Borkowski Media Trends: Neil Young & Glastonbury's PR Paradox...and MORE
PLUS: Starmer's Queuegate 2 | Mr Beast's New Fame Game
Neil Young & Glastonbury's PR Paradox
This week, within a 24 hour time period, Neil Young managed to both cancel and confirm himself for Glastonbury. The Canadian folk-rock icon initially announced he’d pulled out yesterday, citing concerns about “corporate influence” from the BBC – likely linked to his well-established aversion to having live performances recorded. Yet, as of today, he’s fully back in, with Emily Eavis herself confirming that he’s set to headline the Pyramid Stage, joining Rod Stewart and Nile Rodgers as the only acts to be announced so far.
Glastonbury is still almost 6 months away, but as the BBC’s premier music event of the year, and a cultural touchstone beyond that, the discourse around it now lasts a full twelve months. Speculation on the other headliners has ranged from Olivia Rodrigo to Eminem, although it now seems unlikely that we’ll hear further news until the release of the full line up, and certainly Neil Young himself was not on any bookmaker’s radar. The inevitability of any Glastonbury announcement in the post-Covid era is that it is met churlishly, mostly by people who won’t go to the festival – but its paradox is that it is the only music event in the world to generate as much conversation, more so than Coachella, Lollapalooza, or any others whose line-ups, pre-Covid, could perhaps have been said to match up (at least according to the internet).
Yet, it’s also the only music brand that can survive such perceived misfires in booking headliners, including, in Young’s case, from the artists themselves — even if it was, as Young now clarifies, a misunderstanding. Such chaos would be enough to sink some lesser music festivals.
Behind the scenes at Glastonbury HQ yesterday was surely a frantic fight on two fronts – one with Young and his posse, and another with the press, some of whom gleefully insinuated that Young’s stance was in some way ‘anti-woke’. Making Glastonbury happen is a titanic effort, one that immeasurably improves the country’s culture and one that artists are willing to take a significant pay cut to be a part of. But the incessant noise surrounding it, and the speculation that begins almost as soon as one edition of the festival ends, is symptomatic of the poor health of the UK music scene beyond it, and the damaging omnipresence of the culture wars.
As Neil Young’s spat over seemingly nothing shows, even the smallest Glastonbury connection generates headlines and Internet noise – whether or not festivals are now hegemonic is up for debate.
Starmer’s Queuegate 2.
Keir Starmer entered 10 Downing Street partly on a platform of integrity – at least relative to his predecessor(s)- but in positioning himself as the bastion of morality he also made a rod for his own back.
The largely hostile British politics media have since gleefully seized on any indication that Starmer is using his status at the top of government for personal gain; from the GCSE flat, to his Arsenal tickets.
His latest infraction was apparently skipping the queue for a toboggan run on holiday in Madeira.
Like many of Starmer’s previous crimes, it’s pretty vanilla, and the wrongdoing almost entirely subjective, but politics is more about optics than objective rules or moral boundaries, and Starmer’s frequent error is to forget this important tenet of communications.
If a reminder were needed of the sanctity of queueing in the consciousness of the British public, recall the furore that met ‘queuegate’ - the revelation that Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield skipped the queue to pay their final respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II. The aftershock of the incident is still palpable nearly two years on.
Starmer would not have needed a team of PR historians around him to be forewarned that his enemies would leap at the chance to cast him in the same villainous mould as Holly and Phil, should he perform the cardinal sin of the skip. But the new Prime Minister and his team’s sense for an impending PR gaffe still needs some serious honing.
Mr Beast’s New Fame Game
Whether you like him, loathe him or never heard of him, the world's most famous YouTuber MrBeast has proven that showmanship still trumps all. His latest piece of content - a reality TV series called Beast Games - is his biggest project so far, transcending his previous work thanks to a $100m budget Amazon Prime Studios hit. It's effectively a Squid Game/Hunger Games gameshow where 1,000 contestants compete to win a $5m cash prize.
While it's a blatant rip-off of many different ideas - topically, Squid Game- he's made the show a roaring success by pumping eyewatering sums making it the most amount of money given away in a televised event. Whether it's to your taste or not, it's simply wall-to-wall entertainment.
MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, found viral success by taking all proceeds from every YouTube video he's ever made and ploughed into his next project. This exponential method of making content and brand-building has been a fascinating tactic of reputation management. It's such a basic premise and tunnel-visioned strategy to fame building that he's side-stepped many controversies that have arisen over the years.
He's never tried to hide who he is: his gauche demeanour and relentless pursuit of fame may have put a target on his back, but his methods of gaming the YouTube algorithm for millions of followers are ultimately feeding what the vast majority of social media users want: click-bait and fast-paced entertainment that gives his audience a glimmer of hope they might be the lucky ones to win a once-in-a-lifetime prize.
MrBeast has tried to claim this is for the YouTube community - an attempt to prove that these content creators can make big-budget, studio-quality shows. And while critics aren't impressed, when a YouTuber makes a reality TV series, only one thing matters: how many people have watched it. The early reports revealed Beast Games is the most-watched Amazon show in over 50 countries, which shows he's onto something here.