Nowadays in the 21st century, music videos are now consumed through the video sharing platform Youtube. Before the era of Youtube and social media, music videos were watched through the cable music channel MTV. We are now watching MVs through Youtube because of technological advancement and globalization. With the rise of social media in the 2000s, Youtube was created in order to make it easier to watch and share different types of videos (one of them being music videos). Due to the platform's popularity, artists began to post their music videos online in order for their videos to be watched by a more wider audience. Youtube began becoming more accessible worldwide, in which international artists began to use Youtube to post their music in order to attract a more global and wider fanbase.
People use Youtube for different things. One group of people may use to watch funny videos; another group of people may use it to listen to music and watch music videos. People have the ability to pick and choose whatever they want to watch (Users and Gratification Theory). With MTV (since it is a cable channel), you were not able to just pick and choose whatever you want to watch; you had to watch whatever music video was playing at that time.
Besides music video consumption that has changed, music videos themselves have changed. During the popularity of MTV, musicians created MVs that had a both a concept and a narrative (e.g. Michael Jackson's "Thriller"). They also did not have many political/anti-war statements, although there are exceptions (famously Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", a song that contains references to different political scandals and politicians). Nowadays, due to technological advancement and more political conflicts have existed. songs now contain lyrics referencing political unrest (with music videos conveying the message of the song), and as well being more colorful, vibrant and many different camera angles and movement. A popular song from the 21st century that references political unrest (specifically Black Lives Matter) is "This is America" by Childish Gambino (a MV I spoke about in blog post 5). Childish Gambino has intentionally conveyed the message of the song through the video in order for the audience to understand how serious the Black Lives Matter movement is and how America does not care about black people (Hypodermic Needle Theory). The music video has been more relevant than ever, considering the 2020 Black Lives Matter has changed the way viewers view the video, as it has predicted the social unrest in America (Cultivation Theory). An example of a colorful video is Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know". The video contains many different colors (blue, beige, purple, etc), this is done in order to convey different emotions that people may feel when they listen to the song.
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