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You are here: Home / Music / Open Thread: Georemixing

Open Thread: Georemixing

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Fun article on a genre I did not know there was a word for, by Ethan Zuckerman in the Atlantic:

… While the braggadocio in these remixes is pure parody, there’s a sense in which each of these videos makes a claim to share the stage with the original. YouTube’s related videos feature means that there’s a chance that some of the 2 billion viewers of PSY’s “Gangnam Style” video will encounter Zigi’s “Ghana Style,” a georemix that relocates Seoul to Accra and replaces PSY’s horse dance with Ghanaian Azonto. (And if not through YouTube, viewers may encounter Zigi through the hundreds of listicles that advertise “10 Best Gangnam Style Parodies.”)

I think of the georemix as a claim to attention, a way of demanding part of the spotlight that shines on a popular video. It’s a very basic demand: accept that we’re part of this phenomenon, too.…

Loïc Fontaine and Julie Fersing deserve much of the credit for the georemixes that made Pharrell cry, though neither has made a video. Fersing, an interior designer in Nantes, began collecting georemixes of “Happy”, searching YouTube to find new material. When she’d located 21 of the videos, she turned to her husband, Fontaine, who’d begun a career in website development nine months earlier. Together, they launched We Are Happy From, a portal that now hosts 1,682 videos from 143 countries…

For me, as a student of civic media, the dissident videos excluded from the We Are Happy Map are the most interesting ones. Fontaine has kindly shared the list of rejected videos with me, and I hope to spend some time this summer watching those 500 remixes in the hopes of developing an understanding of how “Happy” can work as a script for advocacy (or how videomakers think it might act as that script).

But for Fontaine and his wife, the mark of success wasn’t raising awareness for a cause or an issue—it was documenting the spread of happiness globally. When I interviewed Fontaine, he was celebrating the spread of “Happy” to Antarctica, with a video from French research station Dumont d’Urville…

Reader Interactions

42Comments

  1. 1.

    Dee Loralei

    I love that most silly “Happy” song. Yea, it makes me happy. No way in hell I’m watching even one second of the Gangnam parodies, I hate that song. Wished the French had shown more of the penguins, maybe doin’ a Happy Feet dance to the Happy song.

  2. 2.

    MikeJ

    It’s a very basic demand: accept that we’re part of this phenomenon, too.…

    Because you watched a video you’re now part of it and making demands about being recognized?

  4. 4.

    Belafon

    @Dee Loralei: The good thing about Gangnam Style is that it kept Call Me Maybe from being the “song of the summer” that year, the song that would have been played over and over for the rest of the year.

  6. 6.

    A Ghost To Most

    since this is an open thread, submitted without comment:

    trigger warning: mooney times

    Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher has a message for the families of the six victims killed during Elliot Rodger’s bloody rampage through Isla Vista, California: “Your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights.”

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    @MikeJ:

    Because you watched a video you’re now part of it and making demands about being recognized?

    No, they’re part of the phenomenon because they made a response or parody video like the one Anne Laurie embedded.

  8. 8.

    ranchandsyrup

    Mitch the turtle speaks the truth about teabillies and the gop:

    “They have their strong base, their core. But, they don’t have success courting the middle. You know why? It’s their overt racism. The Tea Party hasn’t learned to conceal its racism. That’s where they fail. The Republican party knows better. Want to keep minority voters from the polls? Fine, set up hindrances to “prevent voter fraud”. Want to cut social services? Fine, but do it for “fiscal conservatism”. These Tea Party idiots and their supporters are out hollering the N word, calling Obama an ape, suggest Michelle is a transvestite. That alienates the middle. That’s what costs them. You want to think those things? Think them to yourselves. You want to legislate against that them? Come up with an excuse. The Tea Party will remain an also ran unless they work on their poker face a bit more” – See more at: http://nationalreport.net/secret-mcconnell-recording-tea-party-lost-primaries-hasnt-learned-conceal-racism/#sthash.o1sjIioQ.dpuf

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    There’s a bottomless chasm separating a genre from pretentious claptrap.

    a student of civic media

    That was the cue to cease reading the excerpt altogether, much less click through.

  11. 11.

    Ash Can

    The little vid at the link of Pharrell Williams tearing up at the sight of people around the world being happy along with his music had me getting misty-eyed as well. Very sweet.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Well, the dipshits at Noisemax of course miss the entire point, but what the fuck does one expect from ammosexuals?

    Michael Moore: Guns Don’t Kill, Americans Do

    Yeah, Americans kill Americans…WITH GUNS!

    Read the article, it’s pretty obvious that Moore is not jumping into bed with the small dicked twits of the NRA.

  15. 15.

    Trollhattan

    @A Ghost To Most:

    Uh, “Joe,” Andy Warhol for you, line three.

    I suppose “Ted” Nugent will chime in, next. Every bottom-dweller surfaces for a gasp, now and then.

    Today’s Google doodle celebrates Rachel Carson, who certainly warrants celebrating.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @ranchandsyrup:

    The Republican party knows better.

    We know to use dog whistles, not to use an air raid siren.

    McConnell is racist vermin just like the teahadis.

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    @ranchandsyrup:
    It would be uncharitable, I suppose, to think that Mitch McConnell cares about calling out racism among the Tea Party tendency only because his wife is Asian-American.

    @A Ghost To Most:
    We should all be in awe of John McCain and his talent for choosing friends.

  24. 24.

    BruinKid

    Joe the Plumber has opened his mouth about the UCSB massacre.

    I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now. But:

    As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.

    Go fuck yourself, “Joe”. Weinstein nailed it:

    It’s part of a larger move in conservatism away from appeals to the common good and toward an antipathy for anything but the self. Where conservatives used to justify the free market, for example, in Adam Smith’s practical terms—the invisible hand provides for all, a rising tide floats every boat—they now rationalize it in Ayn Rand’s fundamentalist terms: Who gives a shit if the market is good or just? It’s right. Now get the fuck out of our way, you illogical bromide-hawking self sacrificer. … Even if you believe that discussion of social responsibilities is the same thing as socialism—and frankly, only an ignoramus could—you can’t fight socialism by becoming a sociopath.

  26. 26.

    Dee Loralei

    @Villago Delenda Est: yea. No kidding. That poor dumbass woman.

    @Belafon: Yea, I hated that song too, and almost mentioned it i my previous comment, but was afraid the ear worm Gods would go on the offensive.

  27. 27.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @BruinKid: The “conservatives” need to be tossed into a jungle naked and see how much they like the lifestyle the want to push on everyone else.

    Good meals for tigers and vultures they will make.

  29. 29.

    Seanly

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Ummm, there’s a bit more damning stuff in there than tea party is racist. He gives the game away about voter fraud & social net slashing.

    On topic – I love that goofy song. The tribute/parody videos are great.

  30. 30.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    It’s a very basic demand: accept that we’re part of this phenomenon, too.…

    Those folks are definitely management material.

  31. 31.

    MikeJ

    @Mnemosyne:

    No, they’re part of the phenomenon because they made a response or parody video like the one Anne Laurie embedded.

    But that’s not what the article claims. It says they made the video because they’re part of the phenomenon, not that they are part of the phenomenon because they made the video.

  37. 37.

    Tommy

    Gosh I am so not hip. I had to Google “Pharrell” and “Happy.” I first heard of this song and the videos made when the folks in Iran got arrested. That video from Antarctica is just off the chart. Wow.

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    @MikeJ:

    It says they made the video because they’re part of the phenomenon, not that they are part of the phenomenon because they made the video.

    What came first, the chicken or the egg? People liked the song and/or video, so they made their own song and/or response to it, and now you have “georemixing.” It seemed pretty clear to me that it was the response song/video that made it a new phenomenon, not just people liking the song.

  39. 39.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @catclub:
    It’s the South Korean equivalent of Beverly Hills. The point of the song and the video is that rich people trying to be cool usually look like idiots, and really cool people are the normal folks you meet on the subway.

  40. 40.

    Comrade Mary

    @Dee Loralei: I love both songs and almost all the tributes / remixes / parodies.

    Did any of us think back in the 20th century that there would be this kind of global sharing and mixing?

    I fucking love the future sometimes.

  41. 41.

    Origuy

    I don’t think anything in the “National Report” can be taken seriously. They seem to mix real news with fake stories indiscriminately. For example, the stories saying that Obama is going to remove “In God We Trust” from currency and that he plans to work for the Muslim Brotherhood are bogus, but some of the others appear real.

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