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If contemporary mainstream pop songs can be encountered and inhabited as ‘sonic fictions’ (Eshun 1998), then by what methods do listeners engage with and develop their own self-understanding in relation to a track? If recorded pop music can be understood to function as a ‘technology of the self’ (DeNora 1999), then how might thinking by way of music's ‘kinsaesthetic force’ (Moten 2017), and fan practices of narrating the self online (Click, Lee, & Holladay 2016) be understood as inter-related methods for critically engaging with culturally situated selfhood? This chapter proposes ‘sonic autoethnography’ (Findlay-Walsh 2018) as a pop music reception methodology that connects personal listening, digital spatial experience, and practices of online music reception. Through analysis of online reception of and reaction to the most widely streamed track of 2021 – Olivia Rodrigo's ‘Driver's License’ (Rodrigo, 2021) on digital media platforms YouTube and TikTok, sonic autoethnography is presented as a critical strategy of ‘writing and rewriting the self’ (Gouzouasis 2020) in relation to digital pop music experiences. Through this framing, I argue that music reception practices on the internet, including user commenting, reaction videos, vlogging and blogging, may be understood and valued as critically-engaged, creative acts of socially situated self-narritivization, leading to new insights and learning, and extending the capacities of recorded pop music to provide listeners with narrative ‘equipment for living’. (Adams, Jones & Ellis, 2022, p. 7)
Keywords: autoethnography ; internet culture ; Pop music reception ; selfhood ; TikTok ; YouTube
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https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951033_21 Published content will be available immediately after check-out or when it is released in case of a pre-order. Please make sure to be logged in to see all available purchase options.