*The part about "the Man" is kind of silly – come on, even Elvis Presley and the Beatles were massively popular because of "the Man," and they were still authentically some truck-driving kid from Mississippi and lovable moptops from Liverpool.
*What's interesting is that researchers can go back into the digital records and unpick it now, they can dissolve a true popular fad into its component electronic parts, like unboxing and breaking-down a transistor radio.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/how-memes-are-orchestrated-by-the-man/274466/
(...)
"What has changed?
"Google's YouTube, not Apple's iTunes, is now the dominant force in music. Nearly2 billion music videos are viewed on YouTube every day. When Baauer's "Harlem Shake" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 1 on Feb. 20, only the 21st song in Billboard's 58-year history to do so, and the first by a previously unknown artist, it was because of YouTube. This highlights a broader point: Google has amassed unprecedented power as a medium. It is massive, global and central. In addition, its claims about viewership are not audited. Television, radio and newspaper audiences are measured by independent entities like Nielsen and the Alliance for Audited Media. Advertisers can be reasonably certain how many people are seeing their messages. Google's and YouTube's audience claims are not measured independently. Everyone initially involved in driving traffic to the "Harlem Shake" had the same incentive: to increase the number of views. Unlike other media, there were no checks and balances except YouTube's own secret view verification system. Google regards clicks and views as a "currency," and take pains to get the numbers right, but unlike most other mass media, its figures are not verified by anyone who does not profit from higher numbers.
"The brain-to-brain propagation of Dawkins' memes can now happen worldwide within seconds. We have a new real-time, global culture that is not only technological but also social. Experiences like imitating the YouTube videos for "Single Ladies," "Somebody That I Used To Know" and "Call Me Maybe" create instant traditions, or "meta-memes," that prime us to become ultra-efficient human information routers. Memes become themes become meta-memes become norms. A few years ago, few people would have posted a video of themselves singing or dancing on YouTube. Today, for many, doing so is not only second nature–it's urgent. In our real-time culture, meme speed matters. Primacy is more important than privacy.
"What has stayed the same?
"Who wins? The "Harlem Shake" originated with a drunken man named Albert Boyce dancing at Harlem's Rucker Park basketball court in 1981. It was sobered up by children in the bleachers and became a popular dance in the hip-hop community. When Boyce died in 2006, the dance had found its way into some rap songs and videos. In 2012, Harry "Baauer" Rodrigues sampled one of these songs, Plastic Little's "Miller Time," and dropped it onto a piece of electronic dance music made in a style called "trap" that is only somewhat related to hip hop. The song was a commercial failure until student George Miller included it in his YouTube video. As the "Harlem Shake" moved from the Rucker to Al Roker, Alice Rivlin and beyond, money moved too: to Google, where more searches and more views mean more dollars, and its large investors like Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Blackrock, and J.P. Morgan Chase; to Warner Bros, which owns global distribution rights for the recording; and to Time Warner, with its part ownership of Maker Studios.
"Relatively little went to Philadelphia, where Thomas Wesley Pentz, the minor Svengali who signed Harry Rodrigues, collects royalties from Warner Bros., every time a recording is purchased, and from Google, every time the song sells an ad. Harry Rodrigues will benefit, although not as much as many may assume, and he will have to share what he gets with the people whose work he sampled. Boyce, the no-collar black man on the corner who gave world culture a twist, gets a little credit and no reward. George Miller, the originator of the whole thing, gets nothing...."
