Why TikTok (and Everyone Else) Is Singing Sea Chanteys - WIRED

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The Monitor is a weekly column devoted to everything happening in the WIRED world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter.

(God, I miss karaoke.) “They are unifying, survivalist songs, designed to transform a huge group of people into one collective body,” Kathryn VanArendonk wrote for Vulture, “all working together to keep the ship afloat.” Similarly, as Amanda Petrusich noted in The New Yorker, “it seems possible that after nearly a year of solitude and collective self-banishment, and of crushing restrictions on travel and adventure, the chantey might be providing a brief glimpse into a different, more exciting way of life, a world of sea air and pirates and grog, of many people singing in unison, of being free to boldly take off for what Melville called the ‘true places,’ the uncorrupted vistas that can’t be located on any map.” (As to the spelling discrepancies between “shanty” and “chantey” your guess is as good as mine.).

But at the same time, collective culture consumption has been one of the hallmarks of the pandemic, from a collective obsession with Tiger King to “WAP.” Not to mention, gamers were singing chanteys while playing Sea of Thieves long before the pandemic hit?

Beyond the collective sing-along nature of the sea chantey craze, there’s something else: It’s catchy as hell.

As much as it’s easily dueted on TikTok, it’s also an earworm.

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