Pop Culture: Youtube, art and Pop Culture

                                Pop Culture – Life as Play: Final essay        Allan Torcy

        YouTube as art: Youtube and art and Art on Youtube. Youtube making Pop Culture and Pop Culture making YouTube.

        We live in an era where information is spreading like wildfire thanks to all the media we have today: TV, the Internet, Newspapers and so on. Especially on the Internet, where all the academical material, news websites, live-streaming platforms, video games, memes, entertainement or even watching movies or tv series are just a click away. It is incredibly easy to have access to all those things and it is incredibly easy to make something or someone go down in Pop-culture. The first example I'm going to use in this part is Memes. What are memes? First, Memes are “an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)  “. Internet memes are the meme form used the most and seen the most, from a picture of an animal or a person with a caption on it used to convey feelings or to express an opinion, usually through humor. For instance, the death of the gorilla Harambe on May, 28, 2016 at the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio has resulted in countless of jokes, memes that were shared on Facebook pages, Reddit, 9gag, and countless other platforms. From becoming a meme itself, this Gorilla went down into Pop Culture. But, memes can also come from one platform known to everyone: YouTube.

        Today YouTube is one of the main media on the Internet, and from the first ever video on April, 23, 2005 named “Me at the Zoo” featuring one of youtube creators Jawad Karim to YouTubers like PewDiePie with more than 50million subscribers and making a living out of posting videos, lots, lots, lots of things happened. Google's video-sharing platform is one of the main reasons some people, memes or events belong to the popular culture now. As said earlier, people like PewDiePie, with millions of subscribers can make a living out of the platform. YouTube, today is an “entertainment multi-tool”. You can use it to educate yourself, to watch funny videos (like cats, or “fails” on channels like FailArmy), to watch videos of people destroying iPhones for fun, to watch and rewatch bits of series and films, to watch gaming and last but not least: To listen to music, one type of Art. Art, on YouTube. Undeniably, the website is really useful to discover new bands or to casually listen to some music. It is also a really handy tool to share the music you're making: or in a broader sense: the Art you are making. That's where we are going to question the idea of YouTube as art. Is the platform helping art? Is only art to YouTube and its users material like music, paintings, street art and so on? Or we can consider any creative material posted on the site as Art? Is YouTube/YouTubers creating new types of Art? What is the influence of the Popular Culture on the platform and how the platform makes popular culture?

        Defining what can be art an what cannot be.

        First, let's define what Art is from its most concrete definition “Art is a creative activity by people. The artist hopes that it affects the emotions of people who experience it. Artists express themselves by their art. Some people find art relaxing. “. The issue is that people disagree on what can be considered as art and what isn't art. Who can be considered an artist and who can't be. If I doodle random things on MS Paint, is it considered art like any painting from Claude Monet or Picasso? If my creation triggers any feelings inside the person on the receiving end, maybe it can be considered as art. This issue, of course, also exists on YouTube. Art is including drawing, painting, music, performance, theater, poetry, dance, and photography, for its most conventional forms. However, as said earlier, we can also say that if something makes you feel, it is art. We are now going to review the different forms on art we can find on YouTube and try to define what kind of content can be art.

        Is YouTube pushing art forward? - The example of musical content

        It is a well-known fact that Music is art. And that Music is the most shared type of art on YouTube, with hundreds of thousands of music-videos, either sponsored and posted by the artists or record label themselves, or by third party users. Google's platform, is one great tool to listen to music for free despite the fact that you have to watch ads from time to time and can be considered a nuisance. Listening to music is one of the types of content watched the most on YouTube. And outside of the simple “Listening to Music” aspect, lots of musicians have become quite famous content creators on YouTube as the platform allows anyone to share what they are doing and showing to people musical content “seasoned” with some humor, tips and lessons on how to play the instrument or the song. It's a more active way to listen to music, and, even, to discover it in a different manner. YouTubers like Jared Dines for example, became famous on the website from his humoristic videos mocking bass players, guitar players and some aspects of the Metal Music. Another metal YouTube guitarist, Rob Scallon is famous for the challenges his subscribers put him through, like playing metal on a banjo, or turning a shovel into a bass guitar (!). My third and last example, is the youtuber TenSecondSongs, who is covering famous pop songs in 20 different music styles. All these three content creators, also make actual music and share it on platforms like Spotify or iTunes. The point is, these people are not only known for the music, the art they make, but how they work around it and show other aspects of one type of Art. This is where you can tell that Youtube is, indeed, “helping” art, by enabling its users to share it and make it the way they want. And if you have a proficiency in playing/making music, a creative concept and a good fanbase, you can make a living out of making musical content on YouTube. Other creators implement icons or Pop-Culture into their content to make it creative their way.

        Indeed, some content creators, push the concept of making creative musical content to the extrme, by including icons of pop culture or historical figures into their content. The channel Epic Rap Battles and their series Epic Rap Battles of History is about short rap-battle type between two celebrities or historical figures played by actors. Each of their videos garners tens of millions views, like the battle Obama vs Mitt Romney, for instance. Another type of creative content like that, is the concept “Songify this” from Schmoyoho, who is taking bits of speeches from politicians or from people talking and turning them into music. We can say that from incorporating Pop Culture itself into art, it's making art go forward, it's helping the artistic process.

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