3,000 Years, Baby

Do you wonder what the #1 watched YouTube clip is? The answer: Justin Bieber’s music video, “Baby.” Over 483 million hits.

You know how much time that represents? Imagine someone watching that clip over and over again from cradle to the grave. Now, multiply that by 40. Yep, forty lifetimes of time. Or 3,000 years!

No, I haven’t watched it.

Popular music reveals a lot about our culture. It can impact the culture, but mostly reflects it. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume most people watching this song on YouTube are the younger crowd. It is a song by a High School Student, written about High School Students.

So let’s see what we can learn from the lyrics. Here’s a selection:

Woah oh yeah
(Whoa oh yeah)
Eh Eh
Whoa oh oh oh yeah

You’re the finest girl i’ve ever seen
You should be pick me
So tell me can you dig it
I’m you everything you need
So tell me can you dig it

I’ll always be your number one number one fan, dig that

Baby baby baby ooo
My baby baby baby noooo
My baby baby baby ooo
I thought you’d be always mine mine

I can take ya to the movies
We’ll be there holding hands
I’ll walk you home from school
I’ll walk you to your classes
Playing my 360 yeah you’ll be my best friend
But most of all baby doll you’ll be my love love love

Baby baby baby ooo
My baby baby baby nooo
My baby baby baby ooo
I thought you’d always be mine mine

O I’m gone
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
O I’m gone
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Know I’m gone
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Know I’m gone, gone gone gone
I’m gone.

Gross. Yuck.

So I be like, “Our culture be getting dumbed down or what, ooo yeah?”

Heartthrob puppy love. The masses swoon.

One thing in the lyrics that struck me was how the song defined chivalrous “manliness” for our High School hero: holding hands, escorting a girl to her classes, and making the Playstation 360 available after school. Noble ideals, those.

It might also involve passionately making out in the school hallways during passing periods, I’ve observed. As a substitue teacher I’ve seen this. Other kids would pass by and ignore them. Teachers would stop them. I stopped them. But later they would continue… this raw behavior reminding me of Regnum Animalis on Discovery Channel. No restraint. Thankfully it’s a minority… but I wonder, has it always been this way?

I’ve also seen girls making out in the hallways with each other.

“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold:
its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life.
If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.”
-Josef Stalin

It’s happening. We be getting less moral. And we be getting less spiritual. We can’t even be talking straight?

The bottom line: The popularity of “Baby” proves we’re wired for intimacy, but the 483 millions hits proves we’re instead wired to YouTube. Dig that.

So, what do you think the reason is behind this songs popularity?