Sea shanties: Why TikTok has gone mad for whaling songs
If you’ve been hearing old-time maritime songs resounding across social media, “you might be wondering what, exactly, has happened to the teens,” said Kyle Piscioniere in Slate.com. For the past two weeks, TikTok’ers have been donning Shetland sweaters and belting out sea shanties about butchering whales or reuniting with brownhaired maidens. The craze ignited in late December, when Nathan Evans, a 26-year-old Scottish mailman and aspiring musician, logged into TikTok to post his rendition of “Soon May the Wellerman Come.” Before long, salty dogs around the world began adding harmonies, creating a cache of shanty videos that has collectively racked up more than 74 million views. “Part of the joy comes in the self-aware absurdity of the trend.” But the outpouring of enthusiasm for #ShantyTok is not entirely ironic.
Not that shanties could ever be cool, said Kathryn VanArendonk in NYMag.com. These tunes “sound the way a bowl of New England clam chowder looks: imprecise, sort of lumpy, and, not to put too fine a point on it, very white.” That’s why a key boost to the TikTok trend was a short reaction video posted by Promise Uzowulu, a young black man from Houston who initially displays disgust when his brother plays “Wellerman” on their car stereo, then softens and enthusiastically joins the singalong. Despite how white they sound, shanties are closely related to African-American field songs: Shanties were sung by crews on ships to coordinate the work of unfurling sails and hauling nets. “They are unifying, survivalist songs, designed to transform a huge group of people into one collective body,” and they perfectly fit the mood of many of us. Yes, it is odd that a song from 19th-century New Zealand, one that takes its title from a provisions supply company called Weller Bros., should light up the internet in 2021. Then again, “‘Wellerman’ is a great, boisterous bop of a song in any century.”
“TikTok’s functionality deserves some credit,” said Travis Andrews in The Washington Post. The app has a recently updated “duet” feature that encourages users to incorporate existing clips in their videos. That has enabled strangers to harmonize with Evans and with other users who’ve already done so until the result is an a cappella choir or, if they play an instrument, a choir with an orchestra. Ultimately, the appeal of shanties is not so different from what it was for the seamen who first sang these tunes, said Angela Watercutter in Wired.com. “At a time when people have to be far apart, joining together in song—even over TikTok— feels like a moment of togetherness.”