Fall Out Boy Ends Their Hiatus and Thus Proves Everything We’ve Discussed in Class
Posted by kaboyd93 on February 4, 2013
The popular indie-rock ish weird emo boy band Fall Out Boy is back from a three year old hiatus that has every now grown up 7th grade fan jumping up and down, hyperventilating, and pawing to buy tickets.
Fall Out Boy has a cult following, no doubt about it. Not quite Insane Clown Posse status, but FOB fans know every band member, his wife, children, life story, where he grew up, the whole nine yards. With the release of a new single revealed today, they’ve already hit number two on iTunes best selling charts.
Let me reiterate that. Fall Out Boy’s new song, released this morning, has already hit number two on charts. This band has been “gone” for three years. If this is spreadability at its finest, I don’t know what is.
Do a quick search on YouTube for My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up) by Fall Out Boy. Good luck finding anything to listen to. Copyright laws and nabbed every audio version available on iTunes, affecting links from Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, you name it, you can’t listen to it. So people are forced to buy it. The kings of long winded song titles have single handedly taken over the iTunes charts in a matter of hours.
Spreadability is about sharing videos, sending links, letting other people watch what we thought was funny, and pictures of cute puppies. It’s the advances technology has made in the past few decades that allow us to be wonderful, involved, lazy fans of anything and everything that comes over the airwaves.
While I believe the FOB fandom had given up on their beloved band returning, the amount of love I’ve seen for them already is phenomenal. The boys made an official statement saying it wasn’t a reunion because they never broke up. They had a concert in Chicago tonight that literally no one knew about.
Some might refer to the uber fast spread of the big news was viral. But like we discussed in class, this claim that a new album is in the works isn’t a bad thing, while the connotation that surrounds “viral” is rather negative. The new song isn’t viral, it’s spreadable, and widely anticipated, loved, and accepted.
Basically, Fall Out Boy is the perfect example for spreadability.
xautumndanielle said
I completely agree with this. Being one of the 7th grade fans of Fall Out Boy I was hit with an influx of information about them coming off of hiatus, announcing a tour, and releasing a new single. Some variation of their name was trending on Twitter all day and I certainly texted a few people about their return. This was a great example of spreadability.
exileontaytayst said
The news of the FOB reunion brought back a ton of memories from my middle school days. My best friend was a mega fan and we spent a lot of time listening to their records. I think FOB has a good sense of “stickiness” as well as “spreadabilty” for me. Their music has stuck with me, and played a heavy part in my memories. Without the inclusion of FOB’s music my memories wouldn’t be what they are.
micaelaperkins410 said
It’s crazy, about nine days ago my friend posted a tweet saying “is fall out boy reuniting or what, which i didn’t take too seriously. Then, a few days later, ALL social media has been blowing up about their return from the hiatus and I couldn’t be more ecstatic. Without spreadability, the fans would still be in depression. Thankfully, we’re not anymore!
samford said
Fall Out Boy was after my time, so I don’t have the same cultural reference/experience that many in the class seem to. But this would be a great example to talk through in class a little bit more. I’m especially interested in the relationship between fans spreading the word and the protection of copyright described here, as that’s a constant point of tension in music in particular. Out of curiosity, are the members of FOB active in social media themselves?
kaboyd93 said
The boys of Fall Out Boy are very much participants in social media. When my friend first told me that she heard they were coming back, she was skeptical of it because “the boys haven’t mentioned anything about it” referring to the members of the band. They have blogs that she follows religiously.
andyarnoldpopculture said
Interesting. And it brings up one thing I’m interested in – where does the line between uploading a song to YouTube on your own because you like it versus stealing begin? Does intent matter in regards to the apparent or alleged theft?
You almost wonder if Fall Out Boy planned their hiatus in order to cash in on hopes of a revival and subsequent songs.
andyarnoldpopculture said
Also, very noteworthy that the members of a band whose success was helped by spreadable media is also media-savvy…