Bill Wurtz (stylized in lower case as bill wurtz or billwurtz) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, animator, video editor, and internet personality based in New York City. He is known for his distinctive musical, comedic, and narrative style which includes deadpan delivery and singing paired with colorful surrealist, psychedelic, and non-sequitur graphics.
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Website | billwurtz | |||||||||
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Years active | 2002–present | |||||||||
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Subscribers | 5.28 million[1] | |||||||||
Total views | 688 million[1] | |||||||||
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Last updated: October 26, 2022 | ||||||||||
Wurtz first published material on YouTube in 2013. He set up a website in 2014, presenting a catalog of music and videos he had created since 2002. Wurtz proceeded to upload edited versions of his videos on Vine, where he gained his initial popularity. He experienced breakout success on YouTube with his animated videos, History of Japan (2016), and History of the Entire World, I Guess (2017). Wurtz released music videos regularly from 2017 to March 2019. Through the rest of 2019 and all of 2020, Wurtz was inactive on YouTube, returning to the platform in January 2021 with a new visual style of 3D animation.
Wurtz was first known for his presence on the short-form video-sharing website Vine,[2][3] where he first gained a following in 2014.[4] He began by taking short videos he had previously published to his website and re-editing them to fit Vine's six-second restriction.[4] Before transitioning fully to YouTube, Wurtz was uploading a video to Vine nearly every day.[5] He received early attention in 2015 for the short video "Shaving My Piano", which was covered briefly in The Verge.[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]
Alongside interest on Vine, Wurtz achieved wider popularity in 2016 with History of Japan, a nine-minute YouTube video that outlines Japan's history.[8] The video covers key events of its history: "Buddhism, internal conflict, alliances with Britain, World War I, World War II, the dropping of atomic bombs and its post-war economic miracle".[9] It showcases Wurtz's quirky visual and comedic style through a mixture of fast-paced narration and animation, intercut with short musical jingles. The video was described as "an entertaining new approach to education".[10] It went viral on social media after its release on February 2, 2016, and under a week later, received over four million views by February 8.[9] It particularly received considerable attention on Tumblr[2] and Reddit.[8] As of August 2021, the video has over 68 million views. Writer German Lopez for the news website Vox called it a "strange", "pretty good – and surprisingly funny" video. Nevertheless, Lopez noted the poor coverage of Japanese war crimes committed against Korea and China in the 20th century, particularly the Nanjing Massacre and the use of Korean sex slaves, and attributed this omission to the video's short runtime.[11] Wurtz has responded to these criticisms on his questions page, suggesting to viewers to look for other YouTube channels that cover these topics.[q 1]
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Wurtz released a 20-minute overview of world history, History of the Entire World, I Guess, on May 10, 2017.[12] 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.[13] The video marked the continued development of Wurtz's cinematic style, with fast-paced, absurdist humor and jazz-like musical interludes.[14]
History of the Entire World, I Guess was the top video on the YouTube trending page on the day of its release, receiving 3.2 million views on its first day, and on Reddit it became the most upvoted YouTube link of all time.[3][15] It became an Internet meme[16] and was listed at eighth place on YouTube's list of the top 10 trending videos of the year.[17] As of September 2022,[update] it has over 150 million views.[18] Writer German Lopez for the news website Vox praised the video for not heavily focusing on western and US history, and successfully covering other areas in world history which may be neglected in US schools, such as powers in China, Persia, and India.[19] Because it resists specialization and assembles history in chronological order starting from the beginning of the Universe, history of the entire world, i guess can be considered a work of Big History, and is probably one of the most popular works associated with the discipline. It has been called a "must-see"[20] and is considered to be Wurtz's magnum opus.[4][12] In 2020, Thrillist ranked the video at number 40 on its list of best YouTube videos of all time.[21]
Wurtz's song "Just Did a Bad Thing" and the accompanying video spawned TikTok videos of people lip-syncing to the opening lines; in the platform, #ididabadthing became the top hashtag of March 2019.[22][23] Following this, Wurtz would only post four more videos before his break, ending with "Might Quit". After "Might Quit" was released, Wurtz would not post any new videos to YouTube for nearly two years, before continuing to release music and videos animated in 3D with Blender.
Wurtz has developed an absurdist, surreal style on both his music and animation.[24][25] 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.[4] 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".[20] Nick Douglas of Lifehacker summarized him as "somewhere between comedy and education and vaporwave."[26]
Wurtz's music has been classified as jazz-pop, incorporating elements of lo-fi music, smooth jazz, funk and easy listening.[4][27] Wurtz tends to reject genre categorization,[q 2][q 3] and does not consider himself to be a jazz musician.[q 4] Overall, his music evokes malaise, self-deprecation, and a "blurring of the lines between irony, parody and honesty".[28] This is often paired comedically with dire circumstances or sobering undertones.[29] 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."[30]: 0:00:46 Wurtz's voice has been described as "silky tenor with range and energy".[4] Artists who have expressed admiration for Wurtz's music include indie musicians Daði Freyr[31] and Sidney Gish,[32] fellow YouTube musician Adam Neely,[33]: 1:25:50 DJ and producer Porter Robinson,[34] as well as Australian singer Sia.[35]
'[Music] 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. One of the classical composers said 'We will never understand music, but music understands us readily and instantly'.
Bill Wurtz, interview from Bass Guitar magazine[36]
Wurtz started playing music at a very early age.[q 5] He has claimed to be "wholly self-taught" as a musician, and regularly downplays the importance of music theory in songwriting and composition, insisting that the sound and feel of music should be prioritized over attempts to conform to theory.[36] In fact, one of the defining characteristics of Wurtz's style is a subversion to conventional approaches to composition. One example is "I Wanna Be a Movie Star", highlighted in an article for the student newspaper The Harbinger, where the author praised Wurtz's skill in incorporating complex time signatures[note 1] without causing the music to feel "either incomplete or too long", instead achieving a sound that "feel[s] completely natural" and "pop-ish".[29]
Wurtz has used different programs to edit his music, including GarageBand from 2009 to 2010,[q 7] and long-discontinued Logic Express 9 until at least 2016.[38]
Wurtz's videos are typically in a lo-fi,[39] neon[2] aesthetic, and have been described as surreal[25] and psychedelic.[5][10] They range from "nonsensical" shorts to animated music videos,[39] and often involve deadpan humor, dancing stick figures, vaporwave-like transitions[4] and neon, sans-serif text on-screen.[24] Wurtz often follows similar patterns in his videos such as multi-layering,[5] and clip art images.[39] He has stated the low-budget quality arose out of a necessity to publish videos regularly and evolved naturally.[5]: 0:35:27
At Vidcon 2018, Wurtz was asked why his style is so different from other YouTube musicians. He stated that he chooses to "live under a rock" and produce his music in isolation rather than take inspiration from other creators on the platform.[40] Wurtz publicly struggles with perfectionism, making use of schedules and deadlines to overcome it.[5] In response to a fan question he explained that in the process of doing this he has "been forced to become an expert on carelessness".[q 8]
Wurtz is decidedly against running advertising on or accepting sponsorships for his videos, despite admitting an "enormous" pressure to do so.[4][39] He has explained that advertisements make him "uncomfortable"[5] and that he thinks they "suck".[39] As a result, all of Wurtz's videos and music are available for free on his website.[citation needed] Wurtz does receive direct fan support, which includes crowdfunding on Patreon,[3] streams on music streaming services, and merchandise sales,[39][5]: 0:44:15 but does not heavily promote any of these revenue streams.[5]
From his first video up until early 2019, Wurtz used Final Cut Express 4, a program that was discontinued as far back as in 2011.[5][41] In 2019, he switched to Final Cut Pro X.[q 9][q 10] Wurtz also taught himself the 3D animation software Blender, which enabled him to create significantly more complex and realistic graphics for his videos.[q 11]
While Wurtz has a larger audience on external platforms like YouTube, he is the most active on his own website, billwurtz.com.[citation needed] Despite being launched in 2014, it has been compared to a late 1990s website due to its simple design.[39] Apart from containing all of his released songs and most of his videos dating back since 2002,[4] the website also features many other types of content not available elsewhere. This includes a questions page, as well as an anagram page, where Wurtz allows fans to request words or phrases out of which he creates anagrams.[42] Additionally, Wurtz vlog-style 'reality' videos depicting his creative process.[4]
Bill Wurtz maintains a section on his website to answer anonymously submitted questions. Wurtz used to have an Ask.fm page,[43] but he discontinued it and created his own questions page to allow for complete anonymous questions and to avoid ads.[q 12] His answers to questions are considered an aspect of Wurtz's creative output; the style of his answers have been described as "verging on the poetic"[39] and "earnest, if somewhat loopy-sounding".[4] One such answer, highlighted in by the website Ok Whatever, addresses a question concerning Wurtz's personality:[39]
10.9.18 7:48 pm how the heck are you so gosh darn wacky?
i'm just trying to be reasonable[q 13][39]
Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result | Ref. |
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2016 | Shorty Awards | Tech & Innovation: Best in Weird | Bill Wurtz | Won | [7] |
From 2009 to 2014, Wurtz self-released his music on Bandcamp. Since then, he has eschewed the album format.[44][45]
Since March 2014, Wurtz has published numerous full-length music videos, following the same format as his shorter videos. He has made them available on his YouTube channel:
Year | Name | Views (millions)[note 2] |
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2014 | "I'm Sad" | 0.3 |
"I'm a Diamond" | 1.7 | |
"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" | 11.4 | |
2016 | "Alphabet Shuffle" | 7.6 |
2017 | "I Wanna Be A Movie Star" | 4.0 |
"Outside" | 6.2 | |
2018 | "La De Da De Da De Da De Day Oh" | 13.1 |
"And the Day Goes On" | 7.6 | |
"Hello Sexy Pants" | 3.3 | |
"Hallelujah" | 1.9 | |
"I'm Best Friends with my Own Front Door" | 3.0 | |
"Mount St. Helens Is About to Blow Up" | 8.1 | |
"The Moon Is Made of Cheese (But I Can't Taste It)" | 3.8 | |
"When I Get Older" | 2.6 | |
"Long Long Long Journey" | 3.2 | |
"Slow Down" | 2.3 | |
"Christmas Isn't Real" | 2.2 | |
"Just Did a Bad Thing" | 8.9 | |
2019 | "At the Airport Terminal" | 3.0 |
"Might Quit" | 13.6 | |
2021 | "Here Comes the Sun" | 8.9 |
"I'm a Princess" | 3.7 | |
"Got Some Money" | 4.5 | |
"More Than a Dream" | 1.9 | |
2022 | "I'm Scared" | 2.0 |
"Fly Around" | 1.0 | |
"9 8 7" | 1.0 | |
"At the Corner Store" | 0.9 | |
"If the World Doesn't End" | 0.8 | |
"I'm a Huge Gamer Most of the Time" | 1.1 | |
"The Ground Plane" | 0.6 | |
"Meet Me in September" | 0.5 | |
"I Like to Wear Soft Clothing" | 0.5 | |
"The Ending" | 0.8 | |
"Where I've Been" | 1.1 |
Wurtz has published many other full-length songs not accompanied by music videos. They are all available on his website,[46] and some are also available on streaming services. Songs include:
2009
2010
2011
2014
2017
Furthermore, Wurtz has published a myriad of shorter songs or jingles on his website ranging from a couple of seconds to up to a minute in length.[46]
i think there are some other channels that have the type of video you are looking for
i don't respect genre names [...]
they are a fun and useful source of hopeless confusion and ambiguity
no
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)
the main lines of movie star, i consider to be alternating 4/4+5/4
i used it during 2009 and 2010 only
i have a deeply rooted and incapacitating perfection problem, and in the process of overcoming it i have been forced to become an expert on carelessness. [...]
[...]it occurred to me that now might actually be the finest time to go ahead and do what is known as the 'final cut transition', which long story short means I have to entirely abandon the primary video editing software I have used for the last 5 years. the reason for that is because it was discontinued in 2011. [...] I always used to say, 'there's never a good time to re-learn everything I know'[...]
i wouldn't consider that an upgrade, that would be more like switching to something entirely new. but i am still probably going to do it
like a hole in the head, do i need another catastrophic upgrade transition. i am using 2.8 and will be there for the next several years until i am ready to rip my life apart once more
the reason I thought ask.fm was good was because you don't have to sign-up just to ask a question. so I used ask.fm, and it worked great. but then about a year later, someone finally told me that that's not true, you actually do have to sign up to ask a question. so I made my own. and as with most things on the site, i like this much better because i can make it exactly how i want and there's no ads
i'm just trying to be reasonable
[...] for the music i use logic express 9, which also doesn't exist anymore [...]
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