#really? are you surprised the man whose youtube name and branding is based around a creature naitive american people...

[0sbrain]

some people need to SERIOUSLY reconsider how they engage with media.

if you don't try making the bare minimum level of engagement with whatever media you watch, you don't get to complain and be surprised when the people you trusted to do the analysis for you didn't bother to do it either.

[bthenoise]

Check It Out: Counterparts’ Brendan Murphy Reviews... Dark Comedy ‘Thunder Road’

If you follow Counterparts frontman Brendan Murphy on Twitter or Instagram, or even if you’ve seen his band live, you’re probably well aware of the charismatic charm he exudes on a daily basis. 

Whether he’s tweeting about pandas or egging crowds on to do better in the pit, Murphy is without a doubt one-of-a-kind. 

For that reason and that reason alone, we knew he’d be the perfect person for our brand new review segment here on The Noise. Without saying too much, we’ll let the honest and outspoken frontman do the rest. Enjoy!

Welcome. I'm just as confused about this as you are. The lovely people at The Noise hit me up asking if I'd be interested in a short series of reviews for all of the bullshit I've been consuming during quarantine. Movies, music, food, whatever. I'm flattered! I by no means consider myself to be a "taste maker" of sorts, but when I like something I REALLY like it... and when I dislike something it ruins my fucking life. Dramatic, I know. People have used that word to describe me before and I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not, but it is what it is... it's ME hun xox.

I'm going to start this series of reviews off with a movie I watched recently called Thunder Road. I was at Alex Re's house the other night hanging with him and the original Counterparts bassist Eric Bazinet. While we were hanging out they asked me if I had ever seen a movie called Thunder Road. I hadn't even heard of it, but they both told me I'd love it and if there's anyone I trust when it comes to movie recommendations, it's them. Except the odd time when Alex is going on about how he's watched La La Land like 62 fucking times. Alex if you're reading this, I'll get around to it just get off my fuckin' back.

Anyway, the movie is called Thunder Road. It's on Netflix in Canada, so I'm assuming if we're lucky enough to get it, it's probably available worldwide. If not, I think it's up for rent/purchase on Youtube and it is 100% worth the money. 

The movie is written, directed and starring Jim Cummings. Was not aware of him prior to Thunder Road but it's my understanding that the movie is based off a short film he made of the same name that received excellent reviews at Sundance.

The movie is about a police officer (gross, I know, but it's a movie chill out) named Jim whose life is quite literally falling apart. His mother recently passed away, he just got divorced and he may soon need to start looking for work. The movie opens with Jim at his mother's funeral struggling to give a eulogy. I know some of you may read this and think I'm fuckin' insane but it's simultaneously the saddest and funniest 10 minutes of a movie I think I've ever seen. 

Honestly, the entire movie has the same vibe. At times it's very apparent whether you should be laughing or crying, but for the majority of the movie I found myself unsure... and loved it. 

I feel like anyone who is familiar with me personally can understand why I would be drawn to something like this. People often ask me how I can have this relaxed/funny attitude in day-to-day life and then turn around and write such heavy lyrics. Truthfully, I don't have an answer but I don't think that how I enjoyed this movie as much as I did would come as a surprise. 

On another note, I'm not sure about Jim Cumming's filmography, but JESUS can the man act. Give the guy a fucking Oscar or a Golden Globe or whatever... at LEAST give him your time and maybe your $6 if you have to buy the movie on Youtube. 

His portrayal of someone spiraling yet trying their best to hold it together is incredibly accurate... through the entire movie I connected with the character so much that at times I got the feeling of deja vu. I feel like most people can relate to him. If you can't then I'm not only happy for you, I'm extremely worried about how you'll handle it if/when the time comes, BUT I'd still recommend the film regardless. 

I'll leave it at that so I don't give away too much. I simply loved the movie. I feel like depending on where you're at while you watch it, it will either leave you laughing or even more depressed than before you started. I felt both ends of the spectrum and I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. I can't say I'd recommend this for a date night unless your partner is already aware of how fucked up you are. If not, you just might end up on Tinder again... and nobody wants that. 

10/10. A+. TWO THUMBS UP. Whatever. Watch the fucking movie please.

- Brendan (a normal cool dude)

WATCH MORE:

[biofunmy]

American YouTubers Are Making Videos Reacting To Indian Pop Culture To Go Viral

In January 2019, Rick Segall and Korbin Miles’ YouTube channel, Our Stupid Reactions, had 1,800 subscribers. The two Los Angeles–based actors had started a channel in which they reacted to popular Hollywood movie and TV show trailers  —  already a popular genre on YouTube  —  last September, but nearly four months in, it was sputtering along at best. Their videos reacting to trailers of films like Captain Marvel, Creed II, Aladdin, and Bird Box were getting anywhere between a few hundred to a couple of thousand views. Then, one of their subscribers requested their reaction to the trailer of Gully Boy, a hotly anticipated Bollywood movie about a street rapper in Mumbai.

“I had no idea what it was,” said Miles. They started recording and hit play on Gully Boy. The two head-banged through the trailer’s catchy soundtrack and laughed out loud during its funny moments; it was fun, though not mind-blowingly so. Yet within 24 hours, their Gully Boy trailer reaction had 50,000 views; the comments flooded in with Indian viewers cheering them on. The response was surprising — and addictive. “We would love to do more reactions to movies from India, any recommendations???” they posted to fans in the comments section. Hundreds of requests immediately poured in.

“Brace yourself,” someone posted. “Indian subscribers are coming!!!”

Five months later, Our Stupid Reactions’ Gully Boy trailer reaction had over half a million views, and the channel, which now posts videos of Miles and Segall reacting exclusively to all things Indian, has over 230,000 subscribers  — 70% of whom are from India, and 30% of whom are Indians living around the world, according to Miles.

It’s not just American companies that want a slice of India’s more than 500 million internet users anymore — individual American YouTubers are now looking for their shot there too. Inexpensive data and cheap smartphones have helped bring YouTube more than 265 million users, making India the platform’s largest and fastest-growing market in the world. There will be plenty more as 500 million additional people are eventually expected to come online in India.

There’s not necessarily a lot of money in it — the money earned per thousand views through advertisements, the metric digital marketers use to value online content, is substantially lower with views from India than from the US — but it’s a views-and-subscribers growth hack fueled by India’s video explosion that, for now, seems to be working. Once you have a sizable audience and brand, there are all sorts of ways to try to monetize it besides ads. Just ask any successful YouTuber or influencer.

Indians say they find Americans watching videos about their culture validating. “Finally, the rest of the world is seeing us for who we really are,” said Abhishek Sapre, an Indian engineer who lives in Sydney and watches Our Stupid Reactions and other reaction channels. “Most Americans don’t know anything about India or Bollywood or our culture at all … [This genre] really helps breaks the image of India as a poor country propagated by films like Slumdog Millionaire.”

“Indians want the rest of the world to finally hear their voice and recognize them as world players at every level,” said Segall. “It’s being affirmed by global superpowers, and the global superpowers have always been Great Britain and the United States.”

Dozens of American reaction channels on YouTube — the Reel Rejects, the Tide Pool, and ReactoPhile, among others — have found big audiences reacting to Indian movies, trailers, commercials, stand-up comedy clips, music videos, speeches by Indian politicians, and pretty much everything with an Indian connection.

Typically, a channel posts a video reacting, for instance, to a Bollywood trailer, and YouTube’s aggressive and frighteningly effective recommendation algorithm targets it to millions of Indians, the demographic most likely to click it. More views leads to more engagement, with hundreds of viewers lobbing in their react requests in the comments section. Keep honoring these requests and, with some luck, the channel’s numbers snowball.

One of the most well-known YouTubers in this genre is California-based filmmaker Jaby Koay, whose videos regularly get hundreds of thousands of views each from Indians. In March, Koay’s channel crossed a million subscribers. To mark the milestone, Koay, uploaded a dance video of himself set to a popular Bollywood song, which got more than 740,000 views. In 2017 and 2018, he traveled to India and uploaded a series of vlogs from the country to his channel that showed him frolicking around New Delhi and meeting with his fans in the country. Then earlier this year, Dharma Productions, one of India’s largest movie production companies, posted a clip of Koay’s reaction to the trailer of one of its upcoming big-budget productions to its Instagram. Koay did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ requests for comment, and it’s unclear if Dharma Productions compensated Koay in any way for this.

“He’s extremely genuine and his reactions are heartfelt,” said Aniruddha Gokhale, a financial consultant in the Indian city of Pune who has been watching Koay’s videos for the last two years.

Scientists have attempted to explain the popularity of reaction videos on YouTube by saying that they tap into human empathy and our innate desire to form social bonds by trying to understand people’s emotions. Reaction videos “allow us, at the time of increasing cultural difference, the comforting universality of human nature,” writer Sam Anderson observed in the New York Times.

Segall said, “To have outsiders like us with no connection to India to say to Indians, ‘You know what, everything you feel about your country, we feel it too,’ is pretty deep.”

But there’s a bigger reason why so many Indians seem to be hooked on Americans’ reactions to all things related to their culture: a sense of global validation. At its heart, it’s an Indian desire for white validation, a Colonial-era hangover, and something that still plays out in the country .

You can see traces of this in the requests people leave for the YouTubers in the comments sections. One of the most common is to react to a video called “15 Things You Didn’t Know About India,” which features positive, nationalistic facts about the country (India invented shampoo, thorium-based nuclear power, the number zero, yoga, and plastic surgery, it claims). Another is to react to a witty, powerful speech by Indian politician Shashi Tharoor about how Britain owes reparations to India for hundreds of years of colonization.

“I feel proud that these people are learning about my culture,” said Rakesh Kamble, a data entry operator who lives in the Indian town of Nashik. “We’re rich culturally, and I’d like them to learn about it.”

When Life Meets Family, a Georgia-based YouTube channel, uploaded its reaction to the “15 Things You Didn’t Know About India” video on Jan. 26, India’s Republic Day, it racked up a million views.

The channel is run by 38-year-old Dan, his 36-year-old wife Erin, and their three children, ages 7, 10, and 11. The couple — who declined to give their last names for this story and live in the predominantly white town of Flowery Branch, where Asians, including Indians, account for just 1.6% of the residents — said that they didn’t really know much about India until they started doing these videos. “We have a close friend who is Indian,” said Erin. “Aside from that though…” she trails off. Today their channel has more than 300,000 subscribers, 80% of whom are from India, and 20% of whom are Indians living mostly in Canada, Dan told BuzzFeed News.

“Indians are a proud people,” Dan said. “I think some of what they request may be to sort of gain acceptance with the white man. I take it as, ‘Look, America is the leader there, we are the leader here.’”

One of the most common requests from their viewers? To react to a video of Indians who lead Fortune 500 companies. “We got a lot of requests to do that one,” said Dan.

Still, as these American YouTubers grow their audiences in India off of Indian content, it’s tough to shake off the skepticism around how much of their interest in India is genuine and how much of it is a convenient grab for a billion eyeballs.

Ever since Our Stupid Reactions blew up, Segall and Miles have been overtly catering to their core fanbase: Segall posted a photo of himself wearing a traditional Indian kurta on Instagram and dropped a “Jai Hind!” —  Hindi for “Hail India!” —  in a reaction video. Last month, the duo played cricket with Indian fans in Los Angeles. Segall also got a large Hindi tattoo with the iconic line “Apna time aayega” (“My time will come”) from Gully Boy, the film that catapulted their channel to fame, across the inside of his left arm all the way from the wrist to the elbow. “I’ve got six tattoos and every one of them is something that has changed me and had a permanent impact on me,” he said. When India beat Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup on Sunday, Segall posted a picture of Indian vice-captain Rohit Sharma with a caption that (again) said “Jai…feeaking…hind.”

Yet Segall and Miles of Our Stupid Reactions, and Dan and Erin of Life Meets Family, all insist that their channels’ growth has been entirely organic, driven solely out of their love for all things Indian and a desire to cater to their subscribers’ needs.

“The skepticism is valid,” said Miles. “But if I wasn’t enjoying this, the channel wouldn’t be happening.”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but we wouldn’t sell our souls for views,” Segall said.

The YouTubers also pointed out that having millions of views and subscribers doesn’t necessarily translate to lots of money. While Life Meets Family monetizes using YouTube’s pre-roll ads, they said the money isn’t enough to cover the cost of their cameras and internet.

When the channel was an American family blog with viewers who were mostly from the US, he said, the family made $6 for every thousand views, compared to just $1.23 for a thousand views from India. “A thousand views from India are not the same as a thousand views from North America,” Dan said.

The creators are now thinking of other ways to make money. Dan and Erin are in talks with an Indian chat app to run targeted sponsored content. And Segall and Miles are currently seeking funds from their Indian fans on Patreon to fund a trip to India.

“Hopefully,” said Dan, “as more Indians come online and things grow, there will be more companies willing to sponsor us, and maybe the price per thousand views will go up. I’d like to do this as a living.”

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[pardontheglueman]

Marching Through the Streets of Rhydyfelin

A response to The Wales Arts Review’s Roundtable discussion

Pop Music: Searching for the young soul rebels- why has pop given up on politics.

For an unreconstructed Socialist, who is also a passionate believer in the power of protest music, this opening discussion promised to be the ideal way to launch The Wales Arts Review’s much anticipated Millennium Centre symposium. The inclusion of Rhian E Jones (Critic and author of Clampdown: Pop-Cultural Wars on Class and Gender), Richard Parfitt (Songwriter / Former member of 60ft Dolls and senior lecturer in Music and Performing Arts, Bath Spa University) and Gray Taylor (writer and member of Goldie Lookin’ Chain), on a panel to be chaired by our very own Craig Austin, promised a forensic examination of a key cultural question. We seemed in safe hands, what could go wrong?

Perhaps the writing was on the wall, even before the debate began. Following Adrian Masters and Adam Somerset’s warmly received introductory remarks, most of the critics present decided to take up the undoubtedly tempting option of attending the launch of The Wales Arts Review’s excellent ‘Fiction Map Of Wales’ anthology in an adjoining room. It was immediately noticeable how many younger critics had joined the exodus – further proof perhaps of youthful dis-engagement with politics, or pop, or both?  A quick glance around the Victor Salvi Function Room revealed that just three dozen or so hardy souls had remained behind to man the barricades.

I wasn’t altogether surprised. The evening before, I had cast my bread upon the listless waters of the internet, randomly pitching phrases into the all-powerful search engine like ‘Why pop isn’t political anymore?’ or ‘Why isn’t pop angry?’, to be met by and large, with barely a ripple upon the stagnant pond of political discourse. An inexact science for sure, but somewhat discouraging, nevertheless.There was the obligatory rallying call by Billy Bragg, but little else. A piece in Village Voice, from 2006, another American piece ‘Apocalypse Then: Why Rock isn’t angry any more’, dating from 2010, a short analysis by Smashing Pumpkin’s frontman Billy Corgan, headed ‘Billy Corgan thinks rock isn’t reaching teenagers anymore’ and, lastly, a blog by John Robb, ‘Why politics and music don’t mix anymore’, which provided a glimmer of hope, or, at least one heartfelt response to it did -

‘Well maybe some people just aren’t trying

We are

Hack attack

We just put it out today,

Suburban Mousewife

This seemed to warrant investigation. A quick search revealed a promising list of song titles that made explicit the radical, feminist protest music, I could expect to hear – ‘Botox Skin’, ‘Shopping’, ‘Gulags for Slags’, while their handful of youtube videos unveiled an all-girl, multi-racial, five-piece combo, playing a spiky brand of garage rock, behind a lead singer wielding a mean tambourine. It looked and sounded too good to be true, and indeed it was. A quick glance at their facebook page revealed the following message, dated 13th Feb 2013:

‘Big thanks to all you lovely people for your support. The band is on an extended break at the moment.’

An ill omen perhaps? The waste of a bloody excellent band name, certainly.

Suburban Mousewife

Disappointingly, the panel’s discussion never really got past first base, partly as a result of unavoidable time constraints, but mainly because the debate was strangely sidetracked into a cultural cul de sac which, to paraphrase Dylan, might best be termed Stuck inside of Newport, with the Bristol blues again. This amiable detour down memory lane was entertaining enough in its own right, but did little to address the wider political context the panel was supposed to be engaging with. Craig and Rhian tried bravely to steer the discussion away from the confines of South East Wales with a perceptive analysis of Ben Drew’s ‘Ill Manors,’ a genuinely threatening pop-protest song. Unfortunately, the forum never quite re-focused itself on the central proposition.

Incredibly, the whole debate passed by without any reference to the current political landscape. For the best part of twenty years, the mainstream political parties have been busy stealing each other’s clothes, cross-dressing their way to the mythical centre ground of British Politics. The Tories actually went into the last General Election with a manifesto commitment to ring-fence spending on the NHS, something which Labour, its creator and proud champion, steadfastly refused to do. Furthermore, the coalition between Britain’s then most right-wing and left-wing mainstream parties, desperately cobbled together after the last election, has increasingly served to apply a brake to radical dissent. It’s in this context of unprincipled allegiances and bipartisan accommodations, that the weak-kneed response of today’s musicians can best be understood. Equally, the genuine prospect of this now fragile consensus being smashed apart at the next election by UKIP, and how this just might kick-start a slumbering protest movement into action, went altogether unexplored. It’s entirely possible that the resurrection of Rock against Racism, (the historical significance of which was barely mentioned), may now be more than this 52 yr old pop fan’s ultimate fantasy. In a fevered post-election climate, where the race card will not only be played, but undoubtedly dealt from the bottom of the pack too, an imaginative grassroots resistance could take many forms. Rap against Racism, anyone?

Similarly, Two–Tone, another protest movement with its roots in the politics of race, was never mentioned at all, despite it arguably producing the greatest pop protest song of all time – The Special’s number 1 hit,’ Ghost Town’. Indeed, UB40, a band on the fringes of Two-Tone, charted regularly at the time, with the most radical sequence of songs ever to infiltrate the playlists of mainstream radio. Between March 1980 and August 1981 the band scored five top twenty hits with songs about Third world starvation; ‘Food For Thought’, Racism in America; ‘King’, Nuclear war; ‘Earth Dies Screaming’, Atheism; ‘Don’t Let It Pass You By’, and Mass Unemployment; ‘One In Ten’.

Plausible reasons for the decline of political pop were flagged up, but not followed up, (the immediacy of the internet as a first preference for those with a personal manifesto, and conventional record company insouciance, being amongst the most convincing explanations.)  At the same time, rather too much of the discussion was given over to boxing Ed Sheeran about the ears, not that he didn’t deserve it following his cringe-worthy attempts to gladhand David Cameron at a recent gig. Even here, though, the chance was missed to broaden the discussion, by asking tough questions about why the recent folk revival was so insipid and non-political in nature.

Even where the discussion briefly came to life - every one of the panelists made perceptive comments about the impact of Brit Pop, and particularly the best song to come out of it, Pulp’s ‘Common People’- the theme could not be sustained. In all fairness, I should acknowledge here, the herculean nature of this particular task. It was a time after all, when Tony Blair was ruthlessly triangulating dissident opinion out of existence, constructing New Labour’s big tent, in which there was room for everyone, except Socialists of course. This was an age when there wasn’t any politics in politics, never mind in popular music.

Pop Music may be a young person’s game, but in the year when Pete Seeger passed away, where was the discussion about the role of the elder statesman in popular culture? Billy Bragg, our Seeger, justly escapes censure, but with Springsteen and Young still energetically campaigning in the USA, what do we make of Weller and Costello’s extended leave of absence from the front?

Admittedly, not everything could have been covered in the allotted 50 minutes, though it was clearly a mistake to guillotine the Q&A at the end, where some of these issues might have been taken up. The critic who ignored Craig’s genuine apology, and rattled off her question about the dominance of ex-public school pupils in today’s chart, caused quite a stir. I too, would have liked the chance to ask whether anybody had actually heard of Suburban Mousewife, and if not, whose fault would that have been - the band’s, the mediums or ourselves (in our guise as both critic and consumer)?  Or, I might have posited my pet theory that The Mighty Sparrow’s 1983 Soca classic, ‘Capitalism Gone Mad’, a diatribe about the cost of living crisis in Trinidad, if re-released now, in an age of economic meltdown, might just be the spark that ignites a world-wide revolution. The first verse alone, is enough to persuade me to get the red flag down from the attic, dust it off and start waving it about the streets of Rhydyfelin-

‘You got to be a millionaire or some kind of petit-bourgeoisie

Any time you’re living here in this country

You got to be in skulduggery, or making money illicitly

To live like somebody in this country

It’s outrageous and insane, them crazy prices in the Port Of Spain

And like the merchants going out dey brain

And the working man, like he only toiling in vain.’

The Mighty Sparrow - Champion of the Oppressed

Finally, though the panel saw little cause for optimism, the radicalisation of Scottish Youth in the referendum campaign has apparently made little impression on our guests, there is every prospect of a generational re-engagement with politics. The next election could be something of a watershed for Wales. A crass marriage of convenience between UKIP and the Tories could see things turn ugly very quickly. The cheap shot mantra “English votes for English laws”, has the potential to disseminate the seeds of division throughout the UK, which in all probability, will be seriously destabilised by massive constitutional change and the endless re-packaging of austerity. More positively though, a space seems to be opening up on the left, that an enlightened Green Party are well positioned to occupy.

England might be on the verge of electing the most right-wing Government in its history, at the exact same time that the people of Scotland are voting into office its most left-wing Parliament. Trapped in the vacuum, between two opposing philosophies, Wales will have to forge a new identity for itself. The conditions will then exist for freshly radicalised, free-thinking artists, to do the same.