Johnny in the Leopard Thong

Charli XCX and Rita Ora know exactly what they’re doing, and what they’re doing in the video for "Doing It" is living some candy-colored version of the American dream while an older gentleman in a leopard-print thong shakes what his decades have given him. He is magnificent. I’ve decided his name is Johnny.

Johnny’s gut and his delighted, conspiratorial grin occupy maybe thirty seconds of screen time, but they’re the only part of the video I’ve watched twice. There’s something in that face—total absence of self-consciousness, pure physical joy—that I find genuinely aspirational. Not the thong specifically, though I’m not ruling anything out. Just that quality of being completely at home in your own ridiculous body, at any age, in any context. That’s the goal. That’s Johnny’s gift.

I want to be Johnny someday.