Gross 1

Katie Gross
Lori Bedell
CAS 137H
07 November 2013
From YouTube to You; From You to YouTube
Turn off the lights. Point a flashlight at the wall. A small bright figure will
appear, with darkness surrounding it. Now, turn on the lights. There is now a small
bright figure in the center, but the rest of the wall is dimly lit as well. Imagine that
under the spotlight are the popular music artists who are currently famous, and
those out of the spotlight are a new breed of musicians just now beginning to come
into the light. Society is currently undergoing a shift in the way we distribute and
discover music. With the help of social media, anyone can become a musician and
record and distribute his or her own music. The use of digital technology and social
media is instigating a huge shift in the music industry as the Do-It-Yourself attitude
of musicians changes the amount of music the public has access to, the cost to
record and distribute music, the means and scale of advertising music, the ways to
attract or connect with people in order to create a network or audience of fans, the
effect on the current foundation of the music industry, and the newfound attitude
that society has towards and individuals personal taste and preferences.
The music industry has just welcomed a brand new baby into the family.
Mainstream has been given a baby brother, the non-mainstream, which, like a real
infant, demands our recognition and attention. So just how has this new portion of
music gotten large enough to be noticed? The answer is through the assistance of
Gross 2
social media and through aspects of the digital age that have changed the way
people associate with music. Social networking sites allow a new level of
connectivity and sharing that was once unconventional for the average person.
People can now share their talents with whole networks of people whom they dont
even know but who discover them through social media. Going on to YouTube, one
may search a song that is relatively mainstream that his or her friend recommended.
Next he or she looks to the right of the screen at the suggested videos, and is
intrigued by a video, clicks on it, then is again interested in another suggested video,
until eventually the individual has discovered a whole new band, genre or artist that
he or she had never heard before, but which social media provided with just a few
clicks. These products are waiting for the public to discover them, and rest
comfortably in their spot along The Long Tail, of the new music industry.
Chris Anderson tells of the trends of music with his concept of a long tail on
a graph of products to popularity. His graph contains the mainstream, but also
mainstreams baby brother; this brother that consists of music that is not highly
popular but contains much more content, is heard and discovered by a still notable
portion of the mass audience. The graph steadily decreases from the popular hits to
the less and less popular music, but extends longer along the x-axis to account for
the large portion of mildly popular music that has now become a part of the music
industry (Anderson). This music has made itself known through many social
networking sites that have suggested its content to users, or through other means
of networking and connectivity of the artist (Anderson).
Gross 3
Who are these new artists that are creating these products that are
represented in the Long Tail? Theyre just average citizens who may or may not
truly be interested in a career in music, but who may be simply expressing
themselves through an art form that suits them. An artist needs interpersonal ties,
linkages to other artists and gatekeepers who are not artists, woven into their social
network (Foster-221). Their networks provide social support, recognition,
justification for ideological convictions, ideas about style and technique, and
information about jobs, as well as information, advice, critical feedback, and
acknowledgement for a job well done, (Foster-221). These aspects are crucial to
the success of the artist, the stronger these factors, the stronger the artist. Social
networks are themselves tools that can achieve stronger and broader ranges of all of
these factors. Through interactive capabilities of social networks, the artist is given
feedback, praise, support, justification, critique, and loads of information from a
massive audience, allowing them to strengthen the morphological characteristics
of their networks. These characteristics are fourfold, outlined in Art and Society:
Readings in the Sociology of the Arts, and defined as characteristics that make up the
relationship and pattern of linkage in a network (Foster-227). The characteristics
are anchorage, reachability, density, and range (Foster-228). Anchorage, describes
to whom or to what category of people the network can be traced, and can differ
widely, thereby affecting the type of network. Reachability refers to the number of
steps either through different mediums or different parties, that the content must go
through in its network to reach its intended audience (Foster-232). Thirdly, density
is explained as the extent that connections among persons exist within the network;
Gross 4
the greater the density, the higher percentage of persons who know one another
within the network (Foster-233). The final characteristic is the range, which is the
number of direct links from artist to audience members within a network; mostly
these connections are interpersonal (Foster-234).
All of these characteristics have potential to be enhanced through social
media. Social media sights offer suggestions and customization opportunities in
order to match one person to another person, through the content the persons
offer. If someone plays the guitar and frequently types guitar-related searches into
YouTube, the site will begin to suggest guitar related channels that might be of
interest to the user, this intermediary between people allows for more relationships
that may otherwise have never surfaced. Through common ground, anchorage is
enhanced because the networks are traced through genres and categories to
determine where the network stemmed from. Reachability is high because social
networks allow for very few steps in between content and audience. Celebrities and
can communicate with their fans through Twitter and other similar sites, whereby
the post goes from the mind of one to the eyes of many. A fan does not have to have
any personal relationship with the celebrity; they merely have to be following
them, without ever really interacting with them in-person. This one-to-many
capability does not just extend to celebrities; it applies to everyone. Anyone who is
an artist or who has any sort of music to share, can be followed and seen by anyone
who is a fan of his or her work, without any sort of personal connection. Thus,
reachability is effectively higher because of social media. Density can also be
improved because perhaps a social network makes more personal connections
Gross 5
between friends or allows circles to overlap. For instance, with Facebook, there is a
friends of friends feature that is any option in privacy settings, allowing friends
and friends of friends to see your post if they so desired. This feature allows for
connecting less with random or mass audiences, but more with people with whom
you have a mutual friend, this provides opportunity for better density. The final
characteristic, range, is furthered because social sites allows for direct links to be
more possible despite physical proximity. For example, relatives that live
somewhere else in the country are indeed direct links, but they may not have access
to your art; social networking and sharing allows you to connect with more direct
links that would otherwise be too far away to be truly part of your network. All in
all, social networking allows for more connectedness to broader audiences and
strengthens these connections that are fundamental to a network, which is vital to
the artist and his or her music.
As far as adding to an audience, or attracting new fans, social media is ideal
because it just is where everyone is. Less and less is it effective to put
advertisements on billboards, posters, flyers or other material mediums, because
every other facet of society is going digital. Four out of five Americans are creating,
taking part in, or absorbing some type of social media every month (Funk-2). Online
networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, and YouTube serve 80% of
Americans or roughly 127 million people, every month (Funk-2). The potential
audience of social media websites is huge. YouTube has over 100 million videos
(Funk-3) and every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube (Funk-70);
and all of these numbers continue to grow.
Gross 6
There are many different forms and functions of advertisement. From
corporations to small businesses to struggling musicians, advertising is crucial to
attracting and expanding audience. Think of how many advertisements a single
person is exposed to on an average day, then think of how many different people or
groups of people have something to advertise or promote. There is a constant
competition for attention, and constant changing forms and mediums that are used
to grab ones attention. Social media being a large player, how can a single musician
with little resources attract the attention of an audience, when much more powerful
companies have so many more resources at their disposal? The answer is that social
media isnt really for businesses. According to Social Media Playbook for Business,
Social-media marketing is a bit of an oxymoron. Purists say social media is for
people, not businesses. This concept is arguable, but if a business is utilizing social
media, it is less about sales generation, more about customer service, (Funk-9).
Individual people, over businesses, have an advantage because what they are
providing and promoting is themselves, while businesses are promoting their
products. Their products are the popular artists and the albums that they create in a
recording studio. Social Media just doesnt seem to be the correct medium for
product advertisement. How does this affect the music industry? If record
companies struggle to find their foothold in the growing population of social media
users, will they fall behind in selling their products?
How does this affect the artists? Social media has provided many levels of
people. In between famous celebrities and garage bands are fluctuating levels of
popularity that allow for more diverse, and more plentiful music, waiting to be
Gross 7
discovered. There is an in between; it is actually possible to be an artist without
being a celebrity because social media allows different levels of popularity in music.
It becomes plausible for an individual to write and record music at a very low cost,
because they reap the benefits of social media sites. Not only that, but a person can
actually learn to play an instrument for free using YouTube tutorial videos rather
than paying for lessons or other means of instruction. Before this paradigm shift, if a
person had an album it meant he or she spent a large sum of money to create it,
usually because he or she was committed to a dream of having a career as a
musician; however, now a person can record their own music with a personal
computer for much cheaper, while also having social media portals to share their
products and self-advertise.
How is this fresh new DIY advertising affecting the current foundations of the
music industry? Our beloved YouTube has actually caused much feuding. The
complicated processes and arrangements of when an artist, a songwriter, a
composer, a producer, or a distributor gets a royalty is difficult when it comes to the
new music industry. The New York Times discuss YouTubes plans to put in place a
subscription based service that will help to settle disputes; record companies,
which have long complained about low per-stream payouts, will be allowed to reap
bigger royalties (YouTube Said to Introduce Paid Service for Music). The music
industry shift is greatly affecting artists who do still utilize traditional means of
recording and distributing music, and perhaps the struggles that these artists face is
part of the reason that an individual is more inclined to practice the DIY side of
things. According to the New York Times, Zoe Keating, an independent musician
Gross 8
from Northern Californiadescribes her style as avant cello, used social media to
share the financial earnings from her songs (As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties
Slow to a Trickle). She recites the details, saying that After her songs had been
played more than 1.5 million times on Pandora over six months, she earned
$1,652.74. On Spotify, 131,000 plays last year netted just $547.71, or an average of
0.42 cent a play, (As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle). The
new industry does not leave room for the old patterns, because the revenue
generated for an average musician does not balance with the high costs of recording
an album with a record company.
Of course there is a good side to all of this, and that is that more and more
people are expressing themselves. It is truly a remarkable thing that an individual
doesnt have financial shortcomings standing in the way of them expressing
themselves and sharing that expression with the world. People see this opportunity
arise from social media and they embrace it. Not just through music, but through all
forms of creative expression. YouTube video providers can truly only be described
collectively as entertainers because the range of forms and ideas that are posted in
video does not always have a classified category. With that comes a community of
vernacular creativity that has emerged around user-generated video accessed
through YouTube, (Turner-145). This creativity does not include the conventional
forms of art but instead other creative everyday activities such as scrapbooking or
storytelling (Burgess).
As surfing social media sites results in more discoveries, more ideas are
inspired and more creative outlets are found. As social media allows for better
Gross 9
networking and is accessible by anyone, the gap between famous musicians and
average citizens begins to close, as other levels bridge the space. This bridge brings
in more music that is the opposite of mainstream and is supported by the Internet
and social media websites that can store the products digitally, even if they arent
extremely popular or in high demand. Collectively, social media users are all
attempting to become famous when they start worrying about the number of
followers they have or the number of likes they get on their latest selfie; we want
numbers; how is that much different from how a musician worries about ratings on
their latest album? This continues on in that we are becoming the talent as well.
There is a fresh attitude of DIY, or Do-It-Yourself because social media provides us
with an audience, an audience that will perhaps boost our own ratings, making
content that we muster up ourselves actually worth something. Additionally, no
matter its worth, websites can store the media, because music can be stored
digitally rather than taking up space on a CD or record on a shelf in a store. This shift
is providing audiences with a seemingly infinite mass of music that can be
discovered and explored and the people are exploring; now more than ever, society
yearns to discover new music, to personalize their unique taste of likes and
dislikes, to dare to be different, to create something personal and do-it-yourself,
adding to the production and closing this positive feedback loop. The music industry
as we know it, is changing. It has now become acceptable and even cool to stand out
in the crowd, to not be forced to like or dislike what everyone else decides on just to
fit in and be a normal person; weird is the new normal. Mainstreams baby brother
is getting older and wiser and becoming cool too.
Gross 10
The music industry is taking a turn, and so many areas of the structure are
being renovated. It starts with the possibility that social media sites such as
YouTube offer the public. People are widely practicing a DIY attitude, because they
can succeed this way. An individual can teach themselves to play an instrument, take
voice lessons, get tips on writing lyrics and melodies, then create their own songs
and share them with the world over the same site; they then can use other social
media sites to advertise themselves, to bring together a network of people that are
crucial to their success as an artist. The scale of audiences that one can attract over
social media sites is vast, being that increasingly, social media is where everyone
spends their free time, or seeks entertainment. This shift suggests many end results,
but as it is now, we must simply accept that there is so much to find, so much we
havent seen, and so much we have the power to create ourselves, and to discover.
YouTube is the worlds largest music search and discovery engine Its just about
making a great consumer experience, (YouTube Said to Introduce Paid Service for
Music).








Gross 11

Works Cited
Foster, Arnold W., and Judith R. Blau. Art and Society: Readings in the Sociology of
the Arts. Albany: State University of New York, 1989. Print.

Turner, Graeme. Ordinary People and the Media: The Demotic Turn. Los Angeles:
SAGE, 2010. Print.

Funk, Tom. Social Media Playbook for Business: Reaching Your Online Community
with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and More. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011.
Print.

Burgess, Jean. "'Defining' Vernacular Creativity." Web log post. Creativity/Machine.
N.p., 10 May 2006. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.
<http://creativitymachine.net/2006/05/10/defining-vernacular-creativity/>.

Anderson, Chris. "Wired 12.10: The Long Tail." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, Oct.
2004. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html>.

SISARIO, By BEN. "YouTube Said To Introduce Paid Service For Music." The New
York Times. (October 25, 2013 Friday ): 558 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web.
Date Accessed: 2013/11/07.

Gross 12
Sisario, Ben. "As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 28 Jan. 2013. Web. 7 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/business/media/streaming-shakes-
up-music-industrys-model-for-royalties.html?_r=0>.