DOOMSCROLL GENERATION SOUNDTRACK : GLOBAL ESSAY

VERTICAL videos frequently are set to electronic dance music. It's called PHONK.

In the last month, the music artist with the largest audience across YouTube platforms wasn't Bad Bunny or Taylor Swift.  It was SIxughter, a phonk producer.

The term probably doesn't sound familiar, but anyone who's spent any time on social media the past few years has almost certainly listened to it.

Maybe it's better to say '' heard it, '' since most people who consume phonk don't recognize it as a genre, let alone actively choose it. But it's constantly playing in the background during YouTube Shorts, TikTok or Instagram Reels   

It can sound like electronic dance music, but also hip-hop, trap, flunk or mix of those. It can accompany dance clips, gaming montages fan edits, workout content, sports highlights,  motivational clips and anything aiming to convey high-energy vibes.

Quietly making its way as the most popular music on vertical videos, Phonk has become the unconscious soundtrack of a generation that spends hours doomscrolling.

It has earned a fortune for its producers, often teenagers / students who can create a viral track from their bedrooms and become millionaires through royalties within months.

''I'be been waiting for this conversation for the past, like, five years,'' Kevin Meenan, 43 music  trends manager at YouTube, said as an opening statement in a video call.

Creators like SIxughter have such a huge following on YouTube, Meenan explained, because the monthly audience is calculated by combining ''classic'' YouTube views listenership all YouTube platforms, including shorts.

Last month SIxughter's music reached 981 million unique users, more than twice Taylor Swift's [ 394 million ] and six times as much as Bad Nunny's [ 150 million ].

'' Phonk is a sleeping giant,'' Josh Mateer, 34, head of A&R at SoundOn. TikTok's distribution platform for artists and labels, said in a phone interview.

'' There is a huge juxtaposition between the volume of internet traffic around Phonk and the sort of culture as an underground musical movement.''

This Master Publishing continues. The World Students Society thanks Andrea Prada Bianchi.