The 2020 Presidential Debate But Only the Parts Where Someone Breathes Loudly or Sighs

Abstract

This essay is both an artist statement and a case study focusing on the surprising viewership of a video I created in 2020 unexpectedly became popular in April 2021. In the course of this reflection and analysis, I show how the meaning of this video involves the algorithms driving the YouTube platform, and the various and painful contexts of the year 2020. Although I view the video as a successful piece of art in its own way, I also argue that, as a meme, it must also be viewed with reference to its three salient contexts: the deformative meme ecology, YouTube as a platform, and the year 2020. Because the memetic logics demonstrated by my video bring together the participatory logics of appropriation with the capricious attention of the YouTube algorithm, my access to the videos’ audience analytics affords a unique perspective on the memetics of resonance and spread. Ultimately, a close analysis of this video will shed light on the ecology of video memes on YouTube, the recommendation algorithm as an audience, and the way that those two structures come into view through the analytics data to offer insight on viewers’ responses that not typically available to artists. Ultimately, I conclude that the qualities of media encouraged by the analytics dashboard’s emphasis on engagement are not necessarily consistent with the goals of critical media art, but it is possible to consider how further attention to metrics could create compelling art with attention to algorithmic affordances.