn’t stop there. Billie Eilish and her family have been consistent contributors to the fight against climate change.
Maggie Baird has since started Support + Feed, which focuses on the climate crisis and food insecurity. Support + Feed helped Eilish’s 2022 Happier Than Ever tour save 8.8 million gallons of water through plant-based meal service for the artist and crew members.
During Billie’s 2023 Lollapalooza performance, she aided the launch and funding of REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project – which guaranteed all battery systems used during her set were solar powered. The MCD’s overall mission is to lower – and eventually eliminate –the music industry’s carbon emissions.
But more recently, Billie Eilish called out other artists for releasing multiple versions of vinyls in order to boost vinyl sales. In an interview with Billboard, she says,
“We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging … which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money and gets them more…”
Artists convince fans to buy different versions of their albums by offering exclusive features on each vinyl. Take Taylor Swift, for example, who released five separate vinyl versions of Midnights, each with a different deluxe “Vault” track.
While Billie may not have been trying to shade one artist in particular, the point is that she’s fed up. After being the rare artist in the industry who go out of their way to remain environmentally conscious, Eilish sets the bar high.
How Eilish’s New Album Is Sustainable
Billie for "Hit Me Hard and Soft"
William Drumm
Social media users were quick to claim Eilish was hypocritical by announcing that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT will have eight vinyl variations. However, each vinyl is made from recycled materials – either 100% recycled black vinyl or BioVinyl, which replaces petroleum used during manufacturing with recycled cooking oil.
This just illustrates that Eilish wasn’t directing criticism towards other artists for using vinyl variants to gain album sales…but she does think there are better ways to do it that benefit the environment without hurting their sales.
How Has Clarence Thomas Survived the #MeToo Movement?
What the campaign against sexual harassment has revealed about past allegations against the Supreme Court justice.
Since 1991, Clarence Thomas has served as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court with a lifetime term.
Yet shortly before his nomination to the post, Anita Hill testified before a Senate committee that Thomas had sexually harassed her for three years at two different government organizations where they had worked together. Nearly three decades before #MeToo, Hill's testimony was the first major public allegation and investigation into sexual harassment in the workplace. It sparked a divisive discussion about harassment, power, trust and culpability across the country.
After detailing her experiences to the committee, Hill nonetheless watched Thomas win his nomination to the Supreme Court that same year. It was a position where he would have, among other responsibilities, authority over the rights and privileges of women under the Constitution for decades to come.
In February of this year, as part of the mighty wave of women's voices rising against sexual harassment and toppling the men who used it as a tool of power against them, several women brought Clarence Thomas back into the discussion and under the fierce light of the #MeToo movement. With the renewed attention also came calls for impeachment and evidence to support the push.
During the 1991 hearings, it was Anita Hill's word against that of soon-to-be-Justice Thomas.
In 1981, Hill was working for Thomas at the Department of Education when the harassment began. She described to the committee Thomas's attempts to ask her out and the numerous times he talked explicitly about sex acts at work. He later convinced her to move with him to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.
The harassment continued at the EEOC. Thomas described to Hill the pornographic videos he watched and disclosed to her his preferences for specific parts of female bodies. In 1983, Hill escaped the harassment by moving to Oklahoma to teach law. Finally, in 1991, she brought her experiences to the attention of a Senate prepared to nominate Thomas to the Supreme Court.
Anita Hill stepped in front of an audience of hundreds of millions and described what she suffered working for Thomas. And Thomas took his Supreme Court seat later that year. "I was disappointed but not surprised," Hill said.
Hill was alone on the stand during the 1991 hearings though others had been willing to testify alongside her.
"Four African-American women, including me, were willing to join professor Hill and testify about Thomas' behavior," wrote Angela Wright-Shannon in February. "We all were denied a voice." Without social media, these testimonies were simply never heard. Wright-Shannon recently described for the Huffington Post her own similar experiences with Thomas: he repeatedly asked her to date him and asked about her breast size.
Another belated testimony came from Lillian McEwen, Thomas's ex-girlfriend. "The Clarence I know was certainly capable not only of doing the things that Anita Hill said he did, but it would be totally consistent with the way he lived his personal life then," she said in an interview in 2010. The #MeToo environment of 2018 has allowed women to come forward together, in force, against the men who harassed them. Jill Abramson believes #MeToo might have allowed others to join Hill on the stand against Thomas and shifted the balance of credibility toward the victims.
After the recent months of accusations, resignations and lettings-go achieved by #MeToo, Thomas's ascension following his hearing and the existence of any subsequent career for him seem ridiculous. How could he have been appointed and how is he still a Justice? Yet, the President of the United States won his election and continues to hold power despite the infamous circumstances of his own history of harassment.
"How do you remove sexual predators from office when all attempts to prevent their ascension in the first place failed?" asks Wright-Shannon. The answer, according to Abramson, is perjury.
Since 1989, three federal judges have been impeached for charges including lying. Among the leaked documents of Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a "Memo on Impeaching Clarence Thomas," written in 2010, that assembles evidence of his perjury. Abramson's article details some of the lies he told, under oath, in front of the Senate Committee and Anita Hill, about the harassment—lies that can now be confirmed as such by the testimony of other victims. The #MeToo movement offers the possibility of strength in numbers that was lacking during the original hearings but that could now present significant corroboration to the perjury claim.
Wright-Shannon, Rose Jourdain and Sukari Hardnett were all victims willing to offer their stories to the Senate committee but didn't get the chance. Now, they and others can fight back.
In the fall of 2016, Moira Smith, an attorney, wrote a Facebook post about the night Clarence Thomas groped her at a dinner party in 1999. He squeezed her butt several times while she was setting the table and asked her to sit next to him. After finally making the incident public on Facebook, it also became the subject of an article in the National Law Journal.
The case for the impeachment of Thomas centers, currently, on his perjury during the 1991 hearings.
But Moira's account of his sexual misconduct at the dinner occurred when he was already a Supreme Court Justice, a detail that could add fuel to the impeachment push.
The current U.S. President secured his victory over the accusations of sexual misconduct by nineteen women, an event that is startlingly similar to Thomas's nomination after Anita Hill's testimony twenty-seven years ago. But since the election, the #MeToo movement has risen up in fury against men guilty of harassing women and has begun to secure justice for the victims. Now, more than ever, the circumstances seem to be prime for the impeachment of a justice guilty of sexual misconduct and perjury.