At the time of writing this post, I only now found out that official lyric videos are a thing. I guess they figured that if enough people were making them, then they might as well do it themselves. There’s also at least two other semi-official music videos for this song as well. One is a remix and the other was constructed using concert footage. I’m not doing those ones.

If you’ve only seen the version of this where they used marketing most people are familiar with as an analogy, then this one is worth your time. It isn’t really a lyric video in the traditional sense, but one that gets to the point while also throwing in some lyrics here and there. Just like that other version, this one is also worth downloading and looking at carefully. They did a good job filling it with all kinds of subtle details to go along with the obvious stuff.

The thing I like best about this music video is that while I still find that it unnecessarily breeds paranoia and is counterproductive, it doesn’t feel patronizing like the other one. It relies on you using your brain and looking deeper into things that aren’t obfuscated by bashing heads, gay for pay, and other nonsense.

One example is that they go through several artists to show that they register on the Google Knowledge Graph until they reach White Sea, which results in a Wikipedia entry. They then cut to White Sea having a Twitter page and Joywave, that showed up in the Knowledge Graph, having a Facebook Page. The obvious part is that the Google Knowledge Graph pulls together all kinds of information including birthdates into a central location. The more subtle part, that is quickly glossed over by the runtime, is that it implies that the Knowledge Graph places more weight on an artist having a Facebook page than a Twitter page. It also reaches back to the overarching idea that “Big Data” is useful for predictive algorithms that allow things like autocomplete and targeted advertising.

Another example is that the video actually takes place over several days. They don’t really draw attention to it either. If you just watch the upper right hand corner throughout the video, then you’ll notice the different times, the changing battery levels, and other things up there.

At the end of the day, I am obligated to like this as an EECS major because it is probably the only music video I will ever see that has the kmalloc function in it. It is in one of the lines of code that pops up when they go to hackertyper.net.

The posting on YouTube tells me that this music video was directed by SCANTRON and Greg Yagolnitzer. SCANTRON has done numerous music videos, including several for Weezer. I am assuming it is a pseudonym, or a name used by different directors who work for Scantron Films. I can only find a couple of animation credits for Yagolnitzer on IMDb, but a quick Google search turns up a few other music video credits.

Enjoy!