Cuteness in Art

I like this video.



But I don't think that my reasons for liking it extend beyond the fact that she's perpetuating an inside joke of the internet and she's kinda hawt. So, to me it scores a 10.0 on the cuteness scale and I'm able to appreciate it.

There's a whole slew of videos like this on youtube. A lot of them don't get more than three or four views. But occasionally you find a 'cute' video that has... half a million to twelve million views. Obviously these videos have gained popularity in our society.

Why the hell is this?

Regardless of the sheer shallowness of 'cute' art, people like it. It makes people smile and pulls an emotion out of them. People like positive emotions, and for most people it doesn't take much to make them smile. So these videos get a lot of attention.



This never fails to make me laugh.

But do we consider this kind of stuff art? I don't know. I don't really have an opinion. I don't really appreciate it for the deepness and levels in its meaning... but I do enjoy it because of the reaction it gives me. That being said, I've seen several drawings that take a lot of talent to make that have the same sort of depth. But that's somehow different.

Does the popularity of this kind of art mean that our society and our generation is more shallow than those before us? I don't really think so. It may hint at that. But there's now a slew of people in our society who want to be artists and are climbing over one another to make the 'next big thing' on the internet.



As a result we see stuff that is entertaining, but not necessarily deep. These videos certainly take the effort of sitting down and making them, but sometimes not much more than that. The above video is a cool little dance number that obviously requires more talent than mouthing the numa numa song, but it gets about the same amount of attention (if not less) as the numa numa joke.

We like those little internet videos as a society. And sometimes we associate them with our personal experiences to apply another level that was never there at the video's conception. Occasionally, however, we come across a gem that really does have a shitload of levels. Sometimes literally.



This is appreciated in much the same way as the others, and has that million view count. But, it's a legitimate piece of art as well. This by comparison to the other above videos seemed to take more effort and has more meaning, but still manages to be in the midway of popularity on youtube.

Are we shallow? Probably. But I think that the internet phenomena of catchy videos says that we're just easily entertained rather than shallow. And the first does not equal the other.