The TikTok Attacking Music’s Biggest Award Show
- hquard
- Dec 13, 2020
- 3 min read
On November 24th, 2020, the controversial 2021 Grammy Nominations were published which left out The Weeknd and his album After Hours, the most commercially successful album of the year. This snub caused for great discourse about the intentions of the Grammys bringing up award decisions made by the organization that can be seen as for business or against minorities. This video satirizes what many rap fans consider to be the biggest misplay by the Grammys; when The Heist by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis won Best Rap Album over Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.
This TikTok video is a satire poking fun at the people who choose the Grammy winners. At the beginning of the video, the subject in the video states “I don’t care what you have to say, he deserved that Grammy” with satirical delivery followed by a generic, unenthusiastic dance of pumping his hand in the air to one of The Heist’s biggest songs. The lyrics and part of the song that the subject dances to are “Return of the Mack / Get 'em, what it is, what it does, what it is, what it isn't”. This is a very one dimensional lyrics with little meaning and decent flow and overall very little content for the listener to grab on to. The satirical reaction to a very poor part of one of the albums most successful songs shows how ridiculous this song is. The reaction and statement wraps the idea together that thinking this album is Grammy award winning level is a nonsensical and comical take.
Posted with the video was also a satirical caption of just “Pain”. This is the poster and subject in the video communicating to the audience through a serious method. The pain the creator is describing is the pain the music listeners experience when they realize the Grammys chose a piece of below average media to obtain a prestigious award. The caption also makes the satire in the actual video more obvious as the caption points out the subject in the video is putting on a mask and telling themselves lies to cope with the reality.
The timing of the video’s release is very notable as well. The recent accusations directed towards the Grammys have caused many music fans to look back at historical snubs and misplays, sparking the revival of The Heist winning. The losing album, Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, not only outsold The Heist commercially, but was received great critically. In this album, Kendrick described a brilliant story of a young black male growing up in Compton and all of the struggles that come along with the poverty and gang life in the neighborhood. The Grammys choosing The Heist over an album that brings to life terrible gang life in the black community that had greater commercial and critical success made the Grammys seem dismissive of black issues.
The creator of the video posting this after the Grammys blocked out yet another successful black man from a high status award reminds the average music listener how corrupt the Grammys can be. The creator achieves this by utilizing the video, audio, and caption to the best of their ability to remind their audience about how the Grammys opinion is not a reasonable organization and should be taken with a grain of salt.
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