Childish Gambino - This Is America is still #1 on YouTube Trending 5 days after dropping. 59M views.
The video, in case you haven't seen it yet.
WaPo had an interesting breakdown a few days ago on most of the shots in the video and theories as to their meaning that is worth reading.
However, one thing I noticed they (and most other people so far) missed was that you can see Glover's back in the beginning since he is facing away from the camera and there is clearly no gun in his pockets or in his waistband... so it simply materializes when he reaches behind him after he slowly dances towards his first victim.
They also don't mention how during the third to last scene everyone screams and scatters even though he is only making a gun shape with his hands which, when contrast against the actual scenes of murder causing no reaction by anyone, says a lot.
I am also currently addicted to Reaction videos on YouTube of people watching the video for the first time. Peoples' initial shock and their different interpretations of the video are fascinating to watch. In one of them, someone even mentioned something nobody else seemed to notice... that after the first murder, the gun is carried away by someone else with an almost reverence while the body is simply dragged away like garbage and again after the second murder scene as well.
Anyone else notice any other interesting elements worth noting?
I just watched the video yesterday and haven't had the chance to watch reaction videos or read many articles about it, so I apologize in advance if these observations have been made already.
Not sure if this was the intended message, but Donald Glover seems to hold African Americans and black culture at least partially responsible for its role in perpetuating this system of violence and injustice. As others have noted, the dancers (all black) serve as a distraction from all the chaos that is going on behind them. It's also interesting, though, that it is Glover who casually pulls the trigger on the guitarist and the church choir, both of whom are communicating through music. The message this sends would be very different had it been a white person shooting. Someone symbolizing power and privilege silencing an oppressed group would be very obvious and expected (although accurate), but a member of an oppressed group keeping his own group down in order to thrive or survive is far more disturbing and insidious. In the end, though, it doesn't actually work, as seen in that final scene where Glover is running for his life as a mob chases after him.
In one of the reaction videos I watched, the viewer (an older black man) even mentioned that Glover doesn't appear to be blaming any one particular group for these issues despite the second murder scene being a clear allusion to the South Carolina church shooting. Another interesting point he mentioned is that the final scene doesn't appear to be an "us vs them" message either as there appears to be a mix of different skin toned people chasing him , which I didn't notice at first. I thought it was just white people chasing him but if you slow it down, despite the blurriness you can clearly see it isn't just white people.
Another YouTuber also mentioned something interesting about the dancers; How they are all young looking and wearing school uniforms so while the underlying message could be that teens are allowing themselves to be easily distracted from social problems, it could also be meant to show that the dancing is a coping mechanism for them, similar to why Donald lights up the joint near the end.
No matter your interpretation it's a fascinating video though... especially because there are so many potential interpretations. I am obsessed with it.
Something I've seen people say (but I don't know is actually true) is that some or all of the dances are ones that have had a lot of popular videos on Facebook and such. So just like the dancers in the foreground are a distraction in the video, the videos being shared heavily have been a distraction away from more important news and issues.
This seems to be a good interview with the dance choreographer that has a fair amount of detail: https://pigeonsandplanes.com/in-depth/2018/05/childish-gambino-this-is-america-dance-choreographer-sherrie-silver-interview
In particular, the lyrics about "black man get yo money" suggest this to me; almost a criticism of being entertainment used to distract while all these people are being murdered.
I'm actually quite interested if I'm trapped a bit in a bubble with this one.
I'd expect given how politically charged this video is there'd be a LOT of negative push-back / outrage. The only thing I've seen is a couple people who obviously didn't watch the video prattling on about how it somehow glorifies gun violence.
Most of the reaction I've seen here is a deep need to understand the meaning behind the video (which to be honest is genuinely surprising to me for the internet), as well as overall support.
I'm sure the counter arguments to this video/statement are out there, but I am definitely wondering if there's some echo chamber / bubble insulation going on here.
Edit: Also worth noting that even though the video features visual gun violence, and not "advertiser friendly" themes that this video is listed in trending and all the reactions / analysis / etc are all over YouTube recommends, etc... meanwhile many content creators who discuss real news involving gun violence are slammed with automatic video suppression / demonetization.
Yeah, I must be in a bit of a bubble too. I have seen nothing but a little shock/horror, a little confusion but mostly praise for the video so far, even from family who I showed it to; they generally didn't like the music but liked the video, the dancing and the message.
And yeah it and the reaction videos being pushed by YouTube so heavily in the face of their demonetization of all things gun related, even neutral/apolitical news coverage is kinda odd/hypocritical.
As an aside... the strangest thing about YouTube demonetization for me is that even with all the major YouTubers that keep losing monetization regularly, despite not deserving it, and getting it back every single time they ask for manual review, (e.g. Phil DeFranco, CodysLab, Kurzgesagt, Leonard French, etc), is that it still keeps happening to them over and over again like clockwork. You would think YouTube would have implemented a whitelist by now, or at least add some serious weight against it happening again after manual review finds it was done in error the first few times. It just makes no damn sense that seemingly nothing has changed after all this time, especially with all the bad press YouTube is getting for allowing it to keep happening. Are they genuinely that incompetent at YouTube HQ or do they just not care?
It's purely speculation, but I feel like YT already DOES have a white list, it's just that only big names they're courting like Ellen Degeneres / Jimmy Kimmel / Vevo get an automatic pass for any and all bullshit they put up.
Look at the controversy around Kimmel's coverage of the Vegas Shootings and the Dodge truck ads running on his videos.
YouTube claimed this was because he had a special arrangement with YT to allow his publisher to sell ad spots on his videos (served by YouTube ), which is why his videos were allowed to circumvent the YT policies / algorithms.
You look at old channels like PhillyD / boogie / etc that have been around forever, and are huge strong staples that helped shape WHAT YouTube is, it's clear that they're playing favorites to the existing media giants instead of embracing the new face of media they're fundamentally at the root of creating.
Ah right, I had forgotten about all the major network shows not getting demonetized despite their coverage of controversial topics... so yeah there clearly is a whitelist already. It's just so strange they haven't added any of the prominent YouTubers that keep getting mistakenly demonetized to that list yet. I guess they don't want to be seen as playing favorites? ... despite already clearly playing favorites with the mainstream network shows hosting content on the site. I just can't wrap my head around it.
I guess when you think about the Logan Paul / PewDiePie situations they probably already do have prominent users on their white lists, but only the ones making them BANK.
I can sympathize with YouTube about the sheer amount of content they have to process, but people who consistently produce good content should ideally get the benefit of the doubt.
You mention Phil, which is interesting because his show is known to specifically intentionally demonetize their own episodes that could be seen as "exploiting a situation" to avoid this problem. You'd think after disputing so many videos only to have them white listed after review that the algorithm would trend towards leniency in this case.
I really tend to feel like YouTube doesn't believe in the platform they're cultivating, but are more looking to prop a big industry money mill and transition the legacy media giants onto a digital platform. All built on the backs of so many "beta" testers (i.e. regular folks) who established the shifting trend.
I only hope that people trend away from these legacy media sources to the new up & coming creatives that are really driving the space. I'm also super happy sites like Patreon exist.