Karaoke Education and Social Class
March 31st, 2008 by vincebates
Barb wrote a comment on a previous post, Kids and Microphones (thanks, Barb!) and mentioned that some colleagues disapprove of Karaoke in the music classroom. The aversion some feel towards karaoke in North American–that it isn’t considered ’serious’ music–may be related to class bias. Consider the following research article abstract:
Drew, R. (2005). ‘Once more, with irony’: karaoke and social class. Leisure studies, 24/4: 371-383.
“Abstract: Karaoke’s mimetic character can provide a conduit for personal growth and interpersonal empathy. Yet, karaoke is not always understood this way, and one factor determining how it is understood is social class. Karaoke’s class markers have been clear, though very different, in Eastern and Western cultures. Whereas in Japan karaoke first became popular among the upper-middle class, in the USA it was popularized by the working and lower-middle classes. As karaoke gained a following among working-class Americans it was often shunned by the urban middle class. Yet by the late 1990s an alternative aesthetic of karaoke, characterized by an ironic performance style, developed among middle-class urbanites. This essay describes these opposing styles of mimetic and ironic performance, explains the motives behind them, and considers what happens when they come into contact.”
