Parody's Downfall, Pop Culture's Doom

We are in a state of pop-cultural decline. Although we’re not lacking a steady stream of new celebrities in the new generation, long gone are the days where the media was dominated by titans of the industry who redefined celebrity culture as we knew it by the day. This paradigm shift began in the mid-2010s, coinciding with the waning hold Pop Music had on the general public as well as the obsolescence of a once-popular, devious online art form: the ‘Pop Music Parody Video.’

Many of us unfortunate enough to have experienced childhood during the 2010s may remember the crudely performed, often offensive, parody music videos pioneered by the likes of familiar names 'Bart Baker' and Youtube Channel 'The Key of Awesome'. Pop Culture has always been linked to the medium of Parody and the legacy of these videos have a direct correlation to our current deteriorating state of cultural iconography. 

Parody itself has existed long before the paparazzi, the tabloids, and even the archetype of the modern-day celebrity; society has always indulged in the caricatures of cultural or political figureheads as prime entertainment, from Commedia dell'Arte to movies like ‘Vampires Suck! (2010), and our widespread fascination with the genre of online parody content comes as a natural response to this archaic yearning to mock high society. To be parodied, a celebrity must be able to cultivate a persona that exists outside of their work with traits instantly recognisable to the general public, aka have a distinctive and recognisable ‘brand’. At the height of Pop Music, the top celebrities all successfully crafted and embodied characters and it was the theatricality of their image that made the mimicry come so easily. In turn, Parody and Pop Music embarked on a communal, synergistic journey where every song and subsequent video that came out only further pushed the other to greater fame.

The first skit music video that garnered mass popularity was TikTok by Ke$ha produced by channel The Key of Awesome, where her party girl behaviour/celebrity persona was the subject of the video’s mocking. The jokes within these videos grew meaner as the genre evolved and with each video came lower blows to each celebrity’s real or imagined personality and personal life. Eventually, the Parody Music Video gave way for truly offensive content to be platformed to a large audience (please see Shane Dawson’s dip into the genre) under the guise of ‘satire’ or ‘comedy’. To say this type of content aged badly would be an understatement, but sadly the jokes would be inexcusable now, had little to no impact on the genre’s popularity at the time. 

By the mid to late 2010s, Pop Music began to take a backseat to newer genres of music that raced up the chart, after having hit a natural plateau in its long-time dominance of the mainstream music scene. Because the success of the parody videos hinged so heavily on pop music and the musicians behind it, this lead to the inevitable downfall of the Parody Music Video.

While it was definitely for the best that the popularity of channels like Bart Baker or The Key of Awesome had subsided, it’s unfortunate that the art of celebrity parody has still not yet regained substantial mainstream traction since its fall out of favour years ago. Whilst there have been the occasional celebrities’ impressions going viral on Youtube, they are nowhere near the popularity that they used to garner. This is interesting given that celebrities themselves are just as prone to criticism now as they were 10 years ago, and the public is still just as ready to watch them fall from grace, if not more so in the current social-political sphere. 

However, the key difference separating these two distinct eras is that the modern celebrity archetype has evolved. As we moved away from the icons of the early 2010s, we found the media favouring a more nuanced approach to celebrity and fame culture. Partially to blame is the rise of Influencer culture – whilst traditional celebrities aimed to be actively unrelatable, influencers did the opposite. As social media began to replace traditional media, the Influencer’s desire to be ‘authentic’ had leeched into the world of the A-listers. Celebrity personas were growing obsolete, Twitter brawls, and edgy interview statements were becoming a thing of the past as both social media and traditional TV evolved into the highly marketable, diluted yet wholly palatable entity we know it as today. Consequently, we would be hard-pressed now to find a modern celebrity with enough of the necessary characterization and theatricality to sufficiently parody.

Parody itself is not inherently good or bad but it is reflective of the common cultural space and the demise of parody in modern media reflects the unfortunate demise of popular culture. The greatest celebrities were also the greatest entertainers, they understood the delicate balance required between artist and alter ego and the performance art quality behind every public persona. They enticed and inspired the public at every turn and those who were truly iconic left behind a trailblazer legacy that held up definitely against a sea of imitators.