The song, which shares songwriting credits with all members of the band, focuses on frustration with life and refers to Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Southern California.
Dan Ozzi at Vice called the tune "relentlessly addictive,"[7] while Leor Galil in Rolling Stone interpreted the song as an anthem of "post-adolescent malaise.
"[9] Ten years later, in a retrospective profile of its parent album, Cohen opined that the song "has emerged as Joyce Manor’s defining moment [...] If not aspirational, it’s at least familiar, comforting, or even validating for people who’ve been the oldhead at the pop-punk gig or the youngest person at the dead-end job, thinking to themselves, "So, this was growing up?
"[5] Danielle Chelosky at Stereogum concurred: "The lyrics are visceral fragments strung together; the songs often overflow with idiosyncratic imagery that leads to a revelatory one-liner, often about a lingering sense of loss.
"[4] Ten years after the song's debut, the band performed the tune live on John Mulaney's Netflix talk series Everybody's in L.A. at his request.