VIRAL MARKETING Straight Outta Compton font/logo becomes a meme

The marketing for a film about 80s/90s old school gangsta rappers has been exemplary, creating a much stronger than usual excitement around a biopic.

At the heart of this has been a shareable font/logo that has taken Facebook and other social media by storm, and pushing the film's marketing to audiences it might otherwise have struggled to reach.

So, when considering digipak and magazine ad designs, don't underestimate the power of a downloadable and editable font/logo... and the very real power of audience interaction.

See distractify.com page for 20 examples, one below.

DANCE EG: Tata Young - I Believe (2004, Thai)

1st shot: walking towards lense, stays in MS. Semi-revealing costume

Tata Young -

I Believe.

Dir: unknown, 2004.

Dance-pop/R&B.

Lyrics. YT Channel.

SUMMARY

The track is dull and tedious, and it gets the video it deserves! Its all proficiently done - the green-screened CGI is fairly impressive, the dance routines are slickly choreographed, the male performers are suitably tight-lipped and moody, the shirtless male provides eye candy for a female gaze/audience, a wind machine adds that dramatising touch, some aerial shots are set up well.

Nonetheless, it suffers from a lack of shot variety; the studio setup and the cliched basic romance setup both fail to hold the attention. Britney Spears shot to fame by fusing signifiers of innocence and sexuality in a polysemic promo that be read as raunch or innocent; this video appears to be attempting a comparable blend, less successfully blending these binaries - although this Western-centric reading may be misinterpreting Thai cultural signifiers.

It is worth working through all the screenshots for the final shot, which is beautifully lit and very well executed.

For quite some time we crosscut between this shot (graphics colour changes) and that below

Its a Britney World: The Britney Meme

I put this collection together some time ago, as part of the preparation for Music Video Day, when we remade an inconic video in just one day. Its a good example of a meme - but also of the difficulty of pinning down a singular text in our postmodern hypertextual age.

This track has become a cultural meme...

I've gathered some examples of the many treatments of this track below. Yours will shortly become the latest addition to this postmodern phenomenon!

If you come across any others please pass on details (with a link) as a comment!

Postmodern intertextuality: Robert Palmer

I've seen this referenced in The Simpsons too, and many other shows/vids too - its sufficiently widely used to be described as a meme (a widely referenced cultural event, text or idea); as Andy used it as an example, here's how the intertextuality works in Bowling For Soup's 1985 video.

Wheatus, Blink 182, Weezer and similar pop-punk or alt-rock bands have all created postmodern videos centred on ironic intertextuality with classic TV shows or stereotypical depictions of a past time period with a modern twist.

Bowling For Soup appear to mock the casual sexism of the original video (from around 0:35 in):

They dress up as the glamourous models, the obvious humour ensuring they can maintain a macho, laddish image despite appearing in drag.

In a rather more ambiguous (or polysemic) style, the distributors of WT hit rom-com, Richard Curtis' Love Actually, created a chart hit with Bill Nighy in his fictional role singing Christmas is All Around. Is it simply sexist, or is is ironic and mocking sexism?


The reading of the original, from 1985 as the Bowling For Soup song title suggests, isn't necessarily that straightforward either. If it was intended simply to identify Robert Palmer with glamour and sex appeal, then it appears utterly preposterous to the contemporary viewer - but that doesn't necessarily reflect typical audience (especially youth) reaction when it was originally released. There are lots of shots of Palmer smiling (or smirking? again, its polysemic) - is he meant to be in on the joke ... is his original video actually sending up/pastiching the ever-increasing use of attractive models we saw with mid-80s pop videos? Or is it simply a crudely sexist video bluntly objectifying women, with its shots, for example, of legs in isolation?
Your take on this may well be dictated by your age!



Bands like BFSoup and Weezer didn't invent such explicit interextuality - the music video has always borrowed liberally from other media and from earlier music videos. Weird Al Yankovic has made a successful career out of lampooning hit songs, such as 1988's Michael Jackson spoof, Fat:


Remember, we saw similar traits from films too last year, eg: Psycho's Sam Loomis referenced through Halloween's Dr Loomis and then both through Scream's Billy Loomis.

Video Gaga? Various Analyses

From the far reaches of the web, a rather curious take on Lady Gaga...a force for a global conspiracy?!
an extract:

Gaga is not giving birth to a human but to a “new race” within humanity. The symbolism of the video makes it clear that this birth is not natural, but artificially provoked. A twisted immaculate conception. As is the case for most Lady Gaga videos, the theme of mind control is important in the video. It is the process through which the metamorphosis will take place.  In Monarch programming terms, we are witnessing the birth of a new persona within the “core personality” of humanity. The birth is happening within the minds of people and is visually represented by creepy facial horns.

If you really want to read more: source.
The same site also prognosticates on Britney Spears: an extract:

Britney indeed bears many classic symptoms of a Monarch programming victim. Further, the video of Hold it Against Me contains many visual clues that hint at Britney’s mental prison.

The next one I came across via Ellie's blog, a detailed look at Bad Romance. The writer sees Gaga as a feminist icon - I'm not so sure, tho' there is definitely a case to make for that interpretation:

The Art of Gaga- Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance Music Video Explained

[http://elenamusic.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/the-art-of-gaga-lady-gagas-bad-romance-music-video-explained/]

Lady Gaga is an artist.

What is an artist? Musicians have blurred the lines between artist and being godly, being a role model and having something to say, or someone who is just famous for the sake of being famous. But, what is an artist?
An artist is someone whom their creations conveys a message. As the observer, we are the ones to decipher the creation and come to our own conclusions of what the message is. The message and the medium, however creative they are, contribute to how interesting the artist is.
Lady Gaga is an artist because she has a lot to say, and a very colorful way of saying it as well. I would overhear people saying, “she can’t sing” and I think that’s ridiculous. Of course she can sing, she has an amazing voice. I respect Lady Gaga as an artist because in my own interpretation of her music and music videos, I get a message that wants to change things. She sends messages to express female frustration, and is changing art to shake things up in the world.
Even though these music videos have been out for a while, I wanted to write my own interpretation of these music videos. I would talk to my friends about the importance of “Bad Romance” and “Telephone” and my friends would say it was garbage. How could I have such a different opinion about these videos than my friends? Didn’t we see the same music video? These music videos make the observer think, you have to think critically of what the message is. Here’s my interpretation:

Lady Gaga- Bad Romance

In Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video, we are subjected to different scenarios. We have the the coffin scene, where Gaga is coming out of the “coffin”, so to speak, as a monster. I think this music video was kind of the birth of Gaga’s journey as a true artist. She was coming to make a statement. Also as a self-proclaimed “monster”, she is also telling the viewer that it’s ok to be different.

We also have the scene where Gaga is in a sheer, skin colored outfit. She has pink hair and she is being tied down and being forced to remove her clothes. In this scene, the big eyes represent innocence to me, and the people that are taking off her clothes are taking away her innocence, forcing someone against their will. Also, the fact that they are taking her clothes away, they are stripping her into a sexual figure.

One of the biggest scenes to me is when she is in the diamond outfit, dancing in front of all the suitors while they are bidding on her. She is a courtesan, a prostitute, being forced against her will to be sexual for these men. She is reduced to a financial figure for her sex. She obviously resents the fact at the end of the video. Where you see Gaga strutting to the bed to the suitor who was the top bidder. She kills him. An act of revenge against everything that happened to her. Her being stripped away of her innocence, being reduced for a sexual figure to be bid on by men.

It’s a very feminist video. There are also images of her as a “monster” and it’s very obvious that she shape has been altered in the video. Her spine is protruding out of her skin, and her curves are accentuated. Has she turned into a sex monster? This video is retaliating against men. It is showing how women are shown in the media, and in real life as sexual objects, only there to tantalize and satisfy men. It has made women into sexual monsters, both wanting to be sexual, but fighting against the stereotypes men put upon them. And in the end, Gaga is taking a stand, that she is not going to be ruled by a man, that she is her own woman.

What about the violence? Is that called for?
There is a lot of violence in movies, men make the violence and now it’s tolerated as a male thing. It’s also tying into the gender stereotype that only men can get angry. When men get angry, they get violent. Women are not supposed to get angry, and hence, not be violent. The violence is a masculine trait. Gaga takes on this masculine trait to express her revenge, and assert her independence from men. The lyrics “I want your loving and I want your revenge” fits in perfectly with the images portrayed. There is definitely confusion in today’s age of what is a strong woman. Is she sexual and successful? Is she desired by all men and at the same time making a lot of money?
Why do people question Lady Gaga’s sex? Is she a man or a woman? She is taking feminism head on, using masculine traits to assert her womanhood. She really has picked up where Madonna has left off. Madonna started a lot of controversies with her sexual videos, questioning women’s roles in society. She wanted to show women could be successful and  sexual at the same time. Gaga is sending her own message, and using violence and intense visuals to assert her femininity, and masculinity at the same time.
I think it’s brilliant what Lady Gaga is doing to bring the music video back. There is so much open to interpretation and people can conclude their own vision of Gaga’s music videos. What does she say to you? The fact is that she’s shaping a new era of how women are looked at. Am I just reading in between the lines too much? I know I’m not because that’s the point of art, to take away from it your own interpretation of the art. To question, think and make the art mean something to you.
I will also review the music video “Telephone” because we open up even more cans of worms.
What does Bad Romance mean to you?

PoMo+MVid IN TV/FILM CULTURE

Its not just MVids that steal from (or intertextually reference if you prefer!) film/TV; it works the other way round too. One of the early signs of MTV moving away from a daily diet of MVids was the show Beavis and Butt-head, here enjoying the 'cymbalism' in Nirvana's iconic Smells Like Teen Spirit...

If you're unfamiliar with this show, try http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-beavis-and-butthead-classic-rock-song-commentaries/ for 10 egs!
This rather mean portrayal of the rock fan as empty-headed moron would also find its way into film, with Wayne's World featuring a pair of yokels fronting their own no-budget cable TV review show; here they review Nirvana's gloriously surreal Heart Shaped Box...

They would also create parodies of videos, such as this one of REM's classic Everybody Hurts...


When talking about TV/film in 2011, it makes sense to consider the web as part of this picture, and fan-vids are part of this postmodern mash-up process; here's a fan-vid of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit where the audio is a fan's band and the footage is B+B edited as if performing...

Lady Gaga via Leeds - the Bad Romance meme

UPDATE 22ND FEB 2011
Noticed more parodies and even a Lg make-up how-to; links, not embeds, follow:
(Bad Romance Parody - gets a little crude towards the end) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWxTGJ3TK1U&feature=channel
(LadyGagaVEVO - lots more links; this is behind-the-scenes of Telephone vid) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQvBjs9u5Hw&feature=related
(LadyG make-up how-to) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGcLCoh5bYo&feature=related

YouTube is opening up opportunities for all sorts of new acts; these guys have hit the charts with their Gillian mcKeith Song after getting played by C.Moyles and others; here is Brett Domino's take on Bad Romance, one of the 1st videos we looked at this year:

At some point I'll add in notes from work on LadyG, but for now a few further examples of how - just like the Britney track - this single has provoked a range of online responses from widely divergent genres.
This idea, of taking music from one (typically non-credible, poppy) genre and transplanting it to a radically differing, essentially binary opposite (viewed by its fans as highly credible, complex music) genre is not new (hip hop acts have been trawling through all sorts of unlikely sources for decades, with a sample from a 50s track, Apache, by instrumental act The Shadows forming the bedrock of many early rap tunes). The rise and ever-increasing accessibility of digital media, and the web as a carrier for the output of digitally produced media, has seen this mushroom.
Another iconic example: Kylie Minogue. She has skilfully repositioned herself away from the bubblegum image she started out with, partially through a capacity to pastiche herself; refract herself through a postmodern lens - a great example being her reading her famously simplistic debut single's lyrics as mock-poetry:

...But back to LadyG...
Search YouTube for the track and you'll find a plethora of versions; the following are just a small sample:


These guys are unashamedly trying to use LadyG's colossal fanbase to generate interest - without the keywords lady gaga bad romance its unlikely many people would ever come across them...

There are many more: gothic, power metal, death metal drum tracks ... the list goes on
Have you come across (m)any tracks that have generated so many covers? (Add a comment with info if so!)