{"id":72891,"date":"2019-09-27T13:59:19","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T18:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=72891"},"modified":"2019-09-27T13:59:23","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T18:59:23","slug":"what-makes-a-mashup-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2019\/09\/27\/what-makes-a-mashup-work\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes a Mashup Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>From music to movies and restaurants, <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/000312240807300501\">genres are a core part of popular culture<\/a>. The rules we use to classify different scenes and styles help to shape our tastes and our social identities, and so we often see people sticking to clear boundaries between what they like and what they don&#8217;t like (for example: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/2096459?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents\">&#8220;I&#8217;ll listen to anything but metal.&#8221;<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But bending the rules of genre can be the quickest way to shake up expectations. <a href=\"https:\/\/music.avclub.com\/what-ever-happened-to-the-mashup-artist-1825338050\">Mashups were huge a few years ago<\/a>. This past summer we saw &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2019\/8\/23\/20826730\/lil-nas-x-old-town-road-vma-podcast\">Old Town Road<\/a>&#8221; push boundaries in the country music world on its way to becoming a mega-hit. <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/zeal-and-ardor-stranger-fruit\/\">Zeal &amp; Ardor&#8217;s<\/a> mix of black metal and gospel, country blues, and funk is breaking new ground in heavier music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Blending genres can also backfire. A new fusion concept could be a hit, or it could just be confusing. Sociological <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/0003122416632787\">research on Netflix ratings and Yelp reviews<\/a> finds that people with a high preference for variety, who like to consume many different things, are not necessarily interested in\u00a0<em>atypical<\/em> work that blends genres in a new or strange way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the more interesting recent examples is this new gameshow concept from Hillsong\u2014a media channel tied to the charismatic megachurch organization:<br \/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Gaming apologetics \u2014 clever way to test religious-based arguments using game show aesthetics and celebrity to resource charisma-based power of rhetoric, potentially re-institutionalizing narrative patterns for younger generations, while widely dispersing desired discursive themes <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ErI7bLrwyr\">https:\/\/t.co\/ErI7bLrwyr<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Gerardo Mart\u00ed \u2022 Threads Insta \u2066\u2022 bsky gerardomarti (@praxishabitus) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/praxishabitus\/status\/1176858268804800513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 25, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>What is this show? Is it preaching? Is it a game show? Do millennials even watch prime time game shows? Don&#8217;t get me wrong, I&#8217;ll hate-watch <em>The Masked Singer<\/em> every once in a while, but the mix seems a little out of place here. Gerardo Mart\u00ed makes a good point in the tweet above. This show may be a way to repackage religious messaging in a new style. Given what we know about cultural consumption, however, I wonder if this is just too risky to pull anyone in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is easy to chase atypicality today, both for media organizations and religious groups trying to retain a younger viewership and find the next big thing. For all the pressure to innovate, this trailer for <em>SOUTHPAW<\/em> shows us just how much we still rely on genre rules to figure out what to consume. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.evan-stewart.com\/\">Evan Stewart<\/a> is an assistant professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts Boston. You can follow his work at <a href=\"https:\/\/evan-stewart.com\">his website<\/a>, or on <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/evanstewart.bsky.social\">BlueSky<\/a>.<\/i>  <\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From music to movies and restaurants, genres are a core part of popular culture. The rules we use to classify different scenes and styles help to shape our tastes and our social identities, and so we often see people sticking to clear boundaries between what they like and what they don&#8217;t like (for example: &#8220;I&#8217;ll [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":72892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,15,2124,343],"class_list":["post-72891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumption","tag-culture","tag-foodagriculture","tag-tvmovies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2019\/09\/what.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72891"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72895,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72891\/revisions\/72895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}