Amir asked, “Isn’t music supposed to soothe you and make you feel relaxed?”
Deena retorted, “Yeah! But, it also depends on what makes you relax. As beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, music too is as good as one’s ears make it.”
Amir looked confused, but he argued, “Can cringe-pop sound good to anyone’s ears? I don’t think so, Deena.”
“Even I don’t think so, Amir, but I know what you are going to ask me next – why have cringe pop artists like Dhinchak Pooja and Vennu Mallesh become so popular in India? In fact, it’s not about India, there are cringe pop artists in nearly every country.”
Amir’s state of confusion is not hard to understand. In fact it is so relatable that if you went around asking people on this subject, you would meet similar people who have no clue about why these artists have hit over million views on Youtube and have become so popular that they have a die-hard community of fans who are willing to threaten others and fight for their new idols. Interestingly, you may be one of them as you have come this far trying to demystify this social wave.
If you remove social media, these cringe artists would be left cringing in their bathrooms as no regulated or managed media would have given them an opportunity to showcase their ‘talent’. But, as social media like YouTube, Instagram and Whatsapp allows you to share anything, it becomes pretty simple for anyone who has created ‘extreme’ content to become a social media star.
So, when the cringe artists create their ‘masterpieces’, it becomes another nuclear weapon of mass social sharing. In no time, such content is shared so much that it hits a million views. Maybe 9,99,999 would have viewed it in disbelief and a smirk. But, they still watched it nevertheless and made their friends and family watch it.
Since, nowadays one spends so much time on social media and is a part of groups and communities, viewing shared content has become more important than breakfast, lunch and dinner. For some, it has become even more important than sex. As per a study, younger lots in Japan have little time for sex as they are so hooked onto their phones. If this happens in India, it would naturally solve the population explosion.
Throb, a social opinion platform decided to conduct a poll to capture the reactions of the people about the worst YouTubers in India.
Some people were of the opinion, “These kinds of YouTube channels should be barred from displaying such content, as it is an insult to music.” Others had no complaints about the artists or the channel and blamed the people for making them popular. They stated, “The videos are so bad that people watch the entire video, only point out the faults, curse them for their annoying performance and post really bad comments in the comments section. Later, these same people share and tag their friends in a meme, GIFs or a video related to it on social media like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.”
A small section of people had bigger complaints, “Why just talk about them, garbage is everywhere!”
Coming back to the smaller and original issue on the popularity of cringe pop stars, ‘schadenfreude’, too can be the reason for people derive pleasure and satisfaction from other’s humiliation.
Psychologists may argue that these people, the fans, suffer from low self-esteem, flawed masculinity and what not. But, instead of trying to crucify these artists from every corner, can we give them some credit?
Do you think that if you create such a video or music, you would become a star too? Think about it!
Not everyone can do it. So, there are some skills, talent that these ‘talentless’ stars have. Music is an art and art has no right or wrong. You may like it or dislike it.
If they are indeed honest about their singing and the videos that they make and if they work hard to create such content and enjoy doing it so, why should anyone complain? This is a big assumption here regarding their intent – intent to create music and not sensation.
Just because one cannot sing well, does it take away the right to sing or create one’s own music video? People never did it because such an attempt would have landed them nowhere a few years ago. Let this be a fair and a free world.
As long as these videos are not forced upon anyone’s throat…oops ears, one should not have any problem. Trust your ears to be tired of listening to melodies and the perfectly auto-tuned voices someday and take a detour of all sorts.