We’ve seen scripted content material, back-to-school magnificence and way of life vloggers, household YouTube channels, and now the latest wave of stream-of-consciousness, quirky modifying. However inside these levels, the period of YouTube parody movies introduced us some enormous names on-line.
YouTube and Music
Since YouTube launched in 2005, music has been intently related to its rise to recognition. Vevo’s pink and white brand has practically change into synonymous with YouTube’s pink and white shade options, a lot in order that YouTubers making the leap from video content material creator to music artist will embody the Vevo watermark within the thumbnail of the music movies to extend engagement and legitimize their work.
Artists like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have all made the leap from MTV viewings to importing their music movies to YouTube for the reason that early 2000s. These days, YouTube is without doubt one of the few websites the place artists will publish music movies and garner help from their audiences.
As music movies and songs turned extra common and pervasive all through the web, the widespread circulation of YouTube acoustic covers and fan-made music movies adopted. One of the placing traits was parody movies, which unfold like wildfire throughout YouTube’s beginnings.
Parody movies have been an idea that rose to recognition within the early to mid-2010s. Creators would take a well-liked track from a top-charting artist and alter the narrative of the story into one thing comedic — typically on the expense of the artist — and switch it right into a parody video.
Learn extra about how social media is altering the music trade with apps like TikTok right here.
Bart Baker
One of the prolific YouTube Creators and the self-proclaimed “king of music video parodies”, Bart Baker was the preferred channel for his creation of parody movies on YouTube. Baker joined YouTube only a yr after the launch of the positioning, and his knack for steering music movies started.
In 2007, Baker’s oldest video entitled, “Get Your Roll On” was posted to his channel, garnering over half 1,000,000 views. The outline calls it a “Remake of the Massive Tymer’s hit single “Get Your Roll On” directed by Bart Baker.” Baker has been directing and creating parody movies for the reason that very starting! Since then, Bart Baker has gained practically 10 million subscribers on his self-entitled channel, which acquired over 3.3 billion views.
Bart Baker has 4 parody movies which have surpassed 100 million views. His most seen video was a parody video on Katy Perry’s 2014 track Darkish Horse. Baker’s parody video, “Katy Perry ft. Juicy J – “Darkish Horse” PARODY” acquired 193 million views and over 1 million likes.
Baker additionally made a parody video of Taylor’s Swift hit pop track “I Knew You Had been Hassle” which acquired 118 million views. Within the video, Baker modified the lyrics and storyline for a darkish, comedic twist. Baker performed the function of Taylor Swift and perpetuated the long-strung narrative of Swift because the clingy, loopy girlfriend. Baker turned recognized for mocking stars like Swift together with Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber, and these narratives stirred up their fair proportion of critiques.
Baker has since retired his parody movies and YouTube altogether. His newest parody video was uploaded over 4 years in the past known as “6ix9ine, Nicki Minaj, Murda Beatz – “FEFE” PARODY” and acquired over 16 million views.
VICE Information coated the story of Baker’s YouTube retirement in a documentary-style video. The video explains Baker’s “plunge” on YouTube as soon as the algorithm shifted in direction of extra ad-friendly content material as a consequence of his “edgy” content material. These days, Baker remains to be on the web, simply on a unique aspect: the Chinese language Web or Douyin. Baker continues to add music content material and has made it huge on the platform.
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Wassabi Productions
Wassabi Productions is a channel that launched in 2008, created by associates Alex and Roi Wassabi. The channel turned recognized for its comedy sketches and notorious parody movies. These days, the channel is solely known as Wassabi and is now owned and operated by Alex Wassabi after Roi Wassabi left to pursue his gaming and private channel — the now-popular Guava Juice.
Essentially the most seen video from Wassabi Productions was a parody video of Carly Rae Jepsen’s hit track Name Me Possibly. The ten-year-old video acquired over 145 million views. This video remains to be their most seen video up to now. The video options two titular characters from Wassabi Productions, Rolanda and Richard with memorable strains similar to “she desires me” referenced all through their channel. Anybody who grew up watching outdated YouTube is aware of all too properly about this dynamic duo.
These companions parted methods in 2016 when Roi introduced on the channel he would take a step again from Wassabi Productions and Alex would retain the channel on his personal. The video entitled, “Goodbye, Roi Wassabi”, started as a skit following Roi’s dialogue with Alex about him creating his personal gaming channel. The video acquired over 13 million views, and Roi’s channel Guava Juice has gained over 16 million subscribers since.
Tre Melvin
The Tre Melvin Productions began on YouTube as a channel entitled “This can be a Commentary” through which YouTuber Tre Melvin would publish comedy sketches, commentary movies, and parody movies. The oldest video on the channel, “9-1-1 These Days” was posted in 2011 and acquired 1.1 million views. Melvin’s parody movies weren’t unique to the everyday music parody movies like Baker or Wassabi Productions. As a substitute, Melvin’s parody movies have been a commentary on popular culture.
Essentially the most seen video on his channel is known as, “Ghetto Christmas Carols” which acquired over 17 million views and re-wrote conventional Christmas Carols. Melvin additionally made parody movies and commentated on sizzling subjects within the media. In 2013, Melvin posted a video known as, “Paula Deen Apology” through which he acted as Pauld Deen and parodied her apology for her racist feedback. The video carried out properly, receiving over 2.1 million views.
In 2016, Melvin jumped on the favored information of the Beyoncé drama and posted a video known as “How To Make Lemonade With Beyoncé”. Within the video, he acted as Beyoncé instructing the viewers how one can make Lemonade, commentating on her critically-acclaimed album Lemonade with remarks about her dishonest scandal. General, Melvin’s channel has over 300,000 million views.
Study extra in regards to the distinction between commentary and response channels in this weblog.
The period of parody movies, starting from popular culture commentary to parody movies, was crucial to the event of YouTube creator traits. The sweeping outcomes of the pattern created family YouTube names and racked up thousands and thousands of views. Though the so-called period has ended, these artistic traits left behind a legacy for the brand new technology of creators to take inspiration from. These old-time influencers kickstarted careers in content material creation that may have by no means come to be with out YouTube.
This text was written by Victoria Huynh
