Insta-hit
So, to keep up with the levity here lately, have all of you been following the whole "Pants on the ground" phenomenon?
If not, in a nutshell; last week on American Idol, contestant Larry Platt busted out with this incongruously catchy ditty:
Note that Simon says, "I have a horrible feeling that song could be a hit". Prescient words...
Of course, it went viral. Everyone's talking/writing about it; YouTube is filled with remixes.
A sure sign that you've gone totally mainstream? You're being covered by...Brett Favre:
Further proof that you've become a cultural phenomenon; being covered in the style of someone else (in this case, by Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young - one of the most dead-on impressions I have ever, ever heard):
On one level, this kind of thing simply feeds into our (collectively) short attention span, and it's certainly a fantastic distraction (hey, focusing on the latest YouTube hit sure does keep our mind off of real news).
But in a larger sense, maybe it's just the simple human desire to have something to discuss around the water cooler, to have something we can have a laugh over and gather around together.
My question is, how does this happen? How do people/events/tunes/videos/whatever capture public attention? What makes something go viral?
If not, in a nutshell; last week on American Idol, contestant Larry Platt busted out with this incongruously catchy ditty:
Note that Simon says, "I have a horrible feeling that song could be a hit". Prescient words...
Of course, it went viral. Everyone's talking/writing about it; YouTube is filled with remixes.
A sure sign that you've gone totally mainstream? You're being covered by...Brett Favre:
Further proof that you've become a cultural phenomenon; being covered in the style of someone else (in this case, by Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young - one of the most dead-on impressions I have ever, ever heard):
On one level, this kind of thing simply feeds into our (collectively) short attention span, and it's certainly a fantastic distraction (hey, focusing on the latest YouTube hit sure does keep our mind off of real news).
But in a larger sense, maybe it's just the simple human desire to have something to discuss around the water cooler, to have something we can have a laugh over and gather around together.
My question is, how does this happen? How do people/events/tunes/videos/whatever capture public attention? What makes something go viral?
Labels: contemporary culture, popular music, the business of music
posted by Sarah at
9:00 AM
6 Comments:
I think it might be important to distinguish "hit" as Simon Cowell defines it (which is something like "earworm that is destined to annoy us all incessantly for the next four months") from the traditional definition, which is a song that actually becomes recognizable for a generation or more.
Viral definitely does not equal memorable. (If it did, wouldn't Fanfare for the Common Violist" already be a massive viral hit?
Hey, you won't know about the virality (is that a word???) of FFftCV for another day or so, so don't knock it, buddy...
I guess my larger question was, since as a society we seem obsessed by the next new thing (however brief its time in the limelight), do we even care about longevity anymore? Does the constant stream of 15-minute-of-famers chip away at the concept of long-lasting, significant art? Is this a function of our iPod/youtube/interwebs times, or has this always been part of human nature?
Hey, you won't know about the virality (is that a word???) of FFftCV for another day or so...
Don't look now, but it might actually be happening. It's racking up the views, and I've already gotten a half dozen requests for copies of the arrangement. (One from New Zealand!)
toldja so...
i just realized that we had a conversation we could have had in person via the comment section of our blog. i don't know if this is a sad indictment of our poor phone skills or simply a function of adapting to 21st century technology.
It can't be both?
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