Parodies

The rise in popularity of music videos has not only lead to the fame of music artists for their artistic, mind blowing, or astonishing portrayal of their songs, but also lead to the rise of parodies.

A parody is a sort of copy or replication of an already made music video, but its purpose is more of a comedic sort.

Some parodies are a straightforward mocking of the original. In these parodies, like those made by Barely Political and Bart Baker, everything from the lyrics to the costumes are made to ridicule the song, artist, and video.

A majority of parodies aren’t made to jeer at the original, but are made to be comic twists. College Humor made the parody “I am Afraid” based off Eminem’s “I’m not Afraid”. While Eminem raps about about not giving up and pulling through  to the point where he no longer fears, College Humor’s parody raps about everything there is to be afraid of in daily life.

There are also political parodies in which a popular song is used to make fun of a politician or current political event. The best example for this is SNL’s “We did Stop” parody of Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop”. Curiously enough Miley Cyrus was also featured in the parody as Michelle Bachman. In Cyrus’ original version she sings about partying and not being able to stop partying, typical Miley Cyrus music. But in the SNL parody, the Republican Party led by John Boehner (Taran Killam) and Michelle Bachmann (Miley Cyrus) celebrate their own Political Party’s achievement of closing down the government.

When Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” official video was published on youtube it instantly became famous, having reached currently around 448 million views. It also became one of the biggest sources for parodies. Numerous parodies with all kinds of styles popped up. Parodies like: “Toy Shop”, “Pot Shop”, and a Minecraft version called “Trade Shop”.

Parodies have become an extent of fame to the music hits on youtube, and have become a popularity among humor enthusiasts.