in the air tonight

Watching These Teens Hear ‘In the Air Tonight’ for the First Time Is So Joyful

You know those viral videos where a baby tries ice cream or bacon for the first time? You see their sweet baby faces cycle through curiosity, incredulity, discovery, and joy, all at something we don’t think twice about. Now imagine being a Gen-Z teen in 2020, basically still just a wee bébé, who has never heard Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight.” Not even the drum fill. It’s a real first-time-ice-cream-baby mood. Gary, Indiana–based teen twin YouTubers Tim and Fred Williams posted an eight-minute video on July 27 of the two of them, AirPods in, experiencing and reacting to Collins’s 1981 hit for the first time. Their reaction is priceless. Fred goes, “I’ve never seen nobody drop the beat three minutes in the song!” “He killed that,” says Tim. On their channel, TwinsthenewTrend, they post these reaction videos for all kinds of new-to-them tracks, from Steely Dan to Céline Dion. Want to feel like an ancient, crumbling corpse? Watch them listen to “Hey There Delilah” for the first time. Oh Lord.

Teens Hearing ‘In the Air Tonight’ for the First Time Is Joy