Is There A Right Amount Of Going Viral

It’s been said, “Every day the Internet is discussing a person, and you definitely don’t want to be them.” This stems from the discussion online is often met with toxic behavior, ridicule, and even when you do the right thing, the people on the other side of the discussion will treat you like you aren’t human. I was particularly reminded of this as my own wife had her face on every major news outlet this week for being brave and standing in the face of authoritarian thugs making up lies and trying to intimidate their political opponents. But let’s talk about music rather than the hellscape…

So unless you are not even the least bit online you have probably heard the discussion around the “tippy toed king of cringe” Brendan Abernathy. If not, dive into the TikTok below for context.

@brendanabernathy

i love this moment where i get to share my most vulnerable songs at each show. just me and the crowd. this one is called “married in a yea... See more

Initially, I saw an analysis of this calling it negative viral from a few different creators, but I began to see something different as I dug a little deeper. The standard analysis is that everyone is laughing at Brendan, and the first place I would go to check that is a site like Chartmetric or Songstats. And as you can see below, the song by my count has at least 100 million plays on TikTok (with a very strong possibility it’s double that, when you add up all the parodies and other platforms). So 80,000 people being curious to hear more feels… pretty damn negative. And that number decreases significantly when you consider he had around 30,000 monthly listeners from previous material. The viral video is connected to the song “Married In The Summer,” which has fewer than 80,000 plays. It starts to feel even worse, meaning fewer people have listened to it than those who have played it this month. That feels to me like the attention for this song has been well…. quite negative in the way people have received it.

I would be remiss to not mention he has multiple songs with much more plays than this, it is not his first viral moment (but by far his biggest), so that number feels even more bleak. Previously, when we discussed Pacific using brute force to make their song go viral, we discussed the concept that sometimes doing a lot of work for a song people aren’t likely to click over to can be a bit of wasted effort. In this case, Brendan hasn’t done a ton of posting around the song. In fact, a lot of his posts seem to be asking people on the street what they want to hear and improvising, which has given him a few viral moments, but as you probably know, these don’t usually amount to someone then heading to your Spotify to stream your song.

Now one of the things we talk about a lot in this newsletter is the reason we try to do as many best practices and follow through with all the detailed advice I give is if you do manage to get any viral attention including a videos that even gets tens of thousands of views nevermind 8 digits worth, is that you will be able to capitalize on the attention and make it more sticky, since this can be the difference in tens of thousands of lasting fans or possibly nearly none at all. I have seen few missteps as big as Brendan not having a video for this song on YouTube. Many people miss that YouTube is often where the most searches come in a journey from hearing a viral song on Reels, TikTok or YouTube Shorts. Spotify is, of course, really high up, but not having a video on his channel is a mistake that may be one of the worst I have ever seen. A trendjacking account has stepped in and posted it and received 26k plays.

Mid-Viral

Lately, I hear adults say, "Apparently, the worst thing you can be today is 'mid'—you even get made fun of for smoking it." The smarter discussions I've had about "Married In a Year" this week have centered around the idea that it's often better not to go fully viral and hit the 20+ million view mark that Brendan's most popular video has reached, since you'll reach audiences that largely don't appreciate you. This was similarly discussed in the aforementioned conversation about Pacific garnering millions of meme views, but they didn't reach the people most likely to appreciate his 1975-esque songs; instead, they reached a vast swath of people. Whereas an artist like Julia Wolf (who BTW released one of the best records I've heard this year), whose "In My Room" strategy we discussed, went viral within a niche culture (Twilight fans) likely to enjoy her Deftones-esque song.

It could very well be argued that Abernathy went TOO VIRAL instead of achieving this "Mid-Viral" sweet spot where you just hit the algorithm of the fans most likely to see you, but miss the broad general audience who dislikes your subculture. I think Mid-Viral is an excellent strategy for consistent growth, and we've seen it with many of the artists this newsletter profiles. But there's also something to the idea that a massive amount of attention should be the goal, since if your song is actually great, it will probably convert listeners. Much of the best work is often polarizing—I can remember very well when 100 gecs first went viral for "Money Machine," it was called cringe by many, but for many of us, we saw the future of music, and it set them up to become what they are today, which I've argued many times is one of the 5 most influential groups of the 2020s. The fact is that the artists who have done something polarizing usually are the most influential, and we have known this for at least half a century.

I don't think Mid-Viral should be your goal, since a massive amount of attention is, I think, a net win. But I do think it's a sustainable growth model, and by focusing on how to grow within your niche, you can often achieve a less stressful growth trajectory. However, I also think we are about to witness a significant experiment as we see what Brendan Abernathy does next.

But Wait, There’s Hope?

You’re probably wondering what could be positive after the bleak forecast I have laid out? Just two weeks ago in this very newsletter, I talked about how Radiohead, Skrillex, Quadeca, John Summit, and even the Internet’s laughing stock Rebecca Black went from artists people perceived as cringeworthy to now being cool. Hope is not lost for Brendan (ok well maybe for his taste in footwear), he has been navigating this situation with self-awareness and knows well enough to laugh with the audience.

@itsbrendanabernathy

The toes that broke the internet #marriedinayear

These “anti-viral” or “negative viral” moments are often what gets the attention of a lot of people who then see you as a character they understand and I do believe the Internet believes and routes for what Joseph Campbell talked about as the Hero’s Journey where you hit an abysss, Brendan has had attention and from his interview in Rolling Stone he sounds dedicated to getting his music heard and reach the atonement period. Many have faced worse mockery and turned out on the right side of cool. If you think he is cooked, I would call you a fool, since this has been the path for many to success.

While I hope to never hear any of his music again personally, I think he has the right attitude for future success. The Internet loves a curve ball and I keep trying to tell you all that “the contradictions are the conversation” and if Brendan can make a song the Internet loves and keep having a good time with laughing at this all, my money would be on his success since this quote from his Rolling Stone profile is precisely what sets someone up for success.