Joseph Gohari
English 2150
Professor Graves
February 15, 2019
Viral Trends
In todays day and age the idea of becoming “viral” is the one of the top motives for millennials. More millennials are ditching the books and are picking up the camera to try to become famous on social media or any other platform. Whether the platform be for other people’s enjoyment or to speak out on social matters, virality has been sought out by the youth in every format. The two pieces that really depicted this movement are the songs “#selfie” by The Chainsmokers and “Reagan” by Killer Mike. These two pieces fit the meaning of this zeitgeist as one song [#selfie] talks about the selfie movement and how millennials were so fixated on self-obsession and the other song [Reagan] which talks about how society was shaped after the Reagan era and how he impacted the world as well as the millennial youth. Both songs offer different perspectives of how millennials lived with different viral trends and how the life of a different generation would become the reality of the new one.
The Song #Selfie characterized the whole selfie movement millennials were going through. In the year 2014 where, Electronic Dance Music (EDM) was at its peak popularity which helped with the whole trend. Selfies have become a part of modern society and everyone can admit that they have at least taken one selfie, and it is not a bad thing. Nowadays society sees self-love as a negative trait and often describe you as narcissistic, but the selfie means much more than that. The selfie movement sparked a social outbreak of self-love allowing people to be comfortable with themselves and letting everyone know that they think that. Selfies allow people to express themselves through a simple photo of themselves where people can even complement others on there selfie. The rise of the selfie started when apple came out with the Apple iPhone 4 in 2010 which included a front facing camera allowing user to take the selfie and see yourself while your talking it. A study came out of 800 teenagers by the Pew Research Centre that found “91 percent of them posted photos of themselves online- up from 79 percent in 2006”. This study has gone to show that people are becoming more in tune with themselves allowing them to post freely and without any doubts. Selfies also have allowed millennials to become viral through selfies that receive more attention than most. Millennials see celebrities that post selfies, gaining more like and comments and set them self out to do the same thing and become viral off their own selfie.
The song begins with a woman speaking about a selfie she posted on Instagram and a guy named Jason whom she seems to like. She is concerned about how she looks in the selfie and if Jason liked the picture. For most people posting selfies at first, they are concerned about how they look and how other people will think they look. The woman is seen as narcissistic because of the way she is talking down the other girl Jason with which leads her to want to get off the topic in which she remarks the famous line “let me take a selfie” followed by the EDM part of the song. The song gained traction as it became the number 28 song on the billboard hot 100. After its exponential fame the song was created into a music video where the fanbase of the song contributed to the video. Soon people all over Instagram and Facebook posted selfies hoping to make it into the music video. Included in the music video had famous actors and artist like David Hasselhoff and Snoop Dogg. The Chainsmokers asked the viewers to post selfies with the hashtag selfie where they received thousands of pictures to place into the video. The song itself has the viral impact on society the same way the Harlem shake did in that it started a viral movement where people from all over contributed by taking selfies.
The music video started off with the same woman speaking but this time in the bathroom of a club. The setting of the video contributes to the selfie culture because the use of the mirror selfies and it being at a club where people are more inclined to take them. The trend that was created was that people worldwide began to post selfies in hopes of recognition in hopes of going viral. Selfies began to flood the Instagram feeds as well as Facebook posts. [talk about people who became viral off selfies]
As well the song #Selfie, the song Reagan by Killer Mike speaks about social trends that were formed from the Reagan term. The artist claims not to be political but the idea of speaking out on social issues on a political scale has allowed people to become viral. The song is based on how under Reagans term he implemented laws that shaped society. Mike explained that Reagan was “an actor. He was a pitchman at first, and so people naturally trust him. He understood how to weave magic when he was speaking, and that’s what we as entertainers do”. Here Killer Mike iterates that Reagan was ran by people inside the government through his lyrics “Ronald Reagan was an actor, not at all a factor; just an employee of the countries real masters”. Speaking out on presidents several years ago was not as popular as it is today. Ever since Donald Trump won the presidency social outbreaks have crowded the streets to gates of the white house to speak on their distrust on the president. It has become a viral trend not only on social media but has found its way to television through the news. As well as this Killer Mike criticizes other rappers on how they glamorize violence and lead them that its cool to join gangs and sell drugs. He sees other rappers as wrong type of social influencers because of how they use their platform which has become a viral trend with people of fame using their fame to send out messages that may or not be helpful towards society.