I remember in elementary school when talent show auditions were coming up every year. Our teacher would hand out flyers to each student with information on when and where to audition.
There was never a limit to the talent that they wanted, except one which was in a bold sentence in all capital letters at the bottom of the flyer that read "LIP-SYNCING IS NOT A TALENT." I guess that was their way to nicely say not to come into the audition with a song you planned on lip-syncing to.
Now, with social media being the number one place to showcase talent, there are so many people going viral with millions of likes, shares, and follows just for lip-syncing to a song. Most of them are on the popular app musical.ly, or there are videos surfacing Facebook and YouTube of people filming themselves jamming out in the car.
No matter how it's portrayed, they go viral like crazy. Especially if the person is extremely attractive or making funny facial expressions while lip-syncing.
All I have to say to this is... why? Why are these videos going viral when anyone can do them?
The car ones were funny at first since they're highly relatable. I do love jamming out in the car myself. But now people are uploading more and more videos of themselves in the car with someone else in the passenger seat lip-syncing to the modern or throwback hits because they know it will get them views and likes.
I downloaded the popular app musical.ly because my youngest sister makes videos on there, so I wanted to watch hers since I find them adorable. When I browsed through the app, I recognized a lot of previous Vine stars that had accounts on this app. Most of them seemed to use it to continue making
When it comes to lip-syncing on musical.ly, people use the lapse feature in the app that allows them to lip-sync in slow motion. Then when they've finished, the final video plays at the normal speed and makes their movements look more eye appealing. Not only that, but the people with the most follows and likes on musical.ly are the ones who are more attractive than the others. It's like the viewer is being told, "Want to be popular? Be more attractive." That makes me worry about my baby sister. I'm hoping that's not the message she is receiving.
Musical.ly users are literally becoming celebrities just from lip-syncing to a song and using their hands to mime along to the words. A good example is Jacob Satorius. He only became famous just from lip-syncing on musical.ly and being semi-attractive to the younger girls. Sure, he sings, but he's definitely not good at it. He didn't even attempt to sing until he had a big rise in fame. His single "Sweatshirt" is nothing but autotune, and his real singing voice is pretty bad.
It's pretty annoying. I can't even escape it when I go on Snapchat. I follow some friends or people I know who are very attractive and it seems their Snapchat Story is constantly filled with them mouthing along to songs as they zoom in on their face. It's exhausting. I'd rather see a picture of your meal three times a day than those videos that you post almost twenty times a day.
I'm not saying you shouldn't embrace how you look.
By all means, raise your confidence. But the high amount of lip-sync videos that are going viral is getting old. I don't understand what people find so amusing in these kinds of videos to give them so many views and likes. Why not look at people who are showcasing true talent?
There are hundreds of videos on the Internet of musicians, dancers, magicians, comedians, and more trying to make themselves known while people are more focused on a video of someone bobbing their head to a Hannah Montana song in a crappy Halloween wig. We should look more into those and have those creators rise in fame instead. Kind of reminds me of that episode of Spongebob Squarepants where they enjoyed Spongebob mopping over Squidward's original dancing.
I know I'm probably making some people who are reading these irritated while they think, "Just let people do what they want as long as they're having fun!" Trust me, I can be that person too. I will let people continue to do these things. It's not like I'm actively boycotting it. If I see it on any of my social media, I'm just going to keep scrolling. I just had to give my two cents. I'm sure it's just a fad that will die soon.
