In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last 10 days, Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino released the music video for his hit song, “This Is America“. With its powerful message and vivid visuals, the music video, directed by Hiro Murai, has already amassed a staggering 110+ million views on YouTube plus hundreds of millions more across social media.
The video has dominated the cultural conversation (at least in North America) and there have been countless deconstruction videos (see here, here and here), essays and think pieces (see here, here and here) dissecting the meaning and symbolism found in “This Is America”.
There’s even an ironic, click-baity article by Vice pleading the Internet ‘not to meme’ the video, which obviously (especially to a media outlet like Vice) will achieve the exact opposite effect.
Donald Glover is no stranger to Internet culture and not only made his start online, but has embraced and acknowledged it wholeheartedly in the past. I mean, his sophomore album is literally entitled, “Because the Internet”.
So yeah America proving one of the main messages of “This Is America” is not only a self-fulfilling prophecy, but seemingly inevitable in this day and age. So take from this mashup what you will.
