Congrats @JeromeLOL on getting straight up ripped off by whomever was doing visuals for Rhianna on SNL last night.
Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna And Azealia Banks
Pop stars are getting called out by Tumblr artists, seapunks, and fashion mavens for stealing their style.
I know, right? Now tell your friends!
Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna And Aze...
Matthew Perpetua
Rihanna’s performance of “Diamonds” on Saturday Night Live this weekend took most people by surprise, mainly because she was singing in front of a green screen instead of the show’s usual stage for musical guests. A small number of Web artists were in for a bigger surprise, though, as their visual aesthetic was co-opted entirely by the singer without consultation or credit.
Source: hulu.com
The screen saver–like graphics, garish 3-D animations, and deep-sea imagery used in the performance should be at least vaguely recognizable to anyone who has had exposure to the more overtly arty corners of Tumblr in the past two years, especially since the launch of the platform’s Reblorg site for original Web art.
The specific graphics used for “Diamonds” on SNL are clearly based on the work of the Los Angeles video artist Jerome LOL. Here’s a video LOL created back in 2010:
Source: youtube.com
Fans of Jerome LOL on Twitter noticed the similarity…
Swear to god I saw this Rihanna snl background in a @JeromeLOL video like 2 years ago.
As did LOL himself…
Rihanna I See you
And despite all appearances, he had nothing to do with it…
Who art directed the Rihanna SNL performance?!
Azealia Banks’ new video for “Atlantis” debuted online not long after Rihanna’s appearance on SNL. Banks is using extremely similar imagery here, but with a greater debt to the seapunk art movement. The clip was very likely rushed out on a Sunday morning as a response to the performance.
Source: youtube.com
Needless to say, Web artists associated with the seapunk movement were furious about this too.
“@6TEEN6WITCH6: Just showed @ZOMBELLE_ the Rihanna SNL thing and @Azealiabanks' new video... NO WORDS” NO WORDS. MAYBE 1 "SWAGGERJACKERS"
Here’s a bit of seapunk art for context:
Source: youtube.com
Model/fashion blogger/Web art maven Bebe Zeva defended this vaguely defined “aesthetic” in a series of angry yet pointed tweets through Sunday evening.
also, why aren't y'all frustrated AT ALL abt the rihanna thing? that performance marked the commodification of an aesthetic movement...
...which means all taste-makers have to start all over. it's a lot of work. clearly ur not doing shit but consuming if ur not peeved by this
"wow amazing rihanna performance i love seeing my tumblr on SNL" why? that Aesthetic served as an exclusive binder for URL counterculture...
...tomorrow, when it enters Phase Three and Forever 21 puts a price tag on it, it will no longer be exclusive. its purpose is gone.
in response to those RTs: false, this Aesthetic was NOT reappropriated. the juxtaposition of ancient busts with computer generated shapes...
...is unprecedented. the hyperspatial grids and tropical motifs are elements of an Aesthetic that is specific to 2012 cyber culture...
the Aesthetic's purpose is to suggest membership to a counterculture. now that a mainstream artist brands herself with it, the Aesthetic...
...suggests allegiance to her as an artist/icon, NOT membership to implied counterculture. and this is not a discussion about good/bad...
...this is a discussion about what happened, why it happened, and what is going to happen. it is an inevitable part of merchandising 'cool.'
i know you guys hate it when i have serious discussions about shit but this is sincerely the only thing in the world i care about.
This sort of appropriation is nothing new in pop music, or pop culture in general. If anything, it’s part of what keeps culture vibrant and exciting. Even still, it’s easy to sympathize with folks like Jerome LOL, or want to shout “HELL YEAH!” while reading Zeva’s tweets. It’s not just that Rihanna has stolen their style, it’s that from this point onward, their aesthetic will now be associated mainly with her. Rihanna’s SNL appearance was, after all, the first time most people in the audience had ever seen this fairly obscure aesthetic.
Well, sorta. Variations on this Web art aesthetic have been bubbling up throughout pop culture over the past few years. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim did a lot to popularize an intentionally hideous visual aesthetic based partly on early Web graphics on Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! And this Dillon Francis and Diplo video from last year was created in collaboration with the seapunk artist Lil Internet.
Source: youtube.com
…and M.I.A. has been pioneering this aesthetic since the early 2000s. She went all out with this imagery in the video for her 2010 single “XXXO.”
Source: youtube.com
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- Kowalski thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is WTF
- Henry Kuurx Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... and thinks it’s WTF, Fail & Geeky
- Josh Booxor Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... and thinks it’s Fail, WTF & Geeky
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- nothingxbutxpoison thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is LOL
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- CoolBeanie thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is WTF
- kitn thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is LOL & Fail
- MakingCatsViral thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Fail & LOL
- KahlaTheSailor Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An...
- headforthebeach Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An...
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- alexisf7 thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Fail & Trashy
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- Goroz Skinny Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... and thinks it’s LOL, WTF & Fail
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ambersolnickr 6 months agoI took a picture of my cat and put a funny quote on it when I was a kid. I can haz cheezeburger is ripping me off!!!
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- danl21 thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is WTF
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carrotpoint 6 months agoall these people are idiots. the singers. the so called artists. whenever you have to add ‘punk’ to the end of something to try to give it some meaning you are fucking reaching. steampunk = stupid. seapunk = even dumber. losers.
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- Arie Tharp Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... and thinks it’s Geeky, Fail & WTF
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- alicer13 thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is WTF, Fail & LOL
- charlottechristmaso thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is WTF & Cute
- raremarc thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Trashy & Win
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- Ariet Harpy thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Geeky, Fail & LOL
- Museviolet thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Fail & WTF
- ahmad bilal thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Cool Story Bro
- scottc23 thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Fail
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jasminem10 6 months agoFor someone to think that having done this in their video in the 2000s gives them ownership of that style indicates that they have no awareness of history and are incredibly naive. No one is original, no one idea is different, they just build off of each other. SIT DOWN.
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- angha thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is LOL
- lollexlol thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is WTF
- s424h thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is WTF, LOL & OMG
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Xavier Stagecoach 6 months agoPutting an artist in front of a green screen with some graphics in the background? is it because kids dont have MTV anymore that no one’s seen this before?
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- alexish3 thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Trashy & OMG
- chuyb thinks Web Artists Are Furious At Rihanna An... is Geeky
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☁Spam Of God☁ 6 months agoI’m sorry but that Jerome LOL video was AMAZING, I watched it like 3 times. Isn’t weird how sometimes context makes all the difference. I hated the Rhianna bit when I saw it on SNL, but now that I’ve seen something kind of awesome with the same aesthetic I’m actually kind of glad it’s catching on. So full of irony though… I’m not sure it’s a fad that can be tolerated for longer than a minute.
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