TikTok and Gen Z prove that music’s not just for listening
We need to talk about Bruno
Social storytelling with music
Tom van Laer, associate professor of narratology at The University of Sydney Business School, explains what makes for good storytelling:
And this is where the music comes into play. When a challenge or trend emerges on TikTok, it always features the same clip from a particular song, which serves as a common story element across all those videos. As van Laer explains:
Because the clip is instantly recognizable by the audience it ties together all the videos that make up a TikTokchallenge or trend. It acts as the meta-narrative that allows each creator to contribute their own interpretation of the story.
This can take the form of imitations, such as in the“Jamie Big” trend, based on an original video that has been viewed more than 200 million times. It shows a man dancing to Nelly Furtado’s Say It Right in front of his bathroom mirror.
Thousands of videos havesince imitated the original, whereby a creator always films themselves in front of their bathroom mirror, switching to the original video on the beat change of the song.
Other trends work by offering different interpretations of the same storyline. A good example is the“Things that just make sense…” trend, set toChe la luna, a version of a classic Sicilian folk song. In this video contributors film themselves showcasing the features of a particular location, each doing the same characteristic hand gestures.
An example is Australian Olympian Scott Jamesfilming his roomat the Olympic village in Beijing.
Because the audience always recognizes the characteristic song, they are instantly familiar with the story’s plot; they know what to expect and can thus simply enjoy each interpretation of the theme. The music provides the glue that holds together a social story, collectively told across many videos.
A challenge or trend is thus a form of social storytelling, with the music acting like shorthand to provide the context for all the videos.
We Don’t Talk About Bruno has provided material for a number of different trends, each driving its popularity. And besides the many Encanto fan edits featuring parts of the song, there is aparticular clipwith a catchy hook that underpins a storyline in which creators try to do a task in the first take of the video and after the beat change reveal why the task is so difficult. This features dance moves from the Encanto movie.
Music as creative material
To understand what makes TikTok such a powerful platform for the music industry, we must “unlearn” music as something we just listen to on digital platforms like TikTokmusic is rapidly becoming material for creating, for self-expression, for storytelling.
Virality is then a by-product of the use of music as creative material for collective storytelling – one that provides the canvas, or meta-narrative, for each creator’s interpretation of the emerging storyline.
With the most popular songs sometimes exceeding20 billion views on videos they soundtrack, the scale of the phenomenon gives the platform itstransformative role for the music industry.
Article byKai Riemer, Professor of Information Technology and Organisation,University of SydneyandSandra Peter, Director, Sydney Business Insights,University of Sydney
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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