Although Youtube success now signals being apart of the in-crowd, many Youtubers going on to attain mainstream success from traditional media, this was not always the case. 12 years ago, the video sharing platform and its biggest content contributors, were apart of an online space that often received external ridicule. Enter: Weezer, a band that has revelled in its unabashedly nerdy aesthetic and lame rock lyrics from the outset. With their 2008 music video for Pork and Beans, they created a digital cinematic celebration for this community of outsiders and their amateur artistic contributions. Referencing other researchers on the subject, Carol Vernallis explains how “Youtube fosters community and acts as an agent for self expression: the site makes possible new identities, sexualities and modes of interaction.” Further, she observes how clips could be considered “high-art, indie, quirky, and “the outsider”. (2013, p.130)

In The Lumiere Galaxy, Francesco Casetti outlines a new media definition, calling it a “heterogeneous collection of elements, which can be reintegrated, rearranged, and put to different functions” (2015, p.75) The above music video does just this, reenacting viral clips and assembling them into new contexts, thereby creating a different end result. Not only does this celebrate the included videos and their stars, but the aesthetic and intermediality of Youtube itself, where “intertextuality and hybridization occur across platforms, among users, and within clips.” (Vernallis, 2013, p.143) Additionally, a lo-fi appearance is often adopted within Pork and Beans, imitating the “prosumer’s do-it-yourself aesthetics.” (Vernallis, 2013, p.132)

Youtube has undoubtedly flourished under an era of multiple and mobile screens, the cinematic experience of watching content on the platform often being both deeply personal and social. While Casetti observes that “users of a mobile device may find a certain intimacy with what they are watching” (2015, p.72), Vernallis posits that a clip “swells in the light of our shared feeling. The clip’s cleverness helps it merge into our paths of dialogue and mutuality.” This dichotomy is showcased in Weezer’s music video through ‘the numa numa guy’, who sits at a desk, seemingly alone through the view of his webcam; in truth, he is surrounded by fellow viral stars, the room overflowing with creation and community.

By Lily Thetford (33659272)

References:

Vernallis, C. (2013) Unruly media YouTube, music video, and the new digital cinema. New York: Oxford University Press.

Casetti, F. (2015) The Lumière galaxy : seven key words for the cinema to come. New York: Columbia University Press.