As the great psychologist Britney Spears once said… Wait, what?

When I signed up to write for Trespass I never imagined I would be writing about Britney Spears.

Our masters editors-in-chief Liv and Sarah stressed ‘smart gloss’ and I fell for the motto hook, line and sinker. I would be making a difference to the collective consciousness, inspiring the masses, delivering sweet theoretical things to the mentally sweet toothed, and extending my imagery one comma too far. But here I am, with my mind trying its best to mash ‘psychologist’ into that previously bald Spears head, and hey, maybe it’s not so far-fetched. After all, this is the girl who went from ‘naughty school girl’ to ‘femme fatale’ all while losing touch with reality.

The concept hit me when I was tipped off to the new “If U Seek Amy” clip by the sassy NYC blogger behind Maggots and Tenderloin. We’ve all heard by now about the controversy; the chorus appears to spell out a swear word (umm-ah!) and thus must be censored for the sake of the children, and must be heavily publicized for the sake of Britney’s bank balance. She will not lose sales because of the controversy. If anything, I went and listened to the song after I heard about the media storm and it’s as catchy as bird flu in an Asian aviary. Not since The Offspring’s “Self Esteem” have I heard such phonetic fragments sung with such gusto!

Follow me on this crackpot theory for a second. I’d like to introduce you to the psychological phenomenon of ‘priming.’ Wikipedia, that brave post-post-modern God of knowledge, explains ‘priming’ as “a finding in which exposure to a stimulus at time 1 influences responding to a related stimulus at time 2.” In simpler terms, the brain registers something at one time and then, subconsciously, relates back to it at another time.

One of the more famous experiments is a word play game which slips words about aging into the process. After completing the game, participants walked more slowly to leave the room. They had mentally adapted to the process of aging. Another used rude and polite words and then asked the participants to ask their busy facilitator to ask for the next task. The ‘polite’ group waited patiently rather than interrupt, the rude people interrupted. All of this because of the simple injection of vocabulary into the tests. A great example was formed under the umbrella of NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and British actor Simon Pegg in a segment which should’ve been titled “Simon Pegg wants a bicycle.”

Now that you’re ‘in the know’, we can get back to Britney. To highlight the priming going on, here’s a copy of the ‘If U Seek Amy’ lyrics:

Perfectly random lyrics trying to make up for the fact that the chorus is a blatant demand for sex right? Perhaps. But what if we look at the key words and phrases isolated.

It might not be on the scale that Derren Brown is using it, or they’d be clever enough to sell us the album with the lyrics. But there’s definitely something to it. And the outcome of the priming? The words ‘If U Seek Amy’ somehow seem to conjoin to form F.U.C.K. Me. But no hypothesis is complete without more examples. Priming is present in the lyrics of Womanizer (amongst the stuttering), “Lollipop, must mistake me you’re the sucker” and Slave 4 U, “Get it get it, get it get it (whoooa), Get it get it, get it get it (whoooooa), Get it get it, get it get it (ooohhhh) [panting]” Okay, so maybe Slave 4 U is as good an example as “The Bad Touch” by The Bloodhound Gang but you’re beginning to see where I’m coming from.

I apologise if I’ve burst the bubble for those of you who shouted through blond-fringes from the mountain tops, “Leave Britney alone!’ but there comes a day where you realise that her “Not a girl, not yet a woman,” stage was fleeting, her school girl outfit was merely a costume and the album title ‘Circus’ is listed under ‘Orgy’ as a synonym on thesaurus.com

On a related note, I’ve heard Chris Brown has also been getting psychological tips from Britney on how to convince women that, ‘Hit me, baby, one more time’ is a valid dictum for relationships… too soon?

* ‘Hang in there Britney’ Image courtesy of Boston Bill on Flickr