Trendspotting: TikTok karaoke, Boomer style
If you’ve used TikTok at all in the past month, you may have seen this man on your For You page.
Just kidding. I’m actually referring to this man, Rodger Cleye:
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The 56-year-old from California has racked up over 1.5 million followers in a relatively short time, all because of his countless videos singing along to anything and everything, and I mean that; he takes requests.
He’s helpfully shared his life story on his Songtradr profile:
28 years ago, I was a 28 year old frustrated male. I was trying to make sense of the world around me. The dating scene was (is I imagine) quite confusing. I also needed to learn how to apply my BSEE degree as that is what turned out to pay the bills in my journey of life. I learned from every relationship I was exposed to. But more importantly, I wrote all my feelings down. I put them to music and produced it on an 80's synthesizer and a guitar my mom gave me at age 27 (I had never played any instrument before that). I proceeded to lay down tracks on an 8-channel cassette multi-track recorder, and had a couple effects boxes too. It was therapy for me. There were plenty of relationships that had gone wrong to write about. This simply helped me deal. I had no outlet to distribute those songs. They sat on my hard-drive for the last 28 years! Finally, I bring them to you. I hope they comfort you as they have me through the years!
While his Songtradr and Spotify profiles feature original music he’s composed, his TikTok is dominated by covers. He occasionally accompanies himself on the ukulele, but most of his videos are just him singing along to the song playing in the background.
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TikTok’s remix culture means that Rodger’s videos have taken on a life of their own, as users have taken to editing them into their own videos, usually depicting their bedrooms with some variation of the caption, “POV: you’re my mum and you walk in on me at 3am” listening to Taylor Swift’s folklore, eating oreos, crying and watching Twilight.
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This edit depicts a crossover event between Rodger and another older TikToker who loves to sing, 61-year-old Susan Ivany. At the time of writing, Sue has just over 100k followers. Like Rodger, she also takes requests. Here, a user has edited both of them singing ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths, with the caption, “POV you walk into the room of two besties at 3am”.
Sidenote, but if your child is singing The Smiths at 3am, you may want to stage an intervention, speaking as a former teen who occasionally sang The Smiths at 3am.
Sue has even duetted some of Rodger’s videos herself.
The fascinating thing about these users is that whether they actually have any musical ability or not is besides the point; in fact, there are excellent singers who try and use TikTok to showcase their skills who don’t receive half the attention these two do, particularly Cleye. If he were a better singer, the memes wouldn’t be anywhere near as funny. He’s relatable, as are the countless videos he’s been edited into - warbling along to Taylor Swift alone in your room at 3am doesn’t require you to actually sound anything like Taylor.
Their popularity is also interesting considering TikTok’s origins as Musical.ly, an app where teens recorded themselves lip-syncing along to songs - if you scroll down far enough on the TikTok profiles of some early power users, you can still find their Musical.ly videos. These singing videos feel like we’ve come full circle, almost, although I’ve yet to see anyone lip sync along with Rodger or Sue’s dulcet tones.
Bonus: DarkSingin (272k followers), who records himself singing karaoke in front of old-school karaoke bar backgrounds. I didn’t include him in the main post because 1. he’s not a boomer and 2. I haven’t seen anyone edit his videos into their own - as far as I’m aware, everyone just appreciates his videos as they are. He he is singing God Save The Queen in honour of recently departed Liz.
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