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Music

We Are All the Aging Cynic in the Trailer for Netflix's New EDM Movie

"This is real music," a bearded Chris D'Elia exclaims. "It's not meant to be the soundtrack to getting wasted."

Even in the wake of the financial and critical disaster that was the molly water-logged Zac Efron vehicle We Are You Friends, Netflix has been teasing a new EDM-themed movie called XOXO for a while now. Pete Tong signed on as a musical supervisor a few months ago, which was a promising sign, and today they've finally released the first visual taste of the film in the form of an official trailer.

The footage is largely what you'd expect, kaleidoscopic, high-gloss shots of youngsters in funny clothes heading to a festival—set to the yearning strains of Galantis' "Gold Dust." Apparently, it's setting up the fortuitous collision of "a budding DJ, his loyal pal, a hopeless romantic, a jaded has-been, and a troubled couple" at a festival called XOXO which seems to be a sort of EDC analog for kids in fuzzy boots taking their first pills. The whole thing's painted in this wonderfully sincere, almost Malick-ian strokes of boundless wonder, but fortunately there's a stand-in for the cynics among us.

Chris D'Elia, of the beloved NBC sitcoms Whitney and Undateable, pops up in the trailer as the "jaded has-been" (though further details on his character are as-yet-unknown)and immediately starts bemoaning his involvement in the whole enterprise. "I can't believe I'm going to XOXO, it's like I'm making up for something I did in a past life," he says. Other shots appear featuring D'Elia grimacing as he wanders the festival grounds, interspersed with the childlike glee of every other attendee in site. He eventually ends up lecturing to an assembled crowd on a bus. "This is real music," he says "It's not meant to be the soundtrack to getting wasted or in the background of a car commercial." Which, true! Presumably he's speaking of the wider umbrella of dance music and not just EDM, but it's easy to relate to the cynicism and the frustration if you've ever felt yourself seething when surrounded by festival-going hedonists.

But the trailer's unbound optimism raises an even more important point out of his moaning, that he's surrounded by people who are having a ton of fun and, like, discovering things about themselves as young people. It doesn't really look so good for him to talk shit because other people are having meaningful interactions with this culture that he's complaining about. So think about it the next time you feel compelled to lecture children about the things they're into.

That said, EDM's greatest asset isn't really its capacity for intense emotional weight or unmitigated sincerity—which is what this trailer seems to suggest we should be expecting from XOXO, so keep your fingers crossed on this one. We'll find out if this D'Elia character is won over by the community of love and drugs at XOXO on August 26, but in the meantime, watch the trailer up above and reflect on what it means to be a "jaded has-been."