120
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
Classic music videos, but they included novel elements in their video, audio,
or embedded content.” 29 They conclude, “traditional videos receive more
views but derivative videos invite more active viewer participation through
commenting and voting.” 30 However, amateur-made covering is far from
being a deadly threat to the survival of the music industry. The relationship
between the phenomenon of amateur YouTube covers and the industry can
be more accurately described as mutually symbiotic since mainstream
cultural products (e.g. talent shows) also benefit from the platform’s talent
discovery possibilities, not to mention YouTube’s licensing deals. It could
also be argued that user-generated creativity is no longer a “revolutionary”
alternative to commercial channels that promote media content but an
“extension of the cultural industries,” 31 which have evolved into platforms
that host both amateur and professional creativity. For example, the
Starmaker 3.0 App (launched in June 2014) by Starmaker Interactive (a
company that has established a partnership with The Voice franchise among
other similar partnerships) allows users to make a “music video selfie” and
then upload their video to YouTube. The company sells this product using
the slogan “Be discovered or discover the next music star.” This example
illustrates Schäfer’s understanding of how new business models benefit
from the activities of users through implicit participation, “where social
interaction and user activities are channeled and controlled by design.” 32
Still, a number of these videos remain explicitly peripheral and sometimes
become defining cultural contributions standing in contrast to the kind of
videos the Starmaker App seems geared towards – with its offer of backing
tracks of mainstream songs and auto-tune possibilities to pre-record a user’s
vocal performance.
In order to offer an understanding of the aesthetic differences between
YouTube user-generated music videos and industry-related visual forms of
musical performances I will return to the comparison between WOTE’s
YouTube cover of “Somebody That I Used to Know” and their performance
on the Ellen show. The key problem of WOTE’s recreation on television is
one of production scale. In Unruly Media Carol Vernallis identifies scale
as one of the defining characteristics of YouTube clips. 33 One of her key
29 Liikkanen and Salovaara, “Music on YouTube,” 114.
30 Ibid., 123.
31 Mirko Tobias Schäfer, Bastard Culture!: How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011), 11.
32 Ibid., 44.
33 Carol Vernallis, Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013).
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
Classic music videos, but they included novel elements in their video, audio,
or embedded content.” 29 They conclude, “traditional videos receive more
views but derivative videos invite more active viewer participation through
commenting and voting.” 30 However, amateur-made covering is far from
being a deadly threat to the survival of the music industry. The relationship
between the phenomenon of amateur YouTube covers and the industry can
be more accurately described as mutually symbiotic since mainstream
cultural products (e.g. talent shows) also benefit from the platform’s talent
discovery possibilities, not to mention YouTube’s licensing deals. It could
also be argued that user-generated creativity is no longer a “revolutionary”
alternative to commercial channels that promote media content but an
“extension of the cultural industries,” 31 which have evolved into platforms
that host both amateur and professional creativity. For example, the
Starmaker 3.0 App (launched in June 2014) by Starmaker Interactive (a
company that has established a partnership with The Voice franchise among
other similar partnerships) allows users to make a “music video selfie” and
then upload their video to YouTube. The company sells this product using
the slogan “Be discovered or discover the next music star.” This example
illustrates Schäfer’s understanding of how new business models benefit
from the activities of users through implicit participation, “where social
interaction and user activities are channeled and controlled by design.” 32
Still, a number of these videos remain explicitly peripheral and sometimes
become defining cultural contributions standing in contrast to the kind of
videos the Starmaker App seems geared towards – with its offer of backing
tracks of mainstream songs and auto-tune possibilities to pre-record a user’s
vocal performance.
In order to offer an understanding of the aesthetic differences between
YouTube user-generated music videos and industry-related visual forms of
musical performances I will return to the comparison between WOTE’s
YouTube cover of “Somebody That I Used to Know” and their performance
on the Ellen show. The key problem of WOTE’s recreation on television is
one of production scale. In Unruly Media Carol Vernallis identifies scale
as one of the defining characteristics of YouTube clips. 33 One of her key
29 Liikkanen and Salovaara, “Music on YouTube,” 114.
30 Ibid., 123.
31 Mirko Tobias Schäfer, Bastard Culture!: How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011), 11.
32 Ibid., 44.
33 Carol Vernallis, Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013).