MyMusic

MyMusic was an American web transmedia mockumentary sitcom created by the Fine Brothers that premiered on April 15, 2012 on the MyMusicShow YouTube channel. The series follows a group of co-workers that are employed under a music production company. MyMusic was the first transmedia sitcom on YouTube.

Plot

MyMusic was the primary series of the MyMusicShow YouTube channel.^[2][3] It documented the antics of MyMusic, a transmedia production company where, rather than referring to each other by name, the staff go by the varying music genres with which they associate. CEO and founder Indie heads the team, which consists of people following extremely different (and frequently conflicting) tastes and attitudes. The company claims to have been given the YouTube original channel, and has a documentary crew filming them day to day.

Main cast and characters

From left to right: Scene, Indie, Hip Hop (Nerdcore)

• Adam Busch as Indie, a modern-day hipster and the CEO of MyMusic. According to a quote on the old MyMusic webpage, his real name is Jeb Indie.^[4]
• Grace Helbig as Idol, a social media addict and the Social Media Guru of MyMusic. She is a big fan of anything mainstream and follows any popular trend. According to the newspaper article glimpsed briefly in the first episode, her real name is Jamie Woods.^[5] Idol left the office to appear on a dating reality show called "The Business Model", and was replaced by her "identical cousin" Country.
• Jarrett Sleeper as Metal, a metalhead and the Head of Production at MyMusic. He has been married to his wife, Tina (played by Lisa Schwartz), since he was 12, and is the father of teenaged Rayna and an infant son. When faced with incompetence, he dreams of taking over MyMusic, and renaming it Metal Town. According to his Yelp account and an episode of MyMusic Presents, Metal's full name is Emmet Allan Klaga.^[6]
• Lainey Lipson as Scene, a happy-go-lucky scene girl and an intern at MyMusic who has an unrequited obsession with Indie. After neglecting her studies, she begins to split her time between MyMusic and school and, through the latter, meets and begins to date Jeff Pookie. They later broke up when she discovered he was not the person she thought he was, and is now dating Flowchart. Her real name is Norma Haish.^[7]
• Jack Douglass as Intern 2/Flowchart, a generic, bland intern at MyMusic who is commonly abused and berated by the other employees, primarily Indie. Intern 2 was fired by Indie; in his new job at an acid factory, Intern 2 is universally beloved and given the nickname "Flowchart". Based on his Spotify playlists on Facebook, his real name is Melvin Munson. Currently he is dating former intern partner Scene.
• Tania Gunadi as Techno, a raver who is part of MyMusic's Talent Booking team. She is the only staff member who can understand Dubstep, and she acts as his translator. According to the Season 2 opening credits, and information revealed in the raw footage, her real name is Sakti Dion.
• Chris Clowers as Dubstep, a raver who can only communicate through "wubbing" and other various noises. Although he can understand everyone else, Techno is the only staff member who can interpret what he is saying. He is part of MyMusic's Talent Booking team. According to the Season 2 opening credits, his first name is Xander.
• Mychal Thompson as Hip Hop/Nerdcore, the Head of Marketing of MyMusic who, despite his gangster facade, is a nerd who enjoys Japanese culture, playing the cello, and role-playing games. According to his Tumblr and multiple episodes in which characters like his mom say his name, his name is Curtis Armstrong.
• Lee Newton as Country, Idol's similarly reality show-obsessed "identical cousin", although the two are actually quite dissimilar. Having grown up in the conservative South, she joins the staff to first support, then substitute for Idol after Idol's departure. Her real name is Carrie Chapman Yearwood.^[8]
• Lia Marie Johnson as Rayna, Metal's daughter who, despite her upbringing, shares a lot of similar interests to Idol. She is obsessed with One Direction and had a brief crush on Intern 2.
• Paul Butcher as Jeff Pookie, Scene's ex-boyfriend and classmate. Jeff becomes Intern 2's replacement, and is given the nickname "Straightedge" by Indie when he starts working at MyMusic.

Episodes

Each episode follows the antics of the transmedia production company. After each five or six episodes, the preceding episodes are compiled into a "Sitcom Version", usually over thirty minutes long. Additional scenes are also slotted into the "Sitcom Version" of the episode.^[9] The first three episodes of the second season were screened in front of a live audience at VidCon 2013 during the "MyMusic panel".^[10]

Series overview:

Production

Origin and Funding

In an interview with New Media Rockstars, Benny Fine stated that MyMusic "was developed first as a television property" and then adapted for the internet.^[11] Sometime afterward, YouTube invested money to help the brothers fund and create a premium channel, as part of YouTube's $100 million original channel project, with which the brothers decided to create MyMusic.^{[11][12][13][14]}

Casting

Jarrett Sleeper as Metal

The Fine Brothers uploaded a "Behind the Scenes" episode of the series in February 2013. The episode documented the auditions of the cast. Hundreds of people came in to read for various roles.^[15] Mychal Thompson was not originally cast as the role of Hip Hop. However, for unknown reasons the original actor was unable to play the role of Hip Hop. One of the executive producers of MyMusic called Thompson and asked him to play the role of Hip Hop.^[15] Additionally, the first season saw the casting of special guests such as Vanessa Lengies, Hannah Hart, as well as Felicia Day, who earned a nomination for her guest role as Gorgol.^[1]

Renewal

The MyMusicShow YouTube channel was one of the original channels to be renewed by YouTube.^[16] The Fine Brothers announced the decision in May 2013, as Benny Fine was documented to have stated “We had an overwhelming fan response in Season 1 and we definitely couldn’t have made it to a second season without their viewership and participation," as well as “We built the most immersive transmedia sitcom on YouTube if not on the web with MyMusic, and fan feedback was at the level where it made perfect sense to produce a second season. We’re building a deeper experience that continues to blur the lines between reality and fictional storylines in Season 2 and our fans are going to love it!”^[17] The second season, like the first, will see the release of six TV sitcom-length episodes, until its conclusion in January 2014.^[1]

The Fine Brothers released weekly videos of the production of the second season, which premiered on August 20, 2013.^[18][19] The second season was filmed at YouTube Space LA.^[20]

Transmedia aspect

Billed as "YouTube's first transmedia sitcom", MyMusic has established a strong interactive social media aspect, as there are near 300,000 followers of the series across the web. The sitcom is showcasing what the future of web entertainment may be, blurring the lines of fiction and reality, giving viewers the opportunity to interact with the series and its characters in real time. Social media accounts have been created for all the characters, including non-main characters.^[21] Every character seen in the series has Twitter accounts, among other social media accounts, created for them.^[22]

The second season is being planned to be more interactive than the first, with creator Benny Fine stating, "This season we’re taking the interactivity up a notch and creating more opportunities for fans to integrate with the MyMusic story universe."^[23] Prior to the launch of season 2, MyMusicShow.tv was launched. Satirical music news blogs written by the characters the series are found on the website,^[24] which Benny Fine states is "one part BuzzFeed, one part The Onion".^[20]

The transmedia aspect was able to interact with and influence viewers of the series to donate to an Indiegogo project aiming to fund music education.^[25]

Additional content

Throughout the series, characters are seen trying to complete tasks for the company, such as finishing a music news show to later release onto the internet. Additional shows are uploaded onto the MyMusicShow YouTube channel, which develop continuity and create references with the main series. Essentially the additional shows are the finished product of what the characters in the main series are creating, within that main series. The Mosh, one of the aforementioned weekly shows, features the characters of the main series answering questions they receive on their social media accounts.^[1][3]

Moreover, a Behind the Scenes series aired on the channel from January 20 through March 24, 2013. It was followed up by a Bloopers & Outtakes series, that began March 31, 2013, and ended on June 16, 2013.

MyMusic Weekly Channel Shows

Scene, the host of Tumblr Tuesday

Current

Sitcommentary: Sitcommentary is a show in which Benny Fine, co-creator of the show, and cast members watch and comment on the sitcom version of the show, containing six normal episodes. It is released on Sundays.

The Mosh: The Mosh is a show where 3-7 main characters of MyMusic respond to comments and questions from various social media websites, ask polls, and take suggestions from the audience to create a custom Spotify playlist.^[14] The Mosh was the only show from Season 1 to be continued in the second season, and is the longest running MyMusic show besides the main show.

Gaming with Metal: Gaming with Metal was a show introduced near the launch of the main show's second season, as the first of a new slate of weekly channel shows on MyMusicShow. As the name implies, the series is revolved around the character Metal, commentating over gameplay.

MyMusic Podcast: MyMusic Podcast is a video podcast show, where multiple characters from the series speak about varying topics, weekly. The show was also released on iTunes as an audio podcast.

Tumblr Tuesday: Tumblr Tuesday (stylized as tumblr. tuesday.), is a series introduced at the time of the beginning of the second season. The show replaces MyMusic News, as the character Scene now hosts this series, instead of the former.

Former

MyMusic LIVE: MyMusic Live was an hour-long variety show hosted by the staff of MyMusic every Monday. The live show included interactive conversations with the characters and the viewers at home, as well as performances from real life bands, comedians and personalities. Guests included Rhett and Link, Luke Conard, Hannah Hart, Taryn Southern, So and So, Dakaboom, Tanya Burr, Driftless Pony Club and The Fu Music. This show was discontinued after 18 regular episodes and three non-live compilations and replaced with MyMusic Presents. However the show was brought back as a one off to accompany the charity storyline in season 2.

MyMusic Presents: MyMusic Presents was a show where one of the MyMusic staff members interview a musical artist that comes by the MyMusic office. The shows featured the musical guest performing, answering fan-submitted questions and interacting with the MyMusic staff. This show was discontinued after 15 regular episodes, and 2 extra episodes.

MyMusic News: MyMusic News was a weekly news show.^[26] Usually hosted by Scene, it covers several news topics that relate to music, musical artists and the billboard charts.^[27] This show was discontinued after 39 episodes.

Reception

Prior to the release of the first episode, the MyMusicShow YouTube channel already accumulated over 100,000 subscribers.^[1] Towards the end of the first season of the series, MyMusic was ranked as the #40 channel in a weekly ranking of the YouTube original channels distributed by Deadline Hollywood. The ranking was called "respectable" for a "new, non-franchise sitcom".^[28] At the time of the ranking, the MyMusicShow YouTube channel had amassed 250,000 subscribers and 20 million video views.^[28] As of January 8, 2014, the channel has amassed over 478,000 subscribers and 37 million video views.^[29]

In 2013, MyMusic was nominated for 10 Streamy Awards, the most of any show that year,^[30] as well as 2 IAWTV awards.^[31]

References

External links

• MyMusicShow Youtube channel