You Only Live Once

YOLO

Yolo is an acronym for the phrase “you only live once.”

According to Wikipedia, the usage of the term YOLO is “similar to carpe diem, it implies that one should enjoy life, even if that entails taking risks.”

The youth of America use YOLO as an excuse to do stupid stuff.

Description

YOLO Defined

Jimmy Kimmel explains YOLO: https://youtu.be/UKqDStuh4fM

Kimmel turns YOLO into a verb, “yolo-ing.”

Drake came out with this music video in 2011, which popularized the phrase YOLO. https://youtu.be/0V2VVEH6AX4

YOLO Music Video

According to an article in Forbes magazine, “Does Drake Own Yolo?” Drake thinks he should be paid money for every piece of YOLO merchandise, even though he did not invent the phrase. He only made it popular. http://www.forbes.com/sites/leorgalil/2012/12/29/does-drake-own-yolo/print/

Drake Demands Money

There was a Vanity Fair article from February 5, 2013 titled “An Oral History of YOLO, the Word That Lived Too Long”• http://

www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/02/oral-history-yolo-mickey-hart

Origins of YOLO

YOLO Parody Videos

Saturday Night Live, Adam Levine, Kendrick Lamar and The Lonely Island’s Parody of the YOLO craze: https://youtu.be/z5Otla5157c

Yolo The Musical:https://youtu.be/eEepwEvSVCwBest quote from the video, “I’m losing faith in all humanity.”

YOLO (Are they serious?)

Next we will explore YOLO trends:

• YOLO tattoos• YOLO merchandise• YOLO memes

YOLO Memes

YOLO Merchandise

YOLO Tattoos

• A tween music video: Froyo Yolo By Liv and Maddie (Disney Channel) https://youtu.be/eEepwEvSVCw

Disney YOLO

• If platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube did not exist, YOLO would not have been able to spread like it has. • According to Dijck’s Culture of Connectivity, “A platform

is a mediator rather than an intermediary: it shapes the performance of social acts instead of merely facilitating them (2013).” Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter all encourage you to “Share” the media you are viewing with you friends. This encourages users to redistribute media to other users.

Connecting to Readings

• From the music that Drake (and other artists) produced, to the social media users spreading #YOLO and wearing the clothing (and tattoos) of YOLO, etc. All of these various platforms are intersecting and contributing to the success and popularity of YOLO.• The relationship between users and usage that Dijck refers to

in the conclusion of The Culture of Connectivity is clearly present in the YOLO craze. Users listen to Drake’s song The Motto and share it on YouTube, then they post a pic of themselves to Facebook with #YOLO, someone else “likes” it and shares it… it is a cycle of dependency, as Dijck says. If users stopped saying and tweeting YOLO, it would die out.

Connecting to Readings Cont.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YOLO_%28motto%29• https://youtu.be/UKqDStuh4fM• https://youtu.be/0V2VVEH6AX4• https://youtu.be/z5Otla5157c• https://youtu.be/eEepwEvSVCw• https://youtu.be/eEepwEvSVCw• http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lonelyisland/yolo.html• Dijck, Jose Van. “The Eco-system of Connective Media”

The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford University Press. 2013.

Sources

Questions? Comments?