The monitor is A weekly column dedicated to everything that happens in the world of WIRED culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter.
Earlier this week, it seemed inevitable that this column would be linked to President Trump’s second removal. In a week in which Republicans compared the removal of the president to a “cancellation” and saying that Twitter that starts Trump is similar to censorship, it was tempting to weigh. (If freedom of speech is suppressed, how is that possible? Have we heard of all the major media in the world? How?) But I deviated. Why? Sea songs.
To get everyone up to speed, the sea songs are the smiling woman in the Distracted Boyfriend meme – they get your attention no matter what time you have. Originating from 18th-century merchant ships, the songs – designed to help sailors with their tasks – began to take off on TikTok after a 26-year-old Scottish postman named Nathan Evans posted a video with himself singing a song called “Soon May The Wellerman Come” (sometimes just titled “Wellerman”) in the last week of 2020. He has been cheated on thousands of times since then and has become an online obsession. (If you haven’t run r / seashanties yet, you should.)
Why? Why, in the midst of a US political crisis and a global pandemic, has everyone turned to songs that resemble what the Decemberists were trying to be? The conclusion reached by most people is that sea songs are a respite. This at a time when people need to be away, to unite in song – even over TikTok – feels like a moment of union or socially distant karaoke. (God, I miss karaoke.) “They’re unifying, surviving songs designed to turn a huge group of people into a single collective body,” Kathryn VanArendonk wrote for Vulture, “all working together to keep the ship afloat.” on the waterline ”. Similarly, as mentioned by Amanda Petrusich in New York“It seems possible that after almost a year of collective loneliness and self-exile and overwhelming restrictions on travel and adventure, the yard will offer a brief look at another more interesting way of life, a world of maritime air and pirates and grog, many people singing in unison, to be free to go boldly for what Melville called “real places,” the uncorrupted views that cannot be located on any map. “(As for the spelling discrepancies between ‘ditch’ and ‘chance’, your assumption is as good as mine.)
These things are undoubtedly true. After almost a year of quarantine and fear, it is welcome to have something simple to sing, even if you are half in tune. The unironic embrace of something that feels old and ethereal also fits in with the spirit of TikTok. But at the same time, collective consumption of culture was one of the hallmarks of the pandemic, out of a collective obsession with Tiger King the “WAP”. Not to mention, the players sang songs while they played The sea of thieves long before the pandemic hit. Yes, part of that popularity came thanks to the longest Johns, the a cappella folk band that released a version of “Wellerman” in 2018, but still.