The Doubleclicks’ “Cats and Netflix 2020” Is Our New Shelter in Place Anthem

Here at The Mary Sue, we’re big fans of all things geeky, feminist and independent which means we’ve loved Portland-based indy geek band The Doubleclicks for a while. So we’re super excited that the band, comprised of siblings Laser Malena-Webber and Aubrey Turner, has put out a new version of their classic “Cats and Netflix” to get us through sheltering in place.

Laser was kind enough to answer some questions from The Mary Sue about the delightful tune, and video.

The Mary Sue: How did you decide to rewrite/record this song? Was it an “oh this is obviously the social distancing anthem” or was there a different process?

Honestly, this project came from fan demand. We don’t usually do what Twitter tells us to do, but once half a dozen people were saying “The Doubleclicks should re-write this song for 2020,” we remembered that our fans are smart people, and we thought, yep, let’s do it. We’re at home anyway, since all of our gigs have been canceled.

How did you put together the video? Are those all fans or friends?

We put out a call for participation on twitter, through our email list, and in our Facebook group, and we got 70 responses almost immediately, which was enough to fill the video. We’ve done collaboration videos before (like Jam, Friday I’m In Love, Wonder, and Wrong About Gender) but this was the fastest one to come together. People are looking for something to do! And we love love love getting photos of cats.

How important is it to you as an artist to give people something fun and hopeful during times like these, and is that hard to do?

We’ve been enjoying spending time with our community during this time, despite all the stress, negativity, and very real panic we are all also feeling. This week, for example, we’ve been live-streaming on our YouToutube channel daily as a way to spend time with our community, and our friends.

I think it’s important for all of us to not feel isolated. It is hard, though, I think—it’s a lot to get up, shower, put on a happy face; thankfully our community understands being honest.

Can you tell us a bit about the other projects you’re working on, like the Kickstarter for your musical?

We have written our very first musical, which is a story about a robot, love, with queer identities, anxiety, cheese, gender metaphors, and all of the things we care about. It’s our most elevated project yet, it’s very vulnerable, and it’s very fun. The Kickstarter for the project runs until April 8 and it’s doing well, right now we’re hoping to raise enough to get not just the music recorded, but also maybe get some choreography and costumes and get it on a stage!

This year, I really wanted to make a project that came from an honest place that reflected my identity as a non-binary person with anxiety and all the other aspects of who I am, and this project really gets into that. I’m very excited for it!

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Thanks to Laser for chatting and to the band and fans for providing us with such a perfect ditty for all our time indoors!

(Image: The Doubleclicks)

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