The monitor is a weekly column dedicated to everything that happens in the WIRED cultural world, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter.
Earlier this week, it seemed inevitable that this column would have something to do with President Trump’s second indictment. In a week when Republicans compared the president’s accusation to a ‘cancellation’ and said that Twitter that Trump was uploading was similar to censorship, it was tempting to weigh in. (If freedom of speech is stifled, then how is it possible that this is all? I hear of every major media in the world? How?) But I deviated. Why? Sea chances.
To get everyone on track, sea chanties are the smiling woman in the Distracted Boyfriend meme – they grab your attention, no matter what time it takes. The songs, which were intended on merchant ships in the 18th century to help sailors through their duties, began to take off on TikTok after a 26-year-old Scottish postman named Nathan Evans posted a video of him ‘ sings a song called ‘Soon May’ the Wellerman Come ”(sometimes just titled“ Wellerman ”) in the last week of 2020. It has been performed thousands of times since then and has become an online obsession. (If you haven’t r / seashanties yet, you really should.)
Why? Why did everyone, in the midst of a political crisis in the US and a global pandemic, work on songs that sound like what the Decemberists are trying to do? The conclusion most people have come to is that sea events are a relief. It’s a time when people have to be far apart, singing together in songs – even about TikTok – feels like a moment of togetherness, or a socially distant karaoke. (God, I miss karaoke.) “They are single, surviving songs designed to transform a large group of people into one joint body,” Kathryn VanArendonk writes for Vulture, “all working together to keep the ship going. . ” Just as Amanda Petrusich remarked in The New Yorker, “It seems possible that the opportunity, after almost a year of loneliness and collective self-banishment, and of crushing restrictions on travel and adventure, could give a brief glimpse into another, more exciting way of life, a world of sea air and pirates and grog, of many people singing along, may be bold to ascend for what Melville called the ‘true places’, the pristine views situated on no map. ‘(As for the spelling difference between “shanty” and “chantey”, your guess is just as good as mine.)
These things are undoubtedly true. After almost a year of quarantine and fear, it is welcome to have something simple that you can sing along to, even if you are halfway deaf. The unironic embrace of something that feels old and ethereal also fits right into the spirit of TikTok. But at the same time, the use of collective cultures was one of the hallmarks of the pandemic, out of a collective obsession with Tiger King and “WAP.” Not to mention, gamers sang while playing Sea of Thieves long before the pandemic hit. Yes, some of this popularity comes thanks to the Longest Johns, the a cappella folk band that released a version of “Wellerman” in 2018, but still.