Video Courtesy: YouTube
If you have been on Tiktok lately, you may have run across #Fineprint videos. These videos highlight the overwhelming amounts of money major conglomerate corporations make or how individuals have no choice but to sign their life away to a company, in order to survive in society.
The YouTube video has picked up steam as well going viral with over 3 million views. So, what exactly is the “fineprint” trend? It’s a TikTok, YouTube, music-video-based -video game and anti-capitalistic theme all rolled into one.
Indie YouTubers “Stupendium” have created a viral song entitled “Fine Print.” It’s primarily based on the video game 2020 “Outerworld” a high-octane, action-packed first-person shooter which takes place on a futuristic, faraway planet colonized by a cooperation that owns a colony named “Halcyon.” In the video game, citizens leave earth traveling via cryosleep for 10 years. After waking up, they join the work colony which controls the laws, social order, and behaviors of the colony workers.
The focus of the worker’s jobs? Packaging tuna. (Really, thrilling work.) The main character in the game (whatever you name them or shape them to be) comes from a lost ship of travelers in cryosleep, then is woken up by a rebellious criminal outcast with a cause. He wakes up the main character and sends him into the colony to secure resources to help wake up the rest of the colony which has been asleep and a drift for over 70s years. And believe it or not, all of this takes place in the game, before your able to start gameplay.
So, leave to Stupendium’s extreme creativity, whose goal is to make music based on video games to create a pop song that is entertaining and parodies capitalism.
“The architect tells them, the secret to heaven is simply consuming whatever we sell them.”
The incredible slick graphics with added visual element from the video game itself, powerful lyrics where nearly every line is worth pondering or putting on a graphic T. The catchy upbeat song is layered with electronic sounds, a vibe mirroring a Broadway way musical with a few sections of hard-hitting rap. Although it sounds all over the place on paper, the song, lyrics, and visuals fall together in a way that is nothing short of genius. It is a perfect marriage of the industrial revolution past and the dreams to occupy other planets combined. This song completely fresh and familiar all at once. No matter how you stumbled upon “Fine Print”, all road leads to pure joy when listening to this song.