To help keep the cozy spirit alive on Christmas, whether you're together with your loving family or living out a latter-day latchkey kid holiday as in Home Alone, here's a song to the tune of "Somewhere in My Memory" from that movie's soundtrack by John Williams (original lyrics here). Now adapted to the mostly-online existence of people these days, with a special tip of the hat to the original groypers (and to a special fren who was made an honorary groyper by them, hehe).
Like all people with normal good taste, I dislike most of those Midcentury Christmas song standards, and find them grating after weeks of constant playing in public. People in cocooning times just cannot stand a Christmas spirit that has any hint of solemn or sacred to it, which is why they leave out those from the same Midcentury period that depart from the campy, self-aware, low-energy, or schmaltzy, such as "Do You Hear What I Hear?"
As the socially outgoing / rising-crime phase of the cycle reached its peak during the '80s, though, they perfected the art of holiday-themed songs that were not religious, but still sounded solemn and sacred, resonating with a broad audience. The two greatest examples of that development both came from John Hughes movies. For Thanksgiving: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles ("Modigliani (Requiem Mass)" by Book of Love). And for Christmas: Home Alone ("Somewhere in My Memory").
Even the non-religious aspects of the holiday feel special, almost other-worldly, no matter if they're as down-to-earth and regular as the seasons changing. To imbue the lyrics with that elevated feeling, I've set them to the tune of the Home Alone song.
Pronunciation guide: two whole beats for "memes" and "dream" in the first verse. Stress shifts to the final syllable in "winning" at the end.
* * *
Santas in the videos
Cat snow angels in memes
Lazing 'round in nightclothes
Dreaming that New Year's chat dream
Cyber snowmen, blankie peepos
Avis changing winterly
Somewhere in my fren-feed
Crimmus groypers abounding
Living in my fren-feed
All the AGOO-ing, all gonna make it
All of the fandom, on here, winning
OG groyper's Crimmus content w/ '80s solemn & sacred, yet non-religious, tune "Walking in the Air":
ReplyDeletehttps://gab.com/groyper/posts/107506733134112534
Gura singing "Silent Night" during the last karaoke stream (all of which are archived by this PTSD Shrimp account on YouTube; normally members-only).
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkp9IrWCI5g
Minimal melisma, although a bit much syncopation, and the occasional giggle from reading chat while streaming. Still, has that solemn & sacred tone that you don't hear anymore, especially if they're trying to get famous for their singing ability.
That's her specialty within the Vtuber market -- good singing voice and musical tastes, and doing karaoke streams, instead of just playing video games (boring).
So weird that a girl hiding behind an anime avatar, catering to a too-online sub-culture, has a more angelic, trad voice than the emo / warbling / overly improvising / tradition-destroying singers who project a wholesome normie image to the masses.
It's not a general pattern with VTubers -- you can easily ignore the others, and just check in on her content, to sample what is actually good from that market. She's not like other VTubers...
In fact, her avatar is way more normie than the others -- a somewhat stylized hoodie, bangs, and that's it. Very girl-next-door, relatable. Not what you typically think of for "anime girl look".
She recently debuted a new character design, that looks way more cosplay-ish, and she has hardly used it since. It's just not her -- way too fantastical. It looked like her avatar itself was in cosplay. No surprise that she went back to the relatable hoodie & bangs look.
I can't stand anime avatars in general, and wish she'd just use her real appearance, to better see her facial expressions and gestures / body language, when she's singing. But it's online, so heaven forbid anything get more real.
Recorded Christmas music has replaced caroling, during the cocooning phase of the '90s through today. For most Christmas traditions, the pattern has been to move everything earlier, so that by the time Christmas proper arrives, you're habituated and sick to death of it, and just feel like getting on with post-Christmas life ASAP.
ReplyDeleteIt's a way to prevent any cathartic, overwhelming feeling, as though you were possessed by the spirit of Christmas. OCD cocooners cannot tolerate the feeling of not being in control. Early & often rituals allow them to dissipate the tension that would build up from delaying gratification until the appointed time, and the micro-ritualistic rules & regulations they have about it all give them the feeling of control.
I went over all this in the early 2010s.
But there's one ritual which did not simply get moved earlier in time -- caroling. I remember getting a knock on our front door at home in the late '80s or early '90s, and there were Christmas carolers! No longer.
Since cocooners are so anti-social, they can't tolerate carolers, even if they were moved up earlier in the schedule. Imagine having to receive that many visits from strangers! Cocooners would die.
So instead, they killed off IRL carolers and replaced them with recorded Christmas music that became ubiquitous in public spaces (for leisure, at work, wherever). You felt like there were voices singing the ritualistic songs, but who were disembodied. Therefore you wouldn't have to tolerate the presence of actual people IRL, let alone strangers -- the singers are familiar-face-and-voice celebrities from the mass media / entertainment industry. Not so disrupting to the social routine of OCD victims.
The general community has also stopped going to the local schools' performances during Christmas, and ditto for attending church even just for a Christmas' Eve choral.
Ban IRL, go full virtual. Of course by now, most of the cocooners don't even get into the spirit by getting out of the house and loitering around retail stores to take in the music -- it's just a different algorithm or playlist they're following on a streaming service.
Very sad, but won't last, as everything moves in cycles. Hard to see how Corona-cocooning is anything but the very bottom of this insufferable decades-long trend.