For those who give the song a surface reading, the video appears to offer a threesome and a couple high fives as a fitting climax to a great roadtrip, achieving a sense of closure and completion. In fact, I think if Avicii and whoever directed the video had been more open and obvious with the themes that they clearly hint at but never fully address in the video, they could have achieved something far more powerful. The lyrical content is about finally opening up to a denied romance, something which fits with the unacknowledged lust implicit in the concept of “bromance.” In light of the emotional hurt presented by the first scene in which the blond guy is kicked out, the lyrics I’ve been watching you / you’ve been hurting too … Watching life go by / with no one whom to share make a lot of sense. Stretching further, the title and thematic content of the song are at odds on the surface, with a female voice offering to provide “the love you seek and more.” If we read this in the context of the video, the lyrics may in fact be from a male perspective, with a female vocalist only there to obscure the true meaning of the song in the same way that the girl’s presence on the road trip serves to mask the sexual tension between the two bros. Although the story told by the video is truly one about sexual and romantic discovery, the facade presented by it tells a more conventional bro’s tale of debauchery and party rocking. In the greater cultural context of the video (the real world) her presence in the video gives the same sort of fallback to viewers who may be uncomfortable watching a video containing the straight up bromance indicated by the song’s title. She is a fallback, providing plausible deniability in case the growing romantic feelings that each of the guys feels is not reciprocated. Within the world presented in the video, she has been brought along by the men to maintain the illusion with each other that they are straight, or to prevent any potential awkwardness. In this way, she becomes the true third wheel, the outsider to the closer “bromance” of the men. Through the video, the girl shows no attraction to one of the guys in particular, disrupting the common format of the couple and the friend. She is there only to establish a nominally heterosexual baseline around which bisexual experimentation can occur. In light of the title, I believe that the girl is merely an accessory to the guys’ latent bromosexual urges.

In another, it could be symbolizing the bros desire to leave the girl behind and pursue their budding homosexual relationship further. In one reading, this could simply be a summarizing shot, using an alternate take of that scene to reinforce the great times that were had on the road trip, driving off into the sunset. The final shot we see is a repeat of the scene where they fake leave the chick behind in the desert, but this time there’s no brake lights. Is it literal and they’re celebrating because they finally railed their super hot friend, or is there something more going on? The video ends with basically a threesome, but in the morning the guys high five and the chick is still sleeping. Is it foreshadowing for the conclusion of the video? We don’t even see the girl for several seconds afterwards, reinforcing the viewer’s suspicion that they may have actually left her behind. When the guys pretend to leave the chick behind when she pees behind that bush, how serious are they being? The only clue that they didn’t actually abandon her in the desert is that the brake lights go on for a split second before it cuts to the next shot. Should we read the story presented in a different way if we consider that one of the guys just got kicked out of his house? He’s escaping and seeking solace in hedonistic pleasures, but the first scene establishes that there’s deeper angst underlying all their hijinks. The way it’s shot is really ambiguous in a couple ways.

As I watch the Seek Bromance video for the 3rd or 4th time, it occurs to me that there’s actually a lot going on in that video.

Seek bromance breakbeat remix