Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 10/11/2011 at 3:50 PM News

The Popdust Files: bullying, covers, dani shay, foster the people, justin bieber, pumped up kicks, viral video

Remember Dani Shay? Maybe not by name, but chances are decent that you remember that girl with the Justin Bieber haircut—the one he used to have, anyway—who covered Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie” a ways back. Well, she has returned (and unlike The Bieb, she held onto the haircut), and is now adapting the anti-bullying cause currently sweeping the nation.

In her new video, Shay plays a girl in a high school classroom getting bullied by just about everyone all the time—she gets tripped on her way in, she gets balls of paper thrown at her, and she even gets a note taped to her back saying “Go to hell, dyke.” She responds, “Jeremy”-style, by whipping out a machine gun and gunning her entire class down, with blood-like confetti streaming from their bodies—but of course, that’s only a fantasy, and in real life, a very nice young girl (who likes kind of like a fifteen-year-old Amy Winehouse) intercepts the note and smiles at Bieber Girl, personifying the video’s final message of “Be More Heroic” (and hopefully implying some happy, less-violent ending for Shay’s character).

Soundtracking this mini-drama is Shay and co-star Justin Chase’s cover of Foster the People’s suddenly imminently coverable “Pumped Up Kicks,” which is obviously used for its lyrical themes of youthful violence. Shay also sees some sort of outsider message in the song, as she expands upon in in the song’s previously non-existent third verse, sing/rapping “I am more than a cowboy kid / And you are more than your pumped-up kicks / But we’ve all been hiding / So come out, come out wherever you are.”

The video’s more than a little ridiculous—”It makes me want to bully someone” was our media editor empathetic response—but it’s hard to argue with the message. Happy National Coming Out Day, everyone.