All Your Viral Music Promotion Are Belong To Us

If there were any lingering doubts as to the effectiveness of online music promotion via social media sharing sites such as YouTube, Weezer have now surely quashed them. Their latest video on YouTube features a pantheon of Web 2.0 celebrity memes and has already had over four million hits…

I Like My Coffee With Pork And Beans

It is now officially possible to become a celebrity solely by posting videos on YouTube. People singing badly, people falling over, people wearing too many t-shirts – all are liable to become Internet superstars. The music video seems like a natural fit for this form of distribution, and indeed there have been many successes in this regard, perhaps most notable being the OK! Go treadmill clip.

I’m not particularly familiar with the work of Weezer, but their latest video displays a remarkable understanding of social media. They have composited some of the biggest YouTube stars into their latest single in a very amusing way; featured are the stupid ninja, Miss Teen South Carolina, Numa Numa kid, world record t-shirt wearer and a generous supply of light sabers.

Although the song and video are very good in their own right, they also draw on a recent popular legacy of interest which reinforces the viral potential of this release. Although such a tapestry may not be to everyone’s taste, I say ‘to pastiche his own’.