By Ridwana Ali

Childish Gambino’s This Is America (2018), directed by Hiro Murai, represents a pivotal evolution in the music video’s trajectory from MTV broadcast artefact to digital cultural event. As Arnold et al. argue, music videos today persist not just as promotional tools, but as hybrid, socially engaged artworks adapted for twenty-first-century digital media platforms (Arnold et al., 2017). This Is America doesn’t just accompany a song; it performs cultural critique, using audiovisual form to confront themes of racism, spectacle, and distraction in American society.

Unlike the tightly curated music videos of the MTV era, This Is America is crafted for digital platforms: its visuals demand pausing, looping, screenshotting, and sharing. It was immediately dissected on social media, Twitter threads analysing its symbolism, YouTube reaction videos, and TikTok recreations all amplified its reach and meaning. This participatory reception marks a shift described by Carole Vernallis, who identifies a “second aesthetic” in digital-era music videos, one characterised by density, fragmentation, and an invitation to user interaction (Vernallis, 2013, p. 208).

The video includes long takes and spatial choreography to draw the viewer’s attention between foreground and background, often misdirecting focus just as real-world media does. While Gambino dances through scenes, chaos unfolds behind him gun violence, riots, and terror presented with an unsettling mix of theatricality and realism. This tension between entertainment and trauma embodies what Vernallis calls “unruly media”: visual forms that unsettle narrative expectations and provoke affective, embodied viewing (2013, p. 211).

This Is America is more than a music video; it’s a viral object of discourse, activism, and critique. By leveraging digital networks not only for distribution but for conversation, the video reveals how the music video has transformed into a platform for cultural intervention.

By Ridwana Ali

References

Gina Arnold, Daniel Cookney, Kirsty Fairclough, and Michael Goddard ‘Introduction: The Persistence of the Music Video Form from MTV to Twenty-First-Century Social Media’, Music/Video: Histories Aesthetics, Media, 1-14

Carole Vernallis, ‘Music Video’s Second Aesthetic’, Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema, 207-233

This is America music video [Music Video]. YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/VYOjWnS4cMY?si=iwYP4IjBrSgF1rGX