From the wonderful Katherine Dee, here is one excerpt:
TikTok sketch comedy is on the same theater list. Inviting the suspension of disbelief from the audience, creators often play multiple characters, switching quickly between roles without changing voice, facial expression, or camera angle. And most importantly, it’s funny. If all the feeds are taken together, it is almost a digital vaudeville: song, short sketch, physical play, slapstick, animal acts and satire, respectively, in a separate show for you on your phone.
Also:
It’s a spectrum. On the other hand, we have Internet Personalities, and their cults of devotion. In the middle, we find fan culture, where certain fans become prominent figures among their fans, stars themselves. These Big Name fans often come forward to create their own media empires, as happened with EL James, who wrote. Fifty Shades of Greyitself at first It’s dusk fanfiction, and Cassandra Clare, who started in the Harry Potter fan community, before going on to write several popular fanfiction series. On the other side of the spectrum there are unknown creators, their style of writing is almost medieval: their projects do not talk about them as individuals, but a meme, a project, an aesthetic, an idea. They are not like the people who talk about modern art, rather than the cathedral builders of the Middle Ages.
Much has been said about memes as art and the collective work and thought that goes into their creation, but it goes beyond that. It’s not just memes. Creating mood boards on Pinterest or rating beauty on TikTok are evolving art forms, too. Creating an atmosphere, or “vibe,” through images and sounds, is a way of telling a story, which has been woefully misunderstood and underestimated as shallow. Many of these beauties have staying power, such as “coquette” and “cottagecore.” They are not passing fads or independent of people or subcultures. They are more than ever-changing vectors. They are a form of concentrated art that we do not yet have the language to fully describe.
But that’s the case with most innovations. We won’t understand it until it’s in the rear view mirror.
It’s interesting throughout. Of course AI-assisted creation will be the next step in this process. Perhaps you don’t like many of these new forms, perhaps because they don’t have the prestige and grandeur of Bach. One simple point is that it’s not fair what all the time in culture is really about you search for it. This point is rarely seen. Variation over time is important too!
Source link