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Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter meets online fandom at the crossroads
One week ago, Beyoncé released her eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter — the second act in a trilogy of albums. Jason Parham delves into the reactions to Cowboy Carter in a recent article for WIRED, shedding light on the dynamics of online fandom.
As Beyoncé’s first full-length country album, Cowboy Carter was bound to be controversial. Not only do many individuals hold strong opinions about country music, but Beyoncé, as a Black woman, entering a predominantly white space was sure to stir up some reactions.
“Unlike other musical genres, country is infamous in who it chooses to exclude. The genre’s history is rife with allegiances to the old ways of American prejudice, and no bearing or social position can change that,” Parham writes.
Beyoncé has felt this sort of exclusion in the past. Upon the album’s release, she explained that Cowboy Carter was “born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed.” Though she didn’t say what the experience was, she’s likely referring to her 2016 “controversial” performance at the Country Music Association Awards with The Chicks.
With Beyoncé reclaiming a genre that has long been co-opted and whitewashed Cowboy Carter is inherently political. Considering this context, fans are protective of the album.
“[Beyoncé is an] industry unto herself: swaggering and audacious in reach, with a built-in fan base that anticipates every album drop,” Parham observes. “No other contemporary Black musician will bring more awareness to country’s gated meadowlands—its past, present, and possible futures—than Beyoncé.”
Parham notes there are valid criticisms against Beyoncé, like any other artist. But, the release of Cowboy Carter has exposed the true toxicity of online fandoms, where stans frequently find themselves in a “cycle of heated confrontation, and wild irrationality.”
“On Beyoncé’s internet, as with comparable fan cultures, logic finds comfort in the sideways geometry of the echo chamber. In its most intense form, fan logic thrives in isolation,” he continues. “Its reasoning animorphs into blind zealotry, wagging its finger in the face of disagreement.”
As fans resort to sending death threats and hate towards those who hold differing opinions, it's evident that their passion runs deep. This intensity, Parham explains, is not a bad thing. But it becomes dangerous when we operate in a shared digital environment.
On the likes of Stan Twitter and Reddit, “[you can] befriend other fans more easily than ever before,” journalist Brittany Luse tells Parham. “But that constant, instant access also at least partially fuels an us-against-them mindset that puts some people into attack mode over their favorite artist.”
Although Cowboy Carter is reminiscent of a monocultural moment, it's safe to say that the internet will remain fragmented moving forward, with users committed to their specific online niches and communities.
Read the full story via WIRED.
Can Harry Daniels Sing for You?
In a new piece for Rolling Stone, Tomás Mier interviews TikTok star Harry Daniels, aka “the guy who sings off-tune to celebs,” to discuss his viral fame and what he plans to do next.
Harry first gained popularity on TikTok last year after he attended an album signing for Sabrina Carpenter's emails i can't send. When it was finally his turn to meet her, he sang "one of her songs horribly and made her watch." The video quickly went viral.
Funnily enough, this wasn't Harry's first taste of social media fame. When he was younger, a clip of him fighting with another boy went viral on stan Twitter — now known as the iconic "you stan zara larsson" video.
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Since meeting Sabrina, he has bumped into just about every celebrity — tracking down and performing for the likes of Kendall Jenner, Dua Lipa, Jacob Elordi and Doja Cat.
Apart from gaining attention for the cringe-worthy moments in his videos, many of his followers are astounded by the number of celebrities he manages to connect with.
In the interview, he explains that not all encounters are organic. Some are planned as a part of a celebrity's marketing strategy.
Becoming a cult favourite on the platform, Harry has begun receiving invitations to mainstream events such as the People's Choice Awards. His sister, Madeline, even postponed her Master's Degree to manage his influencing career.
“We try to make videos that you can remember beyond your scrolling,” Madeline tells Mier. “You turn off your TikTok, you turn off your phone, and you still remember that video. There’s a timelessness to it.”
As for what Harry plans to do next, he hopes to follow in the footsteps of other TikTokers-turned-musicians, admitting that building a legitimate music career was always the goal.
“Music’s the only reason I even started doing this.… I can’t imagine myself doing anything else,” he says. “Nowadays, with the state of the music industry, no one cares if you’re good or you’re bad. They just really care if you’re entertaining.”
He hopes that his original music will "make people feel seen." In the meantime, his content is certainly keeping people interested and entertained.
Read Harry’s profile via Rolling Stone.
Salad Fingers: how the patron saint of Weird YouTube came to life
While Harry represents internet culture now, it has definitely evolved significantly since the early 2000s. In a new piece for Dazed, Thom Waite explores one of the internet’s first viral moments, interviewing the creator of Salad Fingers, David Firth.
Salad Fingers was a significant cultural moment for many chronically online Millennials and older Gen Z. But for those unfamiliar, it was an animated web series centering around a character named Salad Fingers — a slender, green creature who frequently talked about his love of rusty spoons.
The series debuted on Newgrounds, an entertainment platform that hosted user-generated content spanning categories including Games, Movies, Audio, and Art. Salad Fingers was released on YouTube one year later, in 2005.
“For many, the animated series served as an introduction to the ‘weird side of the internet’ – where films that wouldn’t fly on mainstream channels were allowed to flourish via sites such as Newgrounds and YouTube – and its gross, uneasy aesthetics continue to resonate in the more subversive pockets of art and animation to this day,” Waite writes.
Looking back on Salad Fingers' debut twenty years later, Firth still finds himself puzzled by why many viewers were disturbed by the character. However, he also acknowledges the significant changes in the digital landscape since he first shared the series.
“There was no censorship, it didn’t feel like there was any corporate control,” Firth tells Waite. “No one watching over [you], no one saying you couldn’t use this music, or you couldn’t say this. Absolute freedom. And everyone was trying their hardest to be as messed up as possible.”
According to Waite, this pursuit has shaped a significant portion of user-generated content on Web 2.0. But the appeal of Salad Fingers is not just because it is “messed up” but also “its unpredictable humour and absurdist twists that defy explanation.”
“Salad Fingers isn’t just random for the sake of being random (this sets it apart from the explosion of millennial cringe a few years later, all flying cats and the narwhal bacons at midnight),” he continues. “Instead, the ambiguity is carefully cultivated, with care given to the consistency and pervasive atmosphere of the series’ ‘delicate universe’.”
Allowing room for such ambiguity gave viewers the opportunity to build their own theories about the series— something very common on today’s internet.
Since Salad Fingers, other zany and unsettling series have gone viral. For instance, Waite draws parallels between Salad Fingers and Gen Alpha’s ‘Skibidi Toilet,’ noting that both embrace the humour “that you don’t see bleeding through to mainstream media spaces.”
“Just like early Salad Fingers, this tale [Skibidi Toilet] is animated with free and fairly basic software, verges on nonsensical, and makes use of unlicensed mashups for its soundtrack, a rebellious throwback to the days before strict, algorithmically-enforced copyright claims”
While the digital space is more saturated than ever, it's clear that Salad Fingers' legacy endures.
Read the full piece via Dazed.
Are Skims campaigns the new Vogue covers?
Sabrina Carpenter broke the internet this week after announcing her partnership with Skims. In a Y2K-inspired photoshoot posted to Instagram, Sabrina dons pastel lingerie in a bedroom filled with posters and CDs. As an up-and-coming pop girly, social media users (who aren’t Swifties) flooded Sabrina’s comment section congratulating her for the campaign. With this Skims partnership feeling like a level-up for Sabrina, Kyndall Cunningham for Vox explores what a collaboration with the shapewear brand represents in pop culture.
Sabrina is the latest in a long line of celebrities to partner with Skims, with the brand tapping Usher and Alex Cooper earlier this year. Both of the campaigns were extremely well-received, “generating the kind of positive buzz that Vogue and other legacy magazine covers have frequently failed to achieve.“
Through the piece, Cunningham breaks down a couple of theories behind Skims’ mainstream success.
Firstly, Skims made shapewear “cool” at a time when many women felt self-conscious about wearing such garments.
Founder Kim Kardashian openly discussed her use of shapewear, and also introduced Skims with a diverse range of styles, designed to complement various clothing pieces and skin tones.
“Of course, branding shapewear designed to make the body look slimmer as ‘inclusive’ is a bit ironic, if not totally regressive,” Cunningham notes. “Still, it’s clear that millennial and Gen Z women felt more embraced by Skims than legacy brand Victoria’s Secret by the late 2010s.”
Secondly, the brand has “filled a void” in the fashion world with its high-profile, diverse and timely celebrity collaborations.
This is partly due to Skims' direct-to-consumer model, which allows the brand to leverage viral trends and pop culture moments effectively.
“As a direct-to-consumer brand, they’re able to be very nimble with their marketing,” Senior reporter for Ad Age, Adrianne Pasquarelli tells Cunningham. “[Kim Kardashian] handles a lot of the creative and can turn out that stuff on a dime, especially for a digital campaign.”
That being said, Skims taps perfectly into the current cultural zeitgeist, where sponsored content and celebrity-led collaborations reign supreme.
Kim, of all people, knows how to capitalise off celebrity endorsement culture, considering she was one of the first mainstream stars to play into influencer marketing.
While many users are tired of the endless stream of ads and sponcon on social media, internet users continue to get excited about celebrity collaborations. Combined with Kim’s expertise, Skims’ success is no surprise.
“Ultimately, Skims’ success formula for advertising is admittedly simple; it’ll always have the ability to impress as long as other legacy brands are getting it wrong. Time will tell whether it can adapt to ever-changing trends in fashion and body image,” Cunningham concludes.
Read the story via Vox.
infinite scroll launches a daily podcast covering creator news and internet culture
Now, exciting news for all infinite scroll subscribers. The ‘infinite scroll podcast’ has officially launched a daily podcast offering titled ‘mini scroll.’ With 10-to-15-minute long episodes, ‘mini scroll’ delivers the daily headlines related to internet culture and the creator economy.
'mini scroll' airs Monday through Thursday on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Full episodes will also be posted on TikTok, meeting Gen Z on the platforms they use and enjoy to ensure maximum accessibility and engagement.
Hosted by Centennial World founder and digital culture expert Lauren Meisner, 'mini scroll' is set to become a go-to source for staying in the know about the online world.
"‘mini scroll’ is an exciting addition to our podcast lineup, complementing our flagship series, 'infinite scroll'," says Meisner. "With 'infinite scroll' offering a 30-minute long deep dive into a single topic every Friday, 'mini scroll' fills the gap with daily updates, providing our audience a comprehensive understanding of the digital landscape."
Tune into ‘mini scroll’ on TikTok, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.