culture / music

Open Mic Adventures XLVI: “Canon Event”

The Portly Politico5 Comments

As I’ve delved deeper into YouTube, I’ve discovered the platform has a little blog for creators that points out the major Internet trends of the moment.  The Internet is constantly evolving, with new trends and memes coming and going the shifting tides—but faster!  Apparently, Gen Zers are running around calling charisma “rizz.”  We have always been at war with Eurasia!

One meme doing the rounds is the “canon event” meme.  The meme comes from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), where multiple Peter Parkers (or their equivalents) from multiple universes all experience certain “canon events,” which are (allegedly) unalterable:  the bite from the radioactive spider; the death of a beloved family member; the loss of the love interest; etc.  In meme form, YouTubers and TikTok(k?)ers will feature milestone or rite-of-passage events as “canon events,” often remarking, “I cannot interfere.”  These events are typically something cringe-inducing or silly, like picking a weird name for PlayStation online.

I find the concept of “canon events”—what we used to call a “rite of passage”—interesting, and thought I’d hop on the Internet bandwagon with a little piano piece called “Canon Event.”

The memetic “canon event” tends to be linked to some trauma, because all of these kids without any real problems apparently find the slightest inconveniences to be “traumatic experiences” (if there’s one word I could bar from casual use, it would be “trauma”).  I took a more optimistic approach with my piece “Canon Event,” giving it a more triumphant quality.  I wrote it as a fanfare in Eb major:

Unfortunately, my scheme to capitalize on the popularity of the phrase did not really pan out as I wished.  The YouTube video has struggled to get significant views:

I think the face that I posted the piece on a Friday morning had something to do with the low views (so far, Mondays seem to be the big day for views, for some reason).

As always, here’s the manuscript.  I stray from it slightly in the performance, but largely stay true to what I composed:

Canon Event Manuscript

Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Editions of Open Mic Adventures:

5 thoughts on “Open Mic Adventures XLVI: “Canon Event””

  1. That was really quite lovely. I wish I knew how to speak ‘music’; all I can do is give a hint and hope you can understand what I’m trying to convey. It sounded to me like what classical music would sound like if it were “20something”. A younger sound but still remembering its classical parent. Sigh. I hope you know what I mean.

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  2. Superb! 👍

    I’m not a fan though of the multi verse or superhero offerings for that matter and have zero intention of watching 20 Peter Parkers in the same movie. Superhero films ran their course a few years ago. Time for something new.

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