We can play the radio in our classroom, and a couple of weeks ago two songs came on in succession that are big viral hits from last year. The first was Ylvis's The Fox:
It's interesting that in Scandinavian countries such as Norway, where Ylvis come from, people can and do choose to make content in English with the full knowledge that people from all walks of life will easily be able to understand and consider it perfectly acceptable. In contrast, the vast majority of even intelligent, well-educated people in Spain watch dubbed versions of films and television programmes.
Here are teens and 'elders' responding to the video as part of the Fine Brothers' excellent React series, in which they compare it to Gangnam Style and the Lonely Island:
The second song was Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines, which the teens have also reacted to:
There are (at least) two potentially objectionable aspects to this song. The first is the objectification of women in the video (and especially in the 18-rated version). However, I think that is the less serious of the two, because the models involved have made a relatively informed choice and their presence and behaviour suggest nothing illegal. The more significant issue is the implication of the title and the lyrics.
The videos have in common a widespread ambiguity of our times, and especially of YouTube videos, over whether they are satirical parodies or serious, as exemplified by many of the reacters' comments. In The Fox, this is simply to intrigue the viewer and is thus a good marketing ploy to promote a chat show. In Blurred Lines it is rather darker, since viewers are much more likely to buy into the literal message even if Thicke doesn't mean them to, and foxes' self-esteem cannot be hurt by what they say being misrepresented.
