From the channel that brought you 'Corporate Music' ...and a game-changing review ...of AVID's Sibelius, ...with millions of viewers worldwide ...and international acclaim "Tantacrul is the future." "I really believe in him." "Support Tantacrul." Tantacrul is back, ...and he's back big! And this time, ...he's turning his attention to the destructive nature ...of musical tropes ...in television. Stand back, ...and prepare to be tantalised ...once more. "Tantarific!" From his humble beginnings, ...Tantacrul built up a global media empire ...by zooming in on things ...and comparing symbols that look... ...pretty much identical. And with this skill set, ...along with a passable knowledge of outdated critical theory, ...he was all set to cover the dehumanizing nature ...of TV music... ...until ...his reality ...met with disaster. "On January 18, 2020," "...I was diagnosed with cancer," "...and-" "...and cholera," "...and then AIDS." "Um..." "The AIDS cancelled out the cholera," "...but..." "...then my wife and children died." "Um..." "You know, it was really tough" "...and hard to get through, you know?" "It was a long road," "...but with the help of my subscribers," "...the people who" "...move their mouse down to this thing and click on it," "...and then click on this notification," "...that, for some reason," "...only about 7% of my audience" "...ever bothered to do." "Yeah, that one there with the bell." "The- The one next to the 'Subscribe' button" "...that I just mentioned a second ago." "Um..." "I began to see a way through." Now... Tantacrul... Mission... Journey... Voyage ...of discovery. He's back where he belongs, ...making the world ...a better place ...and chasing his dreams. He's going to compare ...pandas ...to entrepreneurs, ...and explain why ...pizzicato ...equals ...stupid. It's Tantatime. It's... TAN TANTA TANTACRUL! "You dirty pig!" "Work together as a team!" "Donkey!" "You dirty pig!" "Work together as a team!" Let me start with a question: When watching a reality TV show like 'Kitchen Nightmares', 'Got Talent', 'Shark Tank', ...et cetera, ...have you ever had the feeling ...that the show was ...not only cheap and dumb, ...but also bad for you? In the same way that fast food ...can deteriorate your physical health, ...that reality TV ...can take a toll on your cognitive fitness? Well, ...I definitely do. I can take these shows in small doses, ...often because the spectacle ...and over-the-top production can be amusing, ...but after maybe 20 or 30 minutes, ...I just can't take it anymore. So in this video, ...I'm going to investigate one aspect ...of why I think these programmes ...are legitimately problematic ...for our mental and social well-being ...by focusing on how they use music ...to eradicate complex meaning, ...alienating us ...from the world portrayed on our screens. And in order to argue this effectively, ...I'm going to return to an old philosophical concept ...that I've discussed in the past: ...originally a Marxist concept ...popularized by Georg Lukács, ...it was subsequently applied to music ...by Theodor Adorno. And more recently, ...it was addressed in detail ...by the philosopher Jonathan Lewis. What I love about this concept ...is that it gives us a legitimate way ...to effectively criticize music ...and its relationship to the world, ...without which discussions can end up ...in an 'objectivity-versus-subjectivity' dead end. To give a very simplistic understanding ...of what I mean by ...how a piece of music can become reified in our minds, ...let me propose a thought experiment. Imagine for a moment ...that you're a god. Omnipotent in every way. With this power, ...if you were to listen to a piece of music, ...you'd be aware of ...much more than just how it sounds. You'd know how it came into existence, ...aware of every iteration that existed ...in the composer's mind as it was created. You'd also be aware of every cultural, ...social and biological influence ...that contributed to its creation, ...both deliberate and unconscious. Apart from how it was created, ...you'd also know everything about its influences. You'd be cognizant of ...every different interpretation of that music ...that existed in the mind of ...every listener from every point in time, ...and you'd be aware of ...how this understanding is always changing. You'd be able to trace every phrase, ...every musical idea back through the centuries ...to its own musical origin, ...comprehending how they slowly transformed ...from person to person ...in order to end up where they are now. What others think of as a 'single work', ...you'd perceive as a live connection ...to the endlessly shifting and impossibly complex ...conversation of musical thought and influence. Now, imagine that all this information ...has been stripped away from you, ...and you're now a mere mortal again. And one day, ...you hear a 15-second ad on the radio ...for biscuits. And in this ad, ...a tiny clip of the same piece of music is used, And from this moment on, ...every time you hear this music, ...the only cultural connection you have to it ...is biscuits. If you heard it referenced in another piece of music, ...you'd think, "Why are they using the biscuit music?" So, ...reification in music is a phenomenon ...where complex totality is stripped down ...to unchanging and often literal meaning. So hardened in place it can't be reinterpreted. A cultural dead end. A frozen synapse. So, ...I've described how the complex nature of music ...can be reduced to singular literal meaning. Now I want to demonstrate ...how this phenomenon is manipulated on television. To start, ...let's look at a trope ...I'm going to call 'Pizzicato' '...Equals Stupid'. And before we get into reality TV examples, ...I need to first show a related trope ...used in nature documentaries. "Puppy fat on a baby panda is good." "At 11 pounds," "...Ying Hua is filling out well." "A European hamster." In this context, ...pizzicato strings are used to convey ...a kind of carefree innocence. It's pretty unimaginative ...Romantic-era-101 stuff. But now, ...let's look at how the same technique ...is used in reality television. A great example here is 'The UK Apprentice', ...a particularly mean-spirited production ...that does everything it can ...to make the contestants who take part ...look like utter imbeciles. And to this end, ...two insufferable minions are dispatched ...to follow the contestants around, ...providing sneer footage ...whenever a mistake is made. That's their job. They sneer to make other people look stupid on TV. And musically speaking, ...the show basically has one trick: Pizzicato equals stupid. Let me demonstrate. In this clip, ...a group of contestants have been given the task ...of trying to purchase a few unusual items, ...but first they need to figure out ...what the items actually are ...by solving a set of clues: "Octopus" "...with a 40-inch..." "...hose." " [...] but we're not looking for an actual octopus here, are we?" "Could a hose potentially be," "...like, if you stretched" "...an octopus out." Used in this way, ...the innocent animal trope ...has taken on a different meaning, ...and is now painting the contestants as ...wide-eyed, naive, fools. This technique is relentless. Here's another clip of a contestant ...haggling with the shop owner. It's actually a fairly playful, ...good-natured little interaction. But if we turn on the sound, ...observe how the music is encouraging us ...to look down on the contestant's performance. ...and how we're rewarded a moment later ...with a confirmation sneer edit from mommy. "We were probably willing to spend about £2.50 on it." "Oh, good luck with that." "Oh?" "I have..." "...th- the only" "...remaining party shop in Oxford." "Oh-" "Thank you so much." And that's the programme. Pizzicato = stupid, ...sneer. Pizzicato = stupid, ...sneer. It's just so blatant ...and unfair to the people taking part, ...and I hate the way these two lowlives have been deployed ...to validate the impression created by the music. It makes me feel complicit in the abuse. With 'The Apprentice', ...you can't interpret anything that's happening ...because the music is always signposting ...what your interpretation should be, ...removing the need to think ...even one little bit. And as a result, ...you don't get to know who most of the contestants really are. They're cartoon characters. But as damaging as this is ...for our understanding of people ...when you think about it, ...the earlier example of ...how the trope is used in nature documentaries ...is actually much worse. With other humans, ...we can at least put ourselves in their position ...to imagine how they're feeling, ...but empathizing with animals is so much harder ...because their existence is completely alien to us. For example, ...in those clips I used earlier, ...guess what? This panda? Her mother abandoned her ...for being too weak. This squirrel? It’s storing up food for winter ...by stealing from another squirrel, ...and consequently gets attacked. It's not just frolicking around, ...having a laugh. And this little furball? Well, we don't know what's going on here, do we? [Eagle screeching] Yeah, it's cute, ...but it's also a living creature with a real life. I'd prefer to understand it ...rather than have my brain skip over its existence with 'aww cute thing running now'. If these shows are intended to help us understand the natural world, ...then this music is working against that goal. And this is such a shame. Shows about the natural world often use ...filming techniques that are, frankly, astounding. But when this work is handed to editors and composers, ...they very often just completely drop the ball. Take this example by National Geographic, ...the standard bearer of nature-documentary disappointment: "17 feet long" "...and half a ton," "...it's average size" "...for a saltwater crocodile." "They're the largest living reptile in the world." "Eyes and nostrils sit high," "...just above the waterline." So, in this case, ...I'm not sure what the purpose of the horror music is. I guess it's reflecting how I might feel ...if the crocodile was coming to eat me? But... is that really valuable? This creature is hunting for food. Do we really need emotional direction here? Would we do the same thing ...if it was another animal hunting? [horror music] And this additional layer of meaning "Oh, how scary..." ...is destructive. It's focusing our attention on ourselves ...by telling us what our emotional reaction should be, ...rather than inviting us into the crocodile's world ...so we can empathize with it. For a stark comparison, ...here's a very similar clip ...from the BBC documentary 'Life in Cold Blood': "This is the biggest" "...of all living reptiles," "...and one of the most feared." "If one creature" "...were to be labelled a cold-blooded killer," "...it would be this." "A saltwater crocodile." "A monster" "...that can grow to a length of 20 feet." Now, superior narration and editing aside, ...I'm sure you noticed ...how the absence of music ...gave us mental space to interpret what we're seeing. It's more intimate, ...allowing us to focus on the sounds of the surrounding environment. And yes, these sounds are also constructed by humans ...and by no means a perfect representation, ...but they seem more concerned with education, ...not cheap emotional signposting. I find myself compelled by ...how alien this creature's experience seems to be, ...compared to my own. I don't think, "Ooh, evil crocodile is scary now!" In nature documentaries, ...this distracting misuse of music is everywhere. Whenever you see a lion, ...expect to hear djembe percussion: ...because Africa. And if you see a tiger, ...expect to hear a sārangī, ...tabla ...or bansuri: ...because Asia. Oh, and speaking of Asian music, ...another common trope inherited ...from a long tradition in Hollywood cinema ...is to use 'exotic' or 'oriental' music ...to communicate 'otherness', ...which is basically reserved ...for animals that look weird: "It comes equipped" "...with its own strange lure." And then... [sigh] There's the rampant use of ...Avengers-style drama music: This is a really strange choice. It's as if the person responsible ...felt that the music is so common ...that we wouldn't notice how ...emotionally incoherent it is? And this is a good place ...to return back to reality television, ...where this same kind of bad orchestral drama music ...is endemic. It's the ultimate filler, ...employed to give the illusion of momentum ...when nothing is actually happening, ...which can often be ...just ridiculous: - "Oooh..."
- "And we're back!" By the way, this drama music ...is really easy to make. Just grab a couple of orchestral VSTs. There are even a couple of decent free ones out there, ...and you can add weight to ...even the most mundane footage: The next reifying technique I want to look at is: Similar to how music can harm our ability ...to empathize with the animal world, ...this technique harms our ability ...to empathize meaningfully with other humans. One of the best examples of this can be seen on 'The Bachelor', ...a show ...I can really only describe as a cultural wound. To quickly set this up, ...music is often used on television and marketing ...as a very quick way of summarizing a person's character, ...usually by categorizing that person ...under one of the common archetypes ...identified by Carl Jung, ...which people in branding love to harp on about ...because they think that by name-dropping a famous psychoanalyst ...their work will look less pathetic. Common archetypes include 'The Lover', 'The Magician', 'The Carer', 'The Explorer', ...et cetera. You can assign people archetypes ...very easily using music. Classical music? The Sophisticate. Rock music? The Rebel. It's all surface-level cliche ...that doesn't hold any water ...when you come to know the actual people being portrayed. But on reality TV shows, ...especially ones with lots of contestants ...all vying for airtime, ...archetype themes are utilized constantly ...to help summarize a person in 30 seconds. In 'The Bachelor', ...a large portion of the first episode ...is concerned with introducing women ...who'll be competing to marry ...this pristine god figure: "I have all the faith" "...that I'm gonna find," "...you know, my wife from this." He has ALL the faith. So let's meet the first contestant: "I own my own business." "I wax every part of the body." "Sideburns," "...legs," "...chin," "...neck," "...boobs..." The archetype here is ...the 'sassy independent'. This was reinforced using the keywords 'I own my own business'. Wow, a lady owning her own business? How independent! Cue the rock music, ...because women who like rock are assertive and headstrong. Hey, McFaith, ...you better handle with care, ...this one might bite ya! Anyway, that's how this works: ...the tune sets up the archetype ...and the keyword locks it in. I grew up in such a small town. Modeling really gave me the opportunity ...to travel and to be around different people. "I got it!" "But ultimately," "...I'm just a normal girl." "Good to see you guys again!" "I'm a nurse." "Taking care of regular patients" "...is my favorite..." "Oh, you married yet?" The most fulfilling thing about being a nurse ...is being able to help someone ...who can't help themselves. "Hi, I'm Tammy." "I've always been a fighter" "...since I was a kid." And again, ...the strategy is to use music ...to remove the need for us to spend any time ...understanding who these people are, ...so they become absolutely one-dimensional archetypes ...designed to fit a strict time slot ...in a completely mechanized production. I'd admire the efficiency ...if it wasn't just so unrelentingly awful. Now, no discussion of music on reality TV ...could be complete without mentioning ...this next trope: This doesn't require setup. Let's just jump straight in: "Even as an adult," "...people look at me and judge right away," "...like I'm gonna" "...do something bad, or..." "...steal something." "I'm here because" "...I am tired of being judged." "Growing up, I lacked confidence," "...and I was a very insecure girl." What makes these examples so galling ...is how predetermined they are. If we look back to older Simon Cowell vehicles ...like American Idol, ...sometimes a contestant would be given ...a little bit more time to talk about ...a unique or tragic story: "And to make the long story short, uh," "...the doctor said that I would probably never speak again." Notice the straightforward interview style, ...which makes it feel ...slightly more real. Combined with a good performance at the end, ...you get a neat little mini-story ...about overcoming personal struggles. But this combination took off ...with quite a few notable viral hits on YouTube. And following these successes, ...the unavoidable business logic ...is that sob stories would become ...a formal part of the show's structure, ...with anywhere between three to five per episode. So the editor's problem then becomes, 'How do we fill our sob stories quotient' '...without taking up too much time?' And the answer ...is auto-sad. Music that informs you ...that the sob story is about to happen ...so the speaker doesn't have to elaborate too much. All you need is monorhythmic piano chords ...and a couple of keywords: "When I was younger," "...I- I used to be bullied a lot." "But where are they?" - "And look at you!"
- "Yeah." "You just told them." And even though each story feels ...very real to the person telling it, ...for us, ...after a while, ...one does begin to blend into the next ...due to the relentlessly homogenized presentation. And eventually they become filler. A little break so you can check your phone ...or grab a snack. You don't need to feel bad ...because you know there's another one ...coming down the conveyor belt in five minutes. But many of these stories are probably true, ...and that's quite uncomfortable when you think about it. Our choice then seems to be either to ...ignore these stories unsympathetically, ...like a jaded consumer, ...or to be emotionally manipulated, ...like a gullible fool. Anyway, ...auto-sad can also be comedy gold too, ...because it's so easy to misjudge. My favorite example is this one ...from Britain's Got Talent, ...which is... ...almost psychedelic. Let me set this up. So, this contestant arrives on the stage ...with his dog. And after introductions, ...they begin to perform a trick: "David," "...I'd like you to think of an object" "...and write that word down." So, David Walliams ...writes down a word ...and then follows directions to come to the stage. Now, at this point, ...you might be wondering why the music ...is already in auto-sad mode, ...and why David is looking like ...he's paying his respects at a funeral. W- We'll get to that. Anyway, ...David then shows the... word to the dog. Okay. And all the while, ...this guy is covering his eyes ...in a way that really looks funny to me, ...since he's already facing in the opposite direction, ...so I'm not certain what he's blocking from view. And just in case you're thinking, "Oh, he's holding a mirror," ...he isn't. They all agreed on this backstage. Come on. Anyway, after David has returned back to his seat, ...the dog goes over to the man ...and whispers something in his ear: "The word is..." "...'table'." Crowd be astound! Oddly, it's at this moment ...the sob story begins, ...with full monorhythmic piano chord action. And the story is just too much. O- Right, okay. So it turns out ...that the guy's a police officer, ...and the dog's a dog. And the story is this: While on duty, ...the police officer man was attacked ...by a criminal with a knife, ...but the dog intervened ...by jumping in the way, ...and in doing so, ...ended up getting knifed instead, ...sustaining a life-threatening injury. However, ...on the brink of death, ...his love for the man ...brought him back, ...creating some sort of psychic link. And at this point, ...the auto-sad has hit its crescendo. Simon's in tears. In fact, he's really hamming it up. it reminds me of that cliché that psychopaths ...show more compassion for animals ...than they do humans. But apart from that, ...the whole cast are visibly upset. Some are even openly weeping. Audience members are in tears because ...I suppose it is actually quite poignant. Everyone is completely captivated and overwhelmed ...by the simple, ...yet powerful story of a bond ...between a man and his dog... ...and less so, the revelation that, ...one, ...the dog is able to read, ...and two, ...the dog is able to talk. So, putting everything we've just looked at together, ...let's consider some of the notable contributions ...that Gordon Ramsay has made ...to the reality TV genre. Kitchen Nightmares USA ...is an utterly horrible production. The pace is frantic and ugly, ...with incompetent zooms, warps ...and endless whooshing noises ...and lame sound effects. The audio mastering in general ...is just horribly hyper-compressed and maximized ...which causes the background music ...to jump nastily in volume: "Denver, Colorado," "...known as the Mile High City." "...is home to almost 2,500 restaurants..." And its use of stock music ...is utterly incompetent-sounding, ...often juxtaposing completely incompatible emotions ...so closely together, ...the effect is more ...comedic than dramatic: "This restaurant has been my life" "...for the last 28 years." "If the restaurant fails," "...it will feel like my life was nothing." In general, the music in Kitchen Nightmares ...feels like evidence of a rushed, ...patched-together narrative. And just like we saw earlier, ...the music is used to cast each person ...in a simplistic role: The headstrong owner ...who refuses to change: "Hello, chef." "How are you, sir?" "Good to see you." "Where in Italy are you from?" "I'm not Italian." - "I mean-"
- "Who said I am?" "Greek." "Oh, Greek?" "Got you now." The victimized family members ...who don't know where to turn: "The restaurant does put a tremendous" "...amount of stress on our family." "We are just making ends meet." And just talking about production for a second, ...there's a nasty trap involved ...in relying on music in this way, ...which is that when you do it, ...you have to keep doing it ...because by establishing a hyper-emotional intensity, ...scenes without any music suddenly feel weird. This means that a musical background ...must be found for everything. For example, ...watch this conversation between Gordon ...and the restaurant owner's son: - "Has he started to pass the reigns over?"
- "No." "Not him." "No, no." "Absolutely not." "And why is that?" "I don't know what's going to make him." "It's crazy." "Yeah, it is." "It's been really crazy." That music is ...pretty much in a holding pattern. It's not complementing anything. It's just there because ...music is everywhere. And I guess the editors felt ...momentum would be lost if it wasn't. Compare this to a very similar conversation ...held 10 years earlier ...on the first ever episode of Kitchen Nightmares ...which aired in the UK: "[...] but the restaurant business" "...is totally new to her." "And so far," "...the locals aren't biting." "Good afternoon." "Good afternoon." "Sue?" "It is, yes." "Hi, pleased to meet you." "Likewise." "So how's it going?" "A bit quieter today." "How many did you have in for lunch?" "About... two." "Two. Really?" "That's it." "It just died a death." "Absolute death" "The stark truth is that two-thirds of restaurants" "...don't survive past their first birthday." See? The same intention to portray a character sympathetically ...was aided by a slowing of pace ...and a momentary absence of background music. And when you watch both shows in their entirety, ...the sympathetic portrayal in the UK version ...is much more effective. And the episode is actually really compelling. But the staple of a Gordon Ramsay show ...is obviously the drama that occurs in the kitchen. In Kitchen Nightmares USA, ...it's just the same ...mind-numbing stock garbage: "Linguine a la Vongole, right?" "Where's the Linguine a la Vongole?" "What the hell are you guys doing?" "Put the f**king thing out!" "Whatever, man." "Stop!" Compare this ...to 'Boiling Point', ...a documentary recorded 15 years earlier ...about Gordon's struggle to attain a third Michelin star. Throughout 'Boiling Point', ...the tension in the kitchen is nail-biting. In this scene, ...during a very busy service, ...the extraction fan suddenly breaks, ...causing the temperature in the kitchen to skyrocket: "Go." "Go." "Come on, go!" "Table eleven." "Get away from there." "Get away!" "Okay." "Uh, right." "Can we get hold of an electrician?" - "Or someone?"
- "Can we get ahold of- an-" - "Why are you looking at me in a daze?" This feels much more immersive. Here, we don't need music to tell us how to feel ...because the footage is already ...bursting with anxiety and rage. And there's another important technical aspect to consider here too, ...which is how documentaries are edited. When there's no music, ...the editor has a lot more freedom ...to let moments like this play out. Now if you add drama music to this scene, ...the longer shots just don't work anymore: "Uh, right." "Can we get hold of an electrician?" "Can we get ahold of-" - "Why are you looking at me in a daze?" "Can we get ahold of an electrician or someone?" - "Yeah."
- "The extraction's gone off." "Yeah." "Please!" And as a result, ...you have to cut it differently, ...removing all the parts where Gordon is simmering ...and his employees are standing around nervously, ...not knowing what to do: "Can we get hold of electrician?" - "Why are you looking at me in a daze?" "Can we get ahold of electrician or someone?" - "Yeah."
- "The extraction's gone off." In Kitchen Nightmares, ...because of these production choices, ...the show often ping-pongs from dramatic to sad so quickly ...you get emotional whiplash. Watch this pivotal scene ...where Gordon confronts the restaurant owner: "I've got one" "...very important question for you." "Am I willing to change?" "That's the one." "No." This is followed just a few seconds later ...by three different tone shifts: "[...] because I don't want to lose my home and..." "...the few little things that I have-" "I don't want to." "Pete..." "Are you committed?" "I am." "I am." "Yes." "I am ready to change." It's just hilarious! At the rate reality TV is diminishing in quality, ...I'd say in about five years ...this show will just be called 'Are You Willing To Change?', ...comprised of 15-second segments ...where Gordon asks random people ...if they're willing to change or not. [extremely enthusiastic applause] Five years after that, it'll just be called 'Yes or No'. "Yes or no, Carla?" "Yes." Five years after that, it'll be called 'SadHappy', ...a formless emotional slurry ...of random live feeds ...accompanied by AI-generated music ...which alternates between auto-sad ...and the Inception horn blast: [Inception 'bwaaam'] [another Inception 'bwaaam'] [yet another Inception 'bwaaam'] [oh gosh, another Inception 'bwaaam'] [the fifth Inception 'bwaaam'] [the 666th Inception 'bwaaam'] [screw it, another Inception 'bwaaam'] [definitely not another Inception 'bwaaam'] [definitely not yet another Inception 'bwaaam'] [Inception 'bwaaam'] [Inception 'bwaaam' 2: Electric Boogaloo] [Inception 'bwaaam' 3: The Revenge] [Inception 'bwaaam' 3x] [Inception 'bwaaam' i've run out of jokes] [Inception 'bwaaam'] [Inception 'bwaaam' 2x] [Inception 'bwaaam' 2x] [Inception 'bwaaam' 2x] ʜɪ, ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴏɴᴇ. ɪɴᴄᴇᴘᴛɪᴏɴᴛʜᴏɴʏ ʙᴡᴀᴀᴍᴛᴀɴᴏ ʜᴇʀᴇ [Inception 'bwaaam' ᴅᴀᴍᴍɪᴛ ɪ ʟᴏꜱᴛ ᴄᴏᴜ-] [Inception 'bwaaam' ᴡᴛꜰ ɪꜱ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇ-] [Inception 'bwaaam' ᴘʟꜱ ꜱᴏᴍᴇʙᴏᴅʏ ꜱᴛᴏᴘ ᴛʜ-] [Inception 'bwaaam' ＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＡ] [sigh] All right, okay. So... How to summarize? Well, okay. I want to first make an observation ...about the history of reality TV. When the first UK 'Big Brother' aired, ...I remember thinking at the time ...that it was a fascinating social experiment. There were live feeds you could log on to ...and watch whenever you wanted, ...and conversations were completely freeform, ...with no script in sight. And as the show progressed, ...we gradually came to learn more about ...who each of the contestants were. The slightly unpredictable ...‘see what happens’ aspect ...was what made it fascinating. And crucially, ...there was no music. Today, ...what we refer to as 'Reality TV' ...bears almost no resemblance to this format. In particular shows like 'Love Island', 'The Bachelor', ...and 'Married at First Sight' ...are not modern reality TV shows at all. They're a complete regression ...back to the era of the daytime soap opera, ...like ‘The Young and the Restless’. The same ridiculous melodrama. The same scripted betrayals. Even the characters look the same. But the telltale sign ...is how both use music to tell us what to feel. The difference is that ...THESE one-dimensional characters ...are acknowledged as fictional, ...whereas THESE one-dimensional characters ...are presented as real. And I think that’s a problem. The techniques I've discussed in this video ...are used to portray the world ...as a simple, predictable ...and primarily emotional place, ...where people and animals are reassuringly understandable, ...with all their complexities trimmed away ...to supply us with a clean, simple narrative, ...where our biases are pandered to rather than challenged. And yes, many of us can see through this, ...but there are clearly those who can't. This hyper-reified package ...of total consumption and zero contemplation ...informs how some people engage with the world around them. People with a public profile ...become one-dimensional caricatures ...that you either accept or reject. And if you reject them, ...then you can rejoice in their downfall. Things around us are only valuable ...insofar as how they relate to us ...or make us feel. They don't have any individual qualities of their own. These shows are just one, ...but a major one, ...of the vehicles that promote this way of thinking. So even if we find them entertaining, ...I still feel we should boycott them on principle. Kill Reality TV. Defund this worthless piece of human garbage. Destroy this object of ...profound psychological horror. "I have all the faith-" "You dirty pig!" I also have all the faith, dirty pig. ＲＥＣＬＡＩＭ ＹＯＵＲ ＢＲＡＩＮ．
This is is a great explanation as to why I seem to hate pretty much everything on TV.
Man, Tantacrul has really changed how I look and listen to music. I was slowly starting to look more critically but his channel especially gave me more compositional knowledge and has lead me down different paths of exploring the reason music was written the way it was.
Ooh man, you got to love his videos. Full of interesting info and fun things to know.
He mentions sybelius software, but his review on musescore was also quite epic. I'm glad he's now working for Musescore. That software has gotten so much better over the last 3 years
His video on zombie chords is amazing and funny as hell. His sense of humor is really acid
If Tantacrul presented an hour long documentary on paint drying, I would still hang on every word.
Not only are his video essays well made and entertaining, they're always presented in a simplistic way that never makes me feel like the subject has gone way over my head
What a great video, I’m glad I discovered this channel. Subscribed, thanks!
Anyone know a music outlet where the market isn't full of soulless music like this and there's a chance to earn (even just a bit)?
EDIT: I mean websites where the owners promote your tracks. Examples: Audiojungle, Pond5, 123RF, etc. But all of these are full of soulless music
EDIT2: I mean websites where I can put my compositions
Did this guy name his channel after a Pokémon?
Was hoping he would touch on the overuse of suspended cymbals as transitionary sound effects, although I think this video explains it just as well.