This article is tagged as #School. It was previously published on a different website as a part of Stephanie Pichardo's Senior Comprehensive Assignment.
If you live on the internet and follow meme culture, chances are you’ve seen various 15 second stop motion Instagram videos with hearts plastered all over them.
Most famously, the one that started it all, an old 6-second vine which was altered to follow the rhythm of the song playing in the background and thus creating one of 2018 most viral memes.
What’s most notable about the video is the opening line. It starts with “You so/ F**king / Precious / When you / Smile” having a pause between words.
After hearing it multiple times, it gets stuck in your head and there’s no denying it’s a catchy song.
Instagram users began filling up the comment sections of the memes being posted asking who the singer behind this viral track was.
His name is Andrew Bazzi, who goes by Bazzi, and thanks to this meme his song “Mine” skyrocketed overnight and debuted at 56 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Of course, he doesn’t owe his success to the viral meme but it definitely helped his numbers go up by a longshot. According to Billboard, “"Mine" arrive[d] with 11.4 million U.S. streams (up 88 percent) in the week ending Jan. 25, according to Nielsen Music, as it also debuts at No. 46 on the Streaming Songs chart. It also sold 9,000 downloads (up 98 percent).”
He also became a featured artist hitting top 3 on the United States Top 50 songs and Today’s Top Hits playlists on Spotify.
He’s even been receiving praise from other big artists in the music industry like ex-One Direction member Liam Payne.
Liam isn’t the only ex-boybander to show Bazzi love. Louis Tomlinson has lots of admiration for Bazzi too!
Since then, Bazzi has only seen success.
He announced he will be appearing at many big music festivals later this year including Bonnaroo, Osheaga, and Lollapalooza.
He’s even opening for ex-Fifth Harmony member and successful solo artist Camila Cabello on her “Never Be The Same Tour”
On April 12, he released his debut album, Cosmic, which he said he has “been working towards and creating [it] for the last 2 and a half years of [his] life.”
With all this success, how does a meme have the power of conveying his music up the charts?
In a research study conducted at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Using Social Media in Research: New Ethics for a New Meme?, they argue that ”Social media use is a natural evolution of the way people interact and communicate. It is the manifestation of a new meme...composed of individual units of cultural transmission, through which information is diffused in...unanticipated ways. “
Paul J. Meyer’s infamous quote, “Communication...is key” comes in to play very well with the foundation of this meme.
Just like the pre-internet era, people would communicate when they saw something funny or heard a catchy song. The more people heard about it, the more they passed it along. It’s the same case here for Bazzi, only on a different platform. If people like it, they’ll pass it along.
Bazzi isn’t the first to owe his fame to the internet. We’ve seen this before with PSY’s 2012 hit “Gangnam Style”. His song became such a viral sensation it left an impact on the way the music industry tracks analytics.
The Harvard Business Review magazine reported that “Up until recently, Billboard didn’t factor YouTube views into its ranking methodology, relying solely on radio plays and paid purchases — but now, in an effort to keep pace with the viral times, Billboard is factoring in “mere listens” too.”
Thanks to Gangnam Style many of today’s viral artists are able to chart on the Billboard 100.
On April 19, 2018, he made his television debut performance on the Ellen Show, which has been a dream of his since he was a little kid.
What does someone do when they finally have all this success lining up for them?
Bazzi says, “I put a 16 song album out like 10 days ago and I’m already dying to make more music. [I’m] already starting new ideas. Making music for me is like breathing. I gotta always be doing it or I’ll die.”
It’s safe to say that with the way his success has been going, Bazzi will one day be headlining his own shows and scoring more spots on the charts.