In case you don’t know, the biggest news in your teen kid’s (or grandkid’s) life right now is not that we are in a technical recession or that the petrol price is going up – it is the rap “beef” (conflict) between veteran hip-hop artist Eminem and new kid on the block Machine Gun Kelly (unsurprisingly also known as MGK).
Feeling a bit lost? Ya, so was I when I accidentally discovered that this beef between two white American rappers was top trending Youtube content across the world.
Their videos are racking up millions of views, and breaking internet records.
What is remarkable about Youtube, and all social media in general, is that it seems to make both the artist and the fans citizens of the same interactive world.
Eminem, a multi-millionaire superstar, reportedly admitted in an interview that he threw the first salvo after going down a “Youtube wormhole” and discovering things that MGK had said about him. Videos of fans just talking about the two rappers are themselves drawing millions of views.
Youtube, which was established in 2005 as an online video sharing platform, has created a whole new world of media.
Literally anyone in the world with a phone and some data can participate in audiovisual content-sharing.
Content goes directly to the consumer as and when they choose to view it; and the consumers can speak back through their own content.
Youtube has spawned all kinds of new careers and enabled young people especially to start their own channels, express themselves and become creative entrepreneurs at relatively low cost.
Where music and fashion trends are concerned, Youtube has a similar social impact that the MTV channel had on the way teens behaved in the 1980s by beaming music videos onto television screens 24 hours a day. Through the screen, MTV indulged teens in the world of rock’n’roll, rebelliousness and glamour of fashion.
Although MTV created an outlet for youth subcultures and expression, it was still tightly controlled by its parent company Viacom and the music industry.
Youtube goes further than MTV because very teen can produce their own content! Upstart artists like Machine Gun Kelly can rapidly build a following because they can take their content straight to Youtube – there is no industry middleman to ask for airplay.
His fans can directly share and promote his content with the whole world on the integrated social media platforms.
I must admit that I long ago ditched television for Youtube.
It allows me to watch the kind of content I actually enjoy, as often as I want, when I want, at the pace that I want – wherever I am in the world.
But there are limits to Youtube. Firstly it is just chaotic. To get more views, people are doing or saying extreme things.
Last year, Youtube star Logan Paul uploaded a video which showed the body of a suicide victim in a Japanese forest.
Recently, Youtube shutdown the channels of American right- wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones who has used his channel to peddle defamatory content.
Youtube is also awash with very disturbing and macabre content aimed at little kids that disguised itself as popular cartoons like Peppa Pig.
Secondly, independent musicians who initially celebrated social media, are now realising that distributing music on free platforms does not lead to a sustainable lifelong career.
Even though record companies and the likes of Viacom were gatekeepers, they collected and distribute royalties throughout a musician’s life, even after the musician retired or stops playing.
Last, and ironically, big corporates have entered the Youtube space by sponsoring high-quality content and spending more on Youtube adverts.
Just as MTV started out as a rebellious scream and eventually became mainstream, one can predict that the “wild west” that is Youtube will likely be as tame as TV when the Machine Gun Kelly generation become parents...