Abstracts
Abstract
In times of social upheaval, people create and engage with verbal art for entertainment and a feeling of connection. While millions of people were forced to stay home to reduce the spread of COVID‑19 from March to July 2020, verbal artists posted recorded performances online and viewers had more time than usual to watch and share them. COVID verbal art refers to songs, poems, and comedy skits that mention social and physical distancing, quarantine and isolation, hygiene and cleaning practices, everyday experiences during the pandemic, as well as social and political critiques of policies and practices that explicitly mention COVID‑19 or coronavirus. An examination of 227 verbal art performances posted on YouTube and TikTok provides an ethnographic record of how everyday life has changed over time during the COVID‑19 pandemic, and how the focus shifted from initial confusion to political critique.
Keywords:
- verbal art,
- performance,
- parody,
- COVID‑19,
- coronavirus,
- pandemic,
- YouTube
Résumé
En période de bouleversements sociaux, les gens créent ou consomment de l’art verbal pour se divertir et se sentir connectés. Alors que des millions de personnes étaient contraintes de rester chez elles pour réduire la propagation de la COVID-19 entre mars et juillet 2020, des praticiens de l’art verbal ont mis en ligne des performances enregistrées, et les spectateurs ont eu plus de temps pour les regarder et les partager. L’art verbal COVID, ce sont des chansons, des poèmes et des sketches comiques qui évoquent la distanciation sociale et physique, la quarantaine et l’isolement, les pratiques d’hygiène et de nettoyage, les expériences quotidiennes pendant la pandémie, ou encore des critiques sociales et politiques de mesures et pratiques faisant explicitement référence à la COVID-19 ou au coronavirus. L’étude de 227 performances artistiques verbales publiées sur YouTube et TikTok dresse un portrait ethnographique de l’évolution de la vie quotidienne au cours de la pandémie de COVID-19 ainsi que du passage d’un état de confusion initiale à la critique politique.
Mots-clés :
- art verbal,
- performance,
- parodie,
- COVID-19,
- coronavirus,
- pandémie,
- YouTube
Appendices
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