Bill Wurtz | ||||||||||
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Years active | 2002–present | |||||||||
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billwurtz | |||||||||
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Years active | 2013–present | |||||||||
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Subscribers | 5.47 million [1] | |||||||||
Total views | 751 million [1] | |||||||||
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Last updated: February 5, 2024 |
Bill Wurtz (stylized in lower case as bill wurtz or billwurtz) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, animated video creator, and internet personality. He is known for his distinctive style which includes calm, deadpan delivery and singing paired with colorful surrealist, psychedelic graphics.
Wurtz has published music and videos dating back to 2002. He proceeded to upload his videos on Vine, where he gained his initial popularity, and on YouTube. He experienced breakout success on YouTube with his animated videos, History of Japan (2016), and History of the Entire World, I Guess (2017), which both went viral and inspired internet memes. He won the Shorty Award for Best in Weird in 2016.
Wurtz's first published composition was an instrumental named "Late Nite Lounge with Loud Lenny", which was recorded on June 17, 2002, and his first with vocals was "stuck in a rut" in March 2005. He released songs more frequently beginning in 2010. [2]
Wurtz was first known for his presence on the short-form video-sharing website Vine, [3] [4] where he first gained a following in 2014. [2] He began by taking short videos he had previously published to his website and re-editing them to fit Vine's six-second restriction. [2] Before transitioning fully to YouTube, Wurtz was uploading a video to Vine nearly every day. [5] He received attention in 2015 for the short video "Shaving My Piano". [6] On April 11, 2016, Wurtz won the Shorty Award for "Tech & Innovation: Weird" at the 8th Shorty Awards; during the awards ceremony, attention was given to one of his Vine uploads "I'm Still a Piece of Garbage". [7] At the awards ceremony, his acceptance speech consisted of the words "Thank you." [2] Wurtz withdrew from making Vines to focus on finishing History of Japan. [r 1]
Wurtz created his YouTube channel in September 2013. [2] Despite disliking online streaming, he joined YouTube on the advice of a friend to post content that was previously exclusive to his website. [8]
External videos | |
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history of japan, YouTube video or download |
Alongside interest on Vine, Wurtz achieved wider popularity in 2016 with History of Japan, a nine-minute YouTube video that outlines Japan's history. [9] Wurtz chose the topic due to his lack of knowledge of it. [r 2] [2] He took fourteen weeks to make it. [8] The video covers key events of Japan's history, such as the spread of rice farming, the introduction of Buddhism, internal conflicts between rulers, its alliance with Britain, World War I, World War II, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its post-war economic miracle. [10] [11] It showcases Wurtz's quirky visual and comedic style through a mixture of fast-paced narration and animation, intercut with short musical jingles. [12]
History of Japan went viral on social media after its release on February 2, 2016 and received over four million views by February 8. [10] It received considerable attention on Tumblr [3] and Reddit. [9] It became a lasting internet meme, with people posting quotes and images from it while discussing subjects such as politics. [13] As of November 2023 [update], the video has over 80 million views.
Adario Strange of Mashable described the video as "an entertaining new approach to education". [12] German Lopez of Vox called it a "strange", "pretty good – and surprisingly funny" video. Lopez noted the poor coverage of Japanese war crimes against Korea and China in the 20th century, and attributed this omission to the video's short runtime. [11] In 2021, Polygon listed it in its list of top 25 "dumb internet videos". [14]
External videos | |
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History of the Entire World, I Guess, YouTube video or download |
Wurtz released a 20-minute overview of world history, History of the Entire World, I Guess, on May 10, 2017. [15] The video took over 11 months to produce, including almost 3 months of research. [5] It briefly covers the topics of natural history and human civilization spanning from the Big Bang to the near future. [16] The video marked the continued development of Wurtz's cinematic style, with fast-paced, absurdist humor and jazz-like musical interludes. [17]
On the day of its release, History of the Entire World, I Guess was the top video on the YouTube trending page, receiving 3.2 million views, and on Reddit it became the most upvoted YouTube link of all time. [4] [18] It became an internet meme [19] and was listed at eighth place on YouTube's list of the top 10 trending videos of the year. [20] As of June 2024 [update], it has over 168 million views. [21]
Vox's German Lopez praised the video for not heavily focusing on western history and successfully covering areas in world history which may be neglected in US schools, such as powers in China, Persia, and India. [22] Las Vegas Weekly called it a "must-see", [23] and it has been considered to be Wurtz's magnum opus. [2] [15] In 2020, Thrillist ranked the video at number 40 on its list of greatest YouTube videos of all time. [24]
In 2017, Wurtz released "Hi, I'm Steve", an absurdist animation about a man named Steve, which trended on Reddit. [25] [26] Other videos include music videos with funny animations, such as "Mount St. Helens is about to Blow Up" and "and the day goes on", as well as nonsensical shorts. [8] [27] [28] Wurtz's song "I Just Did a Bad Thing" and the accompanying video spawned TikTok videos of people lip-syncing to the opening lines; #ididabadthing became the platform's top hashtag of March 2019. [29] [30]
Wurtz has developed an absurdist, surreal style on both his music and animation. [25] [28] Eddie Kim wrote for MEL Magazine that Wurtz "refuses to mimic anyone else's animation or musical style, but it's not weird for weirdness' sake alone", comparing him to Thundercat and Louis Cole and highlighting Wurtz's pretty pop melodies, unexpected chords and multi-layered rhythms as commonalities. [2] Geoff Carter of Las Vegas Weekly stated: "Merge Don Hertzfeldt, Jenny Holzer and Thundercat and you might get someone a little bit like Bill Wurtz". [23]
Wurtz's music has been classified as jazz pop, incorporating elements of lo-fi music, smooth jazz, funk, and easy listening. [2] [31] His music evokes malaise, self-deprecation, and a "blurring of the lines between irony, parody and honesty". [32] In an interview with Genius, Wurtz stated that "it's a good... songwriting technique to write about something bad with a good sounding melody, because if you can get people to feel good about something bad, then you're bulletproof in life." [33]: 0:00:46 Wurtz's voice has been described as "silky tenor with range and energy". [2] He plays instruments including piano, bass guitar, and drums. [2] His songs feature prominent basslines, which he records on a keyboard rather than a bass guitar. [34]
Artists who have expressed admiration for Wurtz's music include indie musicians Daði Freyr [35] and Sidney Gish [36] and DJ and producer Porter Robinson. [37]
Wurtz started playing music at a very early age. [q 1] In an interview with Bass Guitar magazine, he said he was "wholly self-taught" as a musician, and he downplayed the importance of music theory in songwriting and composition, saying,"'Theory' may be fun, but it's made of liquid and has a tendency to melt. The music comes first and then you figure out how to describe what happened, although fully describing it can never be done." [34]
Wurtz's videos are typically in a lo-fi, [8] neon [3] aesthetic, and have been described as surreal [28] and psychedelic. [5] [12] They often involve deadpan humor, dancing stick figures, vaporwave-like transitions and neon, sans-serif text on-screen. [2] [25] [8] Wurtz often follows patterns in his videos such as multi-layering, [5] and clip art images. [8] He has stated the low-budget quality arose out of a necessity to publish videos regularly and evolved naturally. [5]: 0:35:27 His aesthetic has been compared to that of the early internet. [8] [18]
Wurtz is against running advertising on or accepting sponsorships for his videos, despite admitting an "enormous" pressure to do so. [2] [8] He has explained that advertisements make him "uncomfortable" [5] and that he thinks "they suck". [8] Wurtz receives direct fan support through crowdfunding on Patreon, [4] streams on music streaming services, and merchandise sales, but he does not heavily promote any of these revenue streams. [8] [5]: 0:44:15
Wurtz has a devoted fanbase, including a subreddit. [2] He is known as a private person. He infrequently does interviews; his first major interview was on the H3 Podcast. On the podcast, he said that he "doesn't have time to do anything but make music." He has not gone on tour. [8] Wurtz struggles with perfectionism, making use of schedules and deadlines to overcome it. [8] [5]
Wurtz launched his personal website billwurtz.com in 2014. [8] Its simple design has been compared to late-1990s websites. [8] The website contains all of his released songs and most of his videos dating back to 2002, as well as short journal posts and vlog-style "reality" videos depicting his creative process. [2] Wurtz maintains a section on his website to answer anonymously submitted questions. The style of his answers has been described by the website OK Whatever as "verging on the poetic" [8] and by MEL Magazine as "earnest, if somewhat loopy-sounding". [2]
Wurtz is active on Instagram and Twitter, with humorous Tweets in the style of Weird Twitter. [2]
Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result | Ref. |
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2016 | Shorty Awards | Tech & Innovation: Best in Weird | Bill Wurtz | Won | [7] |
Year | Name | Views (millions) [note 1] |
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2014 | "I'm Sad" | 0.3 |
"I'm a Diamond" | 1.8 | |
"Barf On Me" | 0.1 | |
"Feel Okay" | 0.2 | |
"Dance The" | 0.2 | |
"Tape Deck" | 0.1 | |
"New Canaan" | 0.7 | |
"Still Silly" | 0.1 | |
"I Like" | 0.3 | |
"Tuesday" | 0.3 | |
"Icy James" | 0.1 | |
"I'm Confused (I Love You)" | 1.1 | |
"Blind (To no Avail)" | 0.2 | |
"Hey Jodie Foster" | 0.1 | |
2015 | "I'm Crazy / It's Raining" | 1.4 |
"You're Free to Do Whatever You Want to" | 1.8 | |
"School" | 11.6 | |
2016 | "Alphabet Shuffle" | 7.7 |
2017 | "I Wanna Be A Movie Star" | 4.0 |
"Outside" | 6.4 | |
2018 | "La De Da De Da De Da De Day Oh" | 13.6 |
"And the Day Goes On" | 7.9 | |
"Hello Sexy Pants" | 3.4 | |
"Hallelujah" | 1.9 | |
"I'm Best Friends with my Own Front Door" | 3.1 | |
"Mount St. Helens Is About to Blow Up" | 8.6 | |
"The Moon Is Made of Cheese (But I Can't Taste It)" | 3.9 | |
"When I Get Older" | 2.7 | |
"Long Long Long Journey" | 3.4 | |
"Slow Down" | 2.5 | |
"Christmas Isn't Real" | 2.3 | |
"Just Did a Bad Thing" | 9.2 | |
2019 | "At the Airport Terminal" | 3.2 |
"Might Quit" | 14.2 | |
2021 | "Here Comes the Sun" | 9.6 |
"I'm a Princess" | 4.0 | |
"Got Some Money" | 4.9 | |
"More Than a Dream" | 2.0 | |
2022 | "I'm Scared" | 2.3 |
"Fly Around" | 1.2 | |
"9 8 7" | 1.1 | |
"At the Corner Store" | 1.2 | |
"If the World Doesn't End" | 1.0 | |
"I'm a Huge Gamer Most of the Time" | 1.4 | |
"The Ground Plane" | 0.8 | |
"Meet Me in September" | 0.6 | |
"I Like to Wear Soft Clothing" | 0.7 | |
"The Ending" | 1.1 | |
"Where I've Been" | 1.7 |
Albums: [38]
EPs:
The following songs are available on Wurtz's website: [39]
2009
2010
2011
2014
2017
i was able to hear a lot of music on records[...]and I will confess I also had access to a piano/keyboard instrument, and a drum set.[...] Having an extremely early start, it was pretty natural to find me in many many personal and professional music relationships with peers (well at first it was usually people much older than me because I was so young to start)
i'm just trying to be reasonable
made a serious decision to stop doing vines which i know seems like madness, but we're doing it for a good reason: we're finishing the long projects and then we're finishing more projects after that.
I would like to try history of Japan, just because it's random. I know nothing about it, it just seems like a sweet spot.