Finding Memeing Auto-Tuning

The transmission of the news has evolved significantly in the last century. We have moved from a point in time in which newspapers were published twice a day and the term “breaking news” had some real significance to a point where print newspapers are struggling to survive and news is broken within milliseconds of it happening, not hours or days later. With an increasing number of copy editors getting fired and cable channels dedicated to news that ultimately is more filler than real news, where is a person to turn for real informative news that is interesting as well?

Enter the genius minds behind Auto-Tune the News.

The idea behind Auto-Tune the News is that video clips are taken straight from news broadcasts — be they on NBC, Fox News, CNN — and are put through the wringer, so to speak, with the help of Auto-Tune, a software program created by Antares software.

Auto-Tune was originally created for the purpose of correcting singing that was off pitch — a bit of an artistic crime, I think, akin to having a mechanical hand that steadies yours while you are painting so that your lines are straighter.

Cher took Auto-Tuning to a new level by making it the focus of her song, Love after Love — a song that frightened me a bit at the time for the scary way it made her sing. The program was later taken up by T-Pain who might now be best known for his performance in a sketch on Saturday Night Live entitled, “On A Boat.” Don’t watch this song at work as it has some not safe for work words — well, unless you happen to work in an expletive friendly work environment.

Many of the videos in the Auto-Tune the News series have a common theme — the audience is bored with talking heads presenting the news and becomes interested once again as soon as the element of singing is introduced.

The effect of putting the news to music is evident, at least to me. The songs quickly become popular along with the videos, which leads to actual spreading of the news contained within the songs. I can see a future in which news through music becomes increasingly popular and people who would have otherwise had no interest in what was going on in the world around them would now start paying attention to the news, even occasionally picking up news from non-singing sources.

Though we may not be getting our news from Paul McCartney in the future, is it possible that it will be sung to us?