Not because I'm anti-American, but because this is the kind of experience non-Westerners must get everytime a Lady GaGa/Baywatch/Hollywood Movie dominates their cultural airwaves...whether or not they actually like it, they only still have a vague understanding of what the thing means, and its origins and backstory. It's nice being on the outside looking in...which is something you'd expect to happen more often given the demographic of the world.
EDIT: 99 Red Balloons is in fact Western Europe but was in German for more than a year (and widely successful) before being released in English. An oddity. Should have said "Non English" as more accurate than just Western Europe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
Per his own admission, he didn't attend both Boston and Berklee, but switched from Boston to Berklee, he barely attended class and did not finish college (see video above), and he did not answer to the question, "Did you major in music?".
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/10/12/162740623/gangnam-...
There's a lot embedded in Gangnam Style.
The structure is always the same like taking some memorable moments of the video eg at the start the plane or the guy shaking his pelvis in the lift , then take some other stereotype or celebrities in it. So I actually wonder how many more views came from the parodies.
Last similar wave I remember was the "shit says " series maybe 6 months ago that had a similar formula.
here some examples:
Mitt Romney style
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTs_TKk5S2M http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6830834/mitt-romney-style-...
Eastern Europe Style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY1MVQeeStY&list=UUFjCy-D...
Eton Style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaJl_qOVcf0
I wonder whether this usually is an oversight. The distinction of "mobile" seems rather vague at best.
London Mayor Boris Johnson has gangnam'd too: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2012/oct/09/boris-j...
Here's a another one: http://opalang.org/gangnam.style.html
EDIT: Just curious, really, why the downvotes?
http://stevestreza.com/2012/09/08/so-i-made-a-mashup
Although the mixed audio alone is great, the video mixing was also fantastic. The whole thing was discussed here on HN:
I wonder if Youtube will reverse course on this, given that Psy has made it clear he has no interest in enforcing that copyright (a decision which is clearly in his best interest, too).
This is also why George Lucas got it so wrong in the past, when he sued his fans for expanding on his ideas. If anything the remixing Star Wars culture formed despite him, not because of him.
Indeed, that's one more reason to like this guy, PSY
"According to The Guardian, PSY has waived his copyright to the music video. Although this has not been officially confirmed, Arwa Mahdawi of The Guardian reported it was likely that PSY had simply refrained from taking legal action against parodies of his video. "Gangnam Style" is therefore a video that is "born to spawn"" [1]
That, right there, is what I call global penetration.
Not sure what you mean? Can you please elaborate? How is the Gangnam Style video related to your father getting to fly 1st class?
His father interpreted his free upgrade as "Gangnam style".
For someone who usually takes a pass on all things pop culture, this was unexpected to say the least and speaks to the enormity of the influence this music video has had on all layers of society.
And people actually wonder why more and more (German) people have absolutely no qualms about piracy. I'm actually not sure whether or not I should thank the GEMA for that.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesellschaft_f%C3%BCr_musikali...
"Gangnam Style Link Spurs DI Surge" http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/-gangnam-style-link...
"How Much Did It Cost YouTube To Stream Gangnam Style?" http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/10/29/how-much-did-it...
Psy only made $32,000 USD from domestic online sales of “Gangnam Style”? http://www.allkpop.com/2012/10/psy-only-made-32000-usd-from-...
Make sure you read that article, those are Domestic (Korean) sales where prices are a lot lower. This is partly because songs in Korea are so much cheaper than other songs to download. At the cheapest, American songs are 791 KRW (approximately $0.71 USD), Canadian songs are 804 KRW (approximately $0.72 USD), and British songs are 1064 KRW (approximately $0.96 USD), but Korean songs on average are at 63 KRW (approximately $0.06 USD).
and
his other sales outside of domestic online sales combined are estimated to have reached 100 billion KRW (approximately $90 million USD).
edit: Looks like ~$750k. Significantly less than I thought.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=happatai+-+yatta...
with a bear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B1J73Ag3hU
Nelly Furtado http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehs-vZ1uF-k
Metal/rock cover http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czJAGGoaYtw
Germany has a market share of 7–8% for albums and 9–12% for singles. In 2005 market value was 887.7 million USD. And yet no one in Germany has ever watched Gangnam Style on Youtube.
Are you missing "million" or "billion"?
FWIW, it is an excellent satire on pop-culture in general, hip-hop videos, OTT dance moves in most music videos, etc. And the tune itself is quite catchy and has excellent recall value even without following the language...
In short, I cannot emphasise enough on how wonderfully it works as a satire to all things that you might consider "crapola" (this view is based on how quickly you dismissed the video as crapola in the first place), so I suggest you fire up the video and only then dismiss it.
You're welcome to diss it though, just watch it first, make an informed opinion, and then you're welcome to diss it all you want ;-)
I've seen Gangnam Style covered in places like the New Yorker, the Economist, and the Wall Street Journal. These are places that don't generally spend time discussing pop music, but that also felt Gangnam was worth consideration.
Musical tastes vary, and nothing says you have to like it. But PSY's hit seems to be indicative of a global increase in cosmopolitanism, and that's a trend that affects many entrepreneurs and investors.
I wanted to say that too, but didn't feel it was necessary within the discussion context taking place (where I was first replying). Since you've mentioned it, here's my view. There's a certain "uninhibitedness" to the video that's very recognisably asiatic (as in there is no 'Made in USA' cultural feel and reference to it) and that also that shouts out "I am not a packaged deal, I was spontaneously made". I think that freshness is what's keeping the momentum going.
