Let’s Make Hyperpop: The Internet Can Make Anyone a Star

Abstract

The evolution of the internet into Web 2.0, alongside the introduction of high speed internet via broadband forever changed the world as we knew it. With Web 2.0 and its utility allowing for the widespread popularisation of user-generated content and user participation through social media, and mobile apps; the internet became commonplace in our everyday life and paved the way for the disruption of many industries and sectors. One such sector is the world of art, where artists are now creating art with a disposition based on the consciousness of the internet’s utility and its effects on culture and society. Art that is created as a result of this internet consciousness is referred to as “post-internet” art and can manifest itself in many ways. One of the more recent manifestations of post-internet art is the music genre known as “hyperpop”, a style of music consisting of a combination of aesthetic choices that have culminated as a result of the affordances provided by the internet to give artists the opportunity to disrupt, and satirise the mainstream pop music industry which predates and exists alongside the internet. This exegesis explores the relationship between hyperpop and its background as a post-internet form of art through practice-based research based on the creation of my own hyperpop artifact. It examines the conventions needed for the production of a hyperpop single release and finds that these conventions operating as post-internet components offer the ability for unlimited creative freedom by offering anyone the capability to produce musical content for global distribution and online consumption.