Meet Stromae, the Belgian pop star that is changing the music game. While Stromae hasn't quite reached mainstream audiences or recognizable popularity in the United States he is still a rising star throughout the rest of the world. On Youtube Stromae has songs with tens and hundreds of millions of views. Additionally a rousing performance at Coachella this past weekend will be sure to raise Stromae's star factor here.
But his popularity isn't what sets Stromae apart from other artists; it is his ability to make meaningful but still catchy pop music. Meaningful pop music is something that is rare like a brief and passing shooting star but hopefully Stromae is here to stay because his music is redefining pop.
The video above is the music video to Stromae's song "Carmen" which released at the beginning of the month. It immediately caught my attention with its awesome visuals and interesting commentary on Twitter. Yes, Twitter as in the social networking platform. I really had never encountered music that directly challenged or addressed social media until "Carmen" and Stromae accomplishes it in breathtaking fashion.
The video begins with a chirping, oddly familiar looking, blue bird that approaches cartoon Stromae's windowsill. As it reaches the windowsill however the chirping transforms into a sort of distorted blaring alarm that begins our song. Stromae equates love to Twitter as it is only blue skies for a little while before the trouble begins.
The music video includes haunting visuals such as Stromae's blue twitter bird growing as his number of follows do too. It also includes the subtle inclusion of criticisms such as Stromae posting pictures of his food (a strange but common Internet practice) to only have his blue bird eat it. One of my personally favorite scenes was Stromae taking a selfie of him grinning at a party to post to the Internet. Yet moments later the shot pans out and the audience learns that Stromae is alone at his party with only his blue bird as company. In that moment Stromae draws the stark contrast between friends and followers.
Stromae depicts himself as a man isolated by his own celebrity. In real life Stromae's Twitter has close to two million followers, so perhaps Stromae truly does feel trapped in our world of social media and constant need for recognition.
The Internet and the environment seemingly exist on two different planes. The Internet is the virtual wonderland, whose key we keep in our back pocket in a smartphone or on a computer. Meanwhile the environment is becoming a more distant thing in people's lives. Our modern lives are heavily disconnected with the environment. This is of course not to say that we don't care about the environment just that we as a society no longer engage it in the same way we engage the Internet.
An important issue to tackle is the relationship between the Internet and the environment. They may seem to exist on two different planes but they still manage impact one another. First and foremost, the electricity used to connect to the Internet around the world is often powered by fossil-fuel power generation. Thus such as in the info-graphic below it becomes possible to make calculations such as that a Google search equates to the same release of CO2 as driving a car three inches. Or that the trillions of spam email sent each year can be equated to the emissions of 1.6 million cars. These calculations are so unbelievable because you never think that there could ever be a direct connection between your life on the web and the environment.
Now it's not all bad because the Internet creates opportunities that would never exist before like in telecommuting which allows individuals to work without ever leaving the comfort of their own home. Additionally, there people working to address the issues with the energy consumption behind the Internet. What we have to realize is that as our Internet becomes faster and more advanced it also picks up better mileage. What I mean by this is that the same way that cars evolved to need fewer gallons of gas per mile the Internet has evolved to consume fewer joules of energy per bit of data. So perhaps our drive for speed is helping to create a more green Internet now.
Beyond the direct implications that the existence of the Internet itself has on the environment there is also its ability to connect people with the environment. If you were someone from a landlocked state in Midwest America there's a chance you've never seen an ocean or a jungle in your life, and yet anyone is only one Internet search away from countless articles and images about either. The Internet accelerates communication to near instantaneous speeds and has raised awareness about world around us. In previous posts we've marveled at the Internet's ability to disseminate information; this applies to the environment as well. While there may be some drawbacks to the Internet, ultimately whether it is good or bad for the environment is determined by how we choose to use it.
