Musicking Fan Culture and Circulating the Materiality of Taylor Swift Musical Greeting Cards on YouTube

Abstract

In the opening scenes of the 2010 film Easy A, Emma Stone’s Olive arrives home from school to find an envelope with a card that just arrived in the mail from her grandmother. The cover of the card reads “To My Granddaughter. You’re My . . .” and on the inside, “Pocket Full of Sunshine!” completes the greeting. A five-dollar bill falls loose, and overly cheerful “Pocket Full of Sunshine” plays without warning. Closing the card quickly in disgust prompted by the song selection, Olive exclaims, “Worst song ever.” Olive gives the card a second chance, and her feelings toward the song shift as she spends an intimate weekend at home playing (and replaying) musical greeting card karaoke. Upon repeat replay, Olive performs along to the card while painting her nails, grooming her dog, dancing along to the track in her room, and even singing along in the shower. “Pocket Full of Sunshine” soundtracks her weekend until the limited-run battery is drained late Sunday night midway through her final power-ballad-styled bedroom performance.1 Musical greeting cards are performative, they function musically through their instrumentality, and they invite participatory responses from their recipient. When you receive a greeting card that has the ability to play a sound effect or a snippet of music, each time you open the card, you are a participant in a performance. The card doesn’t play until the recipient opens it. While some musical greeting cards are thicker in order