Gotye and Digital [Pop] Culture

This post is intended to argue that the Gotye mash up above is evidence of Gotye's understanding of the mindset of digital culture. But instead of jumping right in, I intent to enter the conversation through the back door, in order to provide some theoretical background to what I am going to argue about Gotye's piece.

A couple years ago, Steven Hopkins, a graduate school colleague of mine wrote and presented a paper for a graduate seminar in which he presented the Gregory Brothers as an example of web 2.0 success (I hope I don't mis-state his argument. If I do, I look for him to correct me in the comments section). The Gregory Brothers, a musical group made up of a set of brothers and one of their wives, are now known for Autotune the News, the Obama Kick Ass Song, and of course the Bed Intruder Song (a phenomenon that I've addressed in the past).

Understanding the Gregory Brothers' success relies on two concepts important to theorists of digital culture and literacy. The first is Alexander Reid's concept of Rip/Mix/Burn. Reid cites Lawrence Lessig as the originator of the idea, which states basically that participatory digital culture relies on the ability of participants to rip material from other sources, and to combine these artifacts until a new artifact is produced through these combinations. Reid argues that this is, in fact, how cognition works. If this is the case, all cultural artifacts (whether art, discourse, or any other intellectual endeavor) are culminations of the artifacts, attitudes, ethics, and tropes that influenced them. This understanding, to Reid, problemitizes our understanding of issues like copyright, since nothing can truly be the product of one author/artist. All intellectual work is communal.

In the digital era, this process of Rip/Mix/Burn is exemplified in artifacts like fanzines, YouTube mash ups, and so on.  This is, of course, what the Gregory Brothers do on their websites. In order to make their videos, they bring together news clips, soundbites, and images and set these to music. So, they start with other people's copyrighted material, mix it up, add their own creativity, and produce something new.

The second important concept in understanding Web 2.0 success is Michele Knobel and Colin Lanksheare's idea of a Web 2.0 "mindset." For Lanksheare and Knobel, print culture was built around a "scarcity model." Hemingway was valuable because there was only one of him, and his success relied on his having been signed by Scribner. In order to become a successful writer, one must do so through the professional mediator of a publishing house. If one was to become a successful musician, one must be signed to a record deal. In this mindset, value came from an artifact's rarity, and the dissemination of that artifact was carefully controlled by professionals who supposedly knew what was good, and what would sell.

Web 2.0, on the other hand, functions according to a proliferation model. One becomes successful in digital culture by "going viral." And this relies, not on the professional wisdom of publishers and recording studios, but on the mouse clicks of viewers who like what they see and hit the share button. The Gregory Brothers, a band, became popular not when they were noticed by a studio for their "original" pieces, but when they were noticed by Internet users for their mash ups. Culture, according to Lanksheare and Knobel is shifting in such a way that this mindset will become dominant.

The entertainment industry proper, however, has been reticent to the changes this second mindset calls for. The entertainment industry, and the music industry in particular, has in fact, engaged in open warfare with the second mindset through  anti-piracy movements and PSAs, and law makers have responded with bills like the SOPA. The recording industry, including many musicians, has often militantly protected copyright. In this way, the industry has been rather retrograde with respect to its response to digital culture.

Because of this,I was a bit surprised and also pleased with this video by the recording artist Gotye. To produce this video, Gotye (who signs the video with the shortened form of his given name "Wally") trudged through the numerous parodies and covers of his song "Somebody that I Used to Know" that had been posted on YouTube and pieced together a new rendition of the song using these clips. Rather than circling the legal wagons and going after all of these video makers for copyright violation, he has instead himself ripped these samples, mixed them, and produced something from them. He has helped write his own fanzine.

This suggests that Gotye has adopted what Lanksheare and Knobel call the "second mindset." He hasn't just allowed the remixing of his song, but has in fact participated in the remixing process himself. In this way, he shares authorship with his audience, in much the same way as a blogger does when he enables the commenting function on a blog, then responds to commenters. He's allowed his sing to become an artistic wiki. Furthermore, he acknowledges that the form of the remix was ityself "inspired" by [ripped from] a Kutiman YouTube video. He also provides a link list to all the "original videos" of the "Somebody" covers he has used, and admits (in a tone that looks like apology) that he could not include all of the covers  he found.

What Gotye seems to understand is what the rest of the industry seems to have missed with regard to the new mindset: that the parodies and samples of his song did not harm him by violating his copyright. Rather, they brought attention to the song and they added to the conversation about its value. He seems to understand that art is a communal process, in which artists (and consumers) inspire and react to one another. The image of a solitary genius is a myth. Authorship is always shared. And the result of this shared authorship, in this case, is a haunting and aesthetically beautiful piece in its own right.