DJ Crazy Times — aka Kyle Gordon — in his aspect.

Toby Tenenbaum

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Toby Tenenbaum

DJ Crazy Times — aka Kyle Gordon — in his aspect.

Toby Tenenbaum

The video is a successful mixture of nostalgia, intrigue and surrealism. And its viral ascent can inform us quite a bit about trendy meme tradition.

Who is he? Well, it is determined by who you imply.

• The star of the video for Planet of the Bass is DJ Crazy Times, an brisk redheaded DJ and musician who shouts out Slovakia and loves peace, music and intercourse.
• The thoughts behind the tune, nonetheless, is Kyle Gordon — a Brooklyn based mostly comic who’s earned a big social media following by posting movies that painting a wide range of eccentric characters.

What’s the massive deal? For a short second, Gordon was capable of seemingly unite the web below one query: Eurodance was fairly bizarre, proper?

• Late final month, Gordon posted a snippet performing his parody tune Planet of the Bass on social media, and instantly turned the topic of a cultural web fervor that’s exhausting to explain – Twitter stories the clip has racked up 110 million views and obtained over 320,000 likes.

• Perhaps extra shockingly, the tune initially drew only a few haters, with its completely positioned grammatical inaccuracies, obscure but particular subject material (love, intercourse, peace, dance), and ’90s futuristic styling. For a short, shining second, it felt like everybody was having fun with the Thing Du Jour.
• And then, the commentary inside the video spawned its personal commentary. The authentic clip did not function the unique feminine vocalist – Chrissi Poland. Instead, she was portrayed by actor Audrey Trullinger, who many took a liking to.
• The following week, one other clip was launched that includes a special performer, Mara Olney; and the web was up in arms over it.

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• Just a couple of days later, a third model was launched, with the grasp of situational cringe, comic Sabrina Brier, filling the function. By then, those that hadn’t initially gotten the bit satirizing Eurodance teams disposing of feminine performers in precisely the identical manner understood. But did they nonetheless take pleasure in it?

• In some methods, Planet of the Bass is an ideal case examine of the lifecycle of a meme. By the second iteration, individuals on-line shared that they had been by with the tune and felt that it had been overdone. Others had been reeled in by Brier’s rendition of the feminine performer.
• On Tuesday, the total tune and music video had been launched, which leaves one query to be answered: does the web nonetheless care?

What are individuals saying? NPR spoke to Gordon about his fast ascent to virality, and the way it felt completely different from different instances.

When did you notice this stint at virality was completely different from the others?

I feel it was that first weekend after I posted the primary clip on Twitter. More or much less, I posted on Twitter as a lark as a result of I had a a lot bigger following on TikTok and Instagram. But when this began, I had like 1,300 followers on Twitter.

So after I realized that it was like over that first day and over the weekend, like exploding on Twitter, I used to be like, oh my God, I’m in a special ballgame now.

Do individuals notice that you simply’re not DJ Crazy Times? (You’re not, proper?)

If you have been following me, that I play tons of various characters. And that is truly a personality that followers of mine on TikTok particularly would have been acquainted with, as a result of it was one in every of my extra widespread characters.

December 2020, all through that first yr I used to be doing a variety of DJ Crazy Times, so [he] has kind of been percolating through the years. But yeah, the precise tenor of the brand new fandom, of a few of the new followers I’ve, I do not know, I’m nonetheless form of figuring that out.

Can you converse on the drama with Ms. Biljana Electronica, the feminine performer featured within the movies?

So the primary video I dropped [was] July twenty eighth, however I had all three movies shot and edited earlier than then. So it was at all times my plan to launch all three.

And as I’ve talked about earlier than, it was kind of an homage to a trope of those, like particularly early 90s Eurodance teams that might get a singer to sing the monitor after which if it turned widespread, they might simply get an actress or a mannequin to be within the music video.

And so it was an homage to that, however … this turned a lot greater and it is wonderful that it discovered such a big fan base even exterior of people who find themselves followers of that music and even actually educated about that music.

I feel after I dropped the second video, they had been like, “Well, Audrey did such an amazing job in the first music video,” and I feel it was like a little bit of whiplash.

But then after I posted the third video, individuals kind of began to understand the bit with out me even actually having to clarify it that a lot. And then, in case you noticed the total music video I dropped at this time, Audrey’s again and she or he completely crushed it.

Are girls nonetheless your favourite man?

Even in any case this, girls are nonetheless my favourite man. Yeah, I stand by that assertion. You can quote me on that.

So what now?

• Planet of the Bass is featured on Gordon’s upcoming musical parody album that features a wide range of genres, together with Bossa Nova and early 2000s nation pop.
• And Gordon has a string of performances and comedy reveals deliberate for the next months.

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