In this article, I analyse the implications of autoplaying video as a driver of ‘audile technique... more In this article, I analyse the implications of autoplaying video as a driver of ‘audile techniques’ in the 2010s digital ecosystem – in particular, techniques that respond to the realities of the separability of image and sound, even in media that contain both elements. I then examine a number of strategies through which this audio/visual split has been negotiated, monetized, and creatively bridged by consumers, creators, and corporate personnel – from the creation of new audiovisual genres and aesthetics, to the rise of particular platform pricing models, to the adoption (and, potentially, exploitation) of accessibility features. Ultimately, I seek to show how negotiations of sound and listening factor deeply into contemporary attempts to harness and monetize ‘attention’ as a commodity in a digital economy of platforms, advertisements, and data.
Unmute This: Circulation, Sociality, and Sound in Viral Media Paula Harper Cats at keyboards. Dan... more Unmute This: Circulation, Sociality, and Sound in Viral Media Paula Harper Cats at keyboards. Dancing hamsters. Giggling babies and dancing flashmobs. A bi-colored dress. Psy’s “Gangnam Style” music video. Over the final decade of the twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first, these and countless other examples of digital audiovisual phenomena have been collectively adjectivally described through a biological metaphor that suggests the speed and ubiquity of their circulation—“viral.” This circulation has been facilitated by the internet, and has often been understood as a product of the web’s celebrated capacities for democratic amateur creation, its facilitation of unmediated connection and sharing practices. In this dissertation, I suggest that participation in such phenomena—the production, watching, listening to, circulation, or “sharing” of such objects—has constituted a significant site of twenty-first-century musical practice. Borrowing and adapting Christop...
Cats at keyboards. Dancing hamsters. A photo of a dress, and videos set to “Harlem Shake.” The a... more Cats at keyboards. Dancing hamsters. A photo of a dress, and videos set to “Harlem Shake.” The above are recognizable as “viral” phenomena—artifacts of the early twenty-first century whose production and dissemination were facilitated by the internet, proliferating social media platforms, and ubiquitous digital devices. In this paper, I argue that participation in such phenomena (producing, consuming, circulating, or “sharing” them) constitutes a significant site of twenty-first-century musical practice: viral musicking, to borrow and adapt Christopher Small’s foundational 1998 coinage. In this paper I analyze instances of viral musicking from the 2000s through the 2010s, tracking viral circulation as heterogeneous, capacious, and contradictory—a dynamic, relational assemblage of both “new” and “old” media and practices. The notion of virus as a metaphor for cultural spread is often credited to computer science and science fiction, with subsequent co-option into marketing and media...
On March 11, 2011, popular internet humor blog the Daily What published a post containing a singl... more On March 11, 2011, popular internet humor blog the Daily What published a post containing a single YouTube video. The video’s static thumbnail evoked placid suburban domesticity: a medium close-up of a white adolescent girl smiling widely, framed against a background of green foliage. This post, with its innocuous image—seemingly suitable for advertising home insurance or back-to-school supplies—was inexplicably and provocatively captioned “Where Is Your God Now of the Day: I am no longer looking forward to the weekend.”1 Prior to the Daily What posting, the video had received relatively little online viewership. But just a few weeks later, on March 30, it had edged out the music video to Justin Bieber’s “Baby” to achieve the dubious distinction of the most “disliked” video on the YouTube platform.2 The video in question was “Rebecca Black—Friday,” one of the most infamous viral videos of the early 2010s.3 In the video, over the course of three minutes and forty-seven seconds, singer and central figure Rebecca Black narrates and moves through believably mundane situations— a schoolgirl eagerly anticipating the weekend as she completes her morning routine and commute, to a Friday night party full of friends.
In this article, I analyse the implications of autoplaying video as a driver of ‘audile technique... more In this article, I analyse the implications of autoplaying video as a driver of ‘audile techniques’ in the 2010s digital ecosystem – in particular, techniques that respond to the realities of the separability of image and sound, even in media that contain both elements. I then examine a number of strategies through which this audio/visual split has been negotiated, monetized, and creatively bridged by consumers, creators, and corporate personnel – from the creation of new audiovisual genres and aesthetics, to the rise of particular platform pricing models, to the adoption (and, potentially, exploitation) of accessibility features. Ultimately, I seek to show how negotiations of sound and listening factor deeply into contemporary attempts to harness and monetize ‘attention’ as a commodity in a digital economy of platforms, advertisements, and data.
Unmute This: Circulation, Sociality, and Sound in Viral Media Paula Harper Cats at keyboards. Dan... more Unmute This: Circulation, Sociality, and Sound in Viral Media Paula Harper Cats at keyboards. Dancing hamsters. Giggling babies and dancing flashmobs. A bi-colored dress. Psy’s “Gangnam Style” music video. Over the final decade of the twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first, these and countless other examples of digital audiovisual phenomena have been collectively adjectivally described through a biological metaphor that suggests the speed and ubiquity of their circulation—“viral.” This circulation has been facilitated by the internet, and has often been understood as a product of the web’s celebrated capacities for democratic amateur creation, its facilitation of unmediated connection and sharing practices. In this dissertation, I suggest that participation in such phenomena—the production, watching, listening to, circulation, or “sharing” of such objects—has constituted a significant site of twenty-first-century musical practice. Borrowing and adapting Christop...
Cats at keyboards. Dancing hamsters. A photo of a dress, and videos set to “Harlem Shake.” The a... more Cats at keyboards. Dancing hamsters. A photo of a dress, and videos set to “Harlem Shake.” The above are recognizable as “viral” phenomena—artifacts of the early twenty-first century whose production and dissemination were facilitated by the internet, proliferating social media platforms, and ubiquitous digital devices. In this paper, I argue that participation in such phenomena (producing, consuming, circulating, or “sharing” them) constitutes a significant site of twenty-first-century musical practice: viral musicking, to borrow and adapt Christopher Small’s foundational 1998 coinage. In this paper I analyze instances of viral musicking from the 2000s through the 2010s, tracking viral circulation as heterogeneous, capacious, and contradictory—a dynamic, relational assemblage of both “new” and “old” media and practices. The notion of virus as a metaphor for cultural spread is often credited to computer science and science fiction, with subsequent co-option into marketing and media...
On March 11, 2011, popular internet humor blog the Daily What published a post containing a singl... more On March 11, 2011, popular internet humor blog the Daily What published a post containing a single YouTube video. The video’s static thumbnail evoked placid suburban domesticity: a medium close-up of a white adolescent girl smiling widely, framed against a background of green foliage. This post, with its innocuous image—seemingly suitable for advertising home insurance or back-to-school supplies—was inexplicably and provocatively captioned “Where Is Your God Now of the Day: I am no longer looking forward to the weekend.”1 Prior to the Daily What posting, the video had received relatively little online viewership. But just a few weeks later, on March 30, it had edged out the music video to Justin Bieber’s “Baby” to achieve the dubious distinction of the most “disliked” video on the YouTube platform.2 The video in question was “Rebecca Black—Friday,” one of the most infamous viral videos of the early 2010s.3 In the video, over the course of three minutes and forty-seven seconds, singer and central figure Rebecca Black narrates and moves through believably mundane situations— a schoolgirl eagerly anticipating the weekend as she completes her morning routine and commute, to a Friday night party full of friends.
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