What Gregg Gillis does most nights is weird. Really weird if you think about it. 10 years ago it would be extremely difficult or next to impossible. Three years ago he was a biomedical engineer. Today he performs as Girl Talk, triggering multiple samples of music at once to create an entirely new musical experience. He regularly sells out shows, which turn into giant parties at the cue of his laptop and mouse.
Expect more of this. A lot more.
Not mashups necessarily, but expect much more creative outbursts to shine through.
As more and more people become rich (not just monetarily but with time and choices), our choices will resolve around entertaining ourselves and others. This will lead to people using their free time to tinker with passions and hobbies that might have previously been impossible.
Making mashups, movies, music, apps, and open source projects – the internet has torn down the barrier to entry and allows anyone to take up a passion and deliver it to an eager group waiting for something that is exciting to them and weird to everyone else.
And of course, weirdness begets weirdness. Girl Talks mashups have inspired video remixes as well as Girl Walk All Day, a music video of epic proportions that raised more than 5x their Kickstarter goal and found 577 other weird people to back them.
Another example – Madeon created a live mashup of 39 of his favorite songs called Pop Culture. Then Nathan Barnatt made this weird, but incredible music video for the mashup.
Weird but great things are coming.
Most people won’t be doing these things for the money either. Money will merely enable them to keep up the their weird hobbies and talents that entertain their tribe.
“Amplified creation, marketing efficiency and the support of tribes, then, are pushing toward one outcome: we’re getting weirder. Mass is withering. The only things pushing against this trend are the factory mindset and the cultural bias toward compliance.”
This is what Seth Godin’s latest book “We Are All Weird” eloquently makes the case for. The internet has changed things and who we are forever. And in the future it brings us, the weird will thrive.
Connect with me on Twitter: @BenNesvig
Great examples, Ben. Thanks.