Overall, Generation Y breaks into three religious categories.  There are 27 percent who consider themselves “Godly,” 27 percent who are “Godless,” and 46 percent who are Undecided.  This is according to the survey OMG! How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era. generic diflucan This survey found that while today’s young people still follow the same religions their parents did, they differ in their expression of faith.

For many, this means replacing religious services that may feel outdated.  “Most young people today will say they are spiritual, not religious,” said Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, the Jewish chaplain at NYU.  Those spiritual youth believe holiness is subjective, and doesn’t have to be determined by an organized faith.  “People began thinking in terms of ‘me’ and not ‘the community,’” Rabbi Sarna said.

Members of Generation Y are looking to form a community outside of the church and in a more contemporary fashion.

“Religion, for me, is more of a cultural connection with the people I grew up with,” said Kaivan Sattar, a Bangladeshi Muslim sophomore at NYU.  Sattar also said that when it comes to his religion, on a scale from one to ten, he considers himself a six.  “I don’t follow every rule, but I use it as a guide or set of values,” he said.

Prof. Jeremy Walton, of NYU’s religious studies department, believes that this sort of creative construction can help to promote an individual’s spirituality. “My religion is mostly exploratory,” said Dylan Brown, a 20-year-old Jewish sophomore at NYU.  “There’s over a 1000 years of knowledge, and I like to think of it as a lifestyle, not a religion.”  By determining what they believe to be true, members of Generation Y have to determine what they believe is false.  Generation Y has been forced to think critically about religion, and they are thinking outside the box.

While Walton sees this as being a good thing, people like Ghamashyam Das, a Hare Krishna monk, see it as a bad thing.  “If everyone has a say in religion, then it’s all relative,” he said.  “There can be no ultimate good, ultimate evil, or ultimate truth. Instead it’s just all shades of gray.”  Das believes that this customization of beliefs is more due to Generation Y’s indifference, not their curiosity.  “Tolerance isn’t really tolerance in the world we live in,” he said.  “Beneath the surface it’s just indifference. People are really/saying, I don’t care which [religion] is right.”

Experts like Walton and Das are still trying to account for why this change is happening, but they both admit there is a change.   Today, it’s harder to find someone strongly devoted to his or her religion than someone indifferent towards it.  “I should be thinking about God 24/7, to the point where he’s putting decisions in my head,” said Evie Olson, a Catholic Studies and Journalism major at the University of St. Thomas. While Olson represents this minority of Generation Y, she still has a similar goal to her peers.  “Even though the church isn’t perfect, we still need it,” she said.  “You communicate with God through the church, it creates community.”

Mash-ups, the genre that the “Grey Album” is a part of, fall into a legal middle ground.  Downloading, sampling, and distributing recording artists’ music violates copyright laws, which are still trying to catch up to this new technology.  Sampling and remixing music isn’t a new phenomenon, but only recently became a complicated legal issue.  The music industry is now suing its consumers, despite the fact that few current laws regulate this kind of music sharing.

(“What More Can I Say” by DJ Danger Mouse)

In the digital age, copying and spreading music is a much easier task.  Every time a music file is downloaded illegally, a new copy of it is made which can be shared in turn.  “Basically, the music industry is slipping towards anarchy, and the record companies are trying to keep control of their revenue streams,” said Professor Sam Howard-Spink, professor of music copyright law at Steinhart School of Media, Culture, and Communications at New York University.

Copyright Laws

The Sugar Hill Gang was the first band to feature music sampling in their chart-topping hit, “Rapper’s Delight.”  The group sampled a beat from Chic’s popular disco song, “Good Times,” added a few other instruments, and rapped on top of it.  “This sort of sampling led to what I like to call the ‘P. Diddy’ kind of sampling,” said Josh Terrill, a content coordinator for the record company Artist Arena.  “Artists like Kanye West or P. Diddy loop one song and then karaoke on top.”  These practices, which Terrill considers to be an augmented interpretation of traditional practices, have been around since music has been recorded.

Copyright laws, which were originally designed to foster creativity within the music community, were adjusted and reinforced after Walt Disney created his empire. After Disney passed, the company he left behind lobbied Congress to strengthen copyright laws in order to protect his images of Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters.  Now, a copyright lasts the lifetime of the composer plus either 75 or 95 years depending on how strong the cultural impact is as determined by congress.  At that point, a copyright can be renewed if the property is still deemed culturally valuable.  Basically, Mickey is still the exclusive property of Disney because he still brings in profit.

After the Internet

According to Professor Howard-Spink, in order for piracy to have existed before the Internet, a lot of money needed to be invested. “You would need to have every stage of production to copy music illegally, whether it be pressing vinyl, making tapes or CDs,” he said.

Now, with the accessibility of the Internet, mash-up artists tend to ignore the part about buying the rights, and instead just mix with what they like.  This can, however, lead to a win-win situation. “If [mash-up artists] are playing your music it means they like it,” said Terril. “If they didn’t, they wouldn’t use it.”  This means that, if the original song is good, both the mash-up artist and the original artist can receive publicity. Of course, this is where the legal trouble tends to follow.

Girl Talk, a.k.a. Gregg Gillis, is a famous mash-up artist who uses an average of 21 music clips per song. If he paid, the cost would average $260,000 per song and $4.2 million per album according to “RiP: A Remix Manifesto.”  Instead, he and other mash-up artists use legal loopholes to spread their music, since they are not allowed to sell their work for commercial gain. “Technically, Girl Talk is not for commercial purposes.  His album is a pay what you want,” said Howard-Spink.  Girl Talk chose to allow the consumer to decide what to pay, saying that this “[makes] it easy for people to get their hands on the music, which is my number one priority.”

By not asking a specific price for his music, Girl Talk makes the argument that his music is not for commercial reasons.  His 2008 release of “Feed the Animals,” the second most popular album of 2008 according to Blender Magazine, brought him enough recognition to earn him top booking at music festivals across the country.   This brought him the income of a recording artist, even with a strictly promotional and not commercial album.

(Mash-up videos featuring all the songs that Girl Talk samples in his album “Feed The Animals”)

Bridging the Gap

The music business is still trying to bridge the gap between mash-up artists like Girl Talk and recording artists.  In 2004, David Bowie held a competition to see who could make the best mash-up from two of his songs, for which the grand prize was a sports car.  The purpose of this competition was not to support mash-up artists as much as it was to promote David Bowie’s own music.  Following the competition, Bowie owned the rights to all of the new songs that were submitted, as well as the original clips that had been used.  This allowed for the struggling mash up artists to get their names out their while Bowie was able to retain all the rights to his songs.  This hasn’t happened very often, but serves as an example of mutual benefit.

This success does not go unnoticed by the music business—mash-ups are so popular online that the music industry has become more selective with their legal attacks, looking for a way to harness this genre without the legal complications.

“There are fights between legal departments and the marketing departments,” said Terrill.  “The marketing departments think this is going to be the next frontier of music, but the legal staff is too concerned with royalties and possible attacks from other companies.”  Until these problems rectify with each other, mash up artists will have to remain in the legal middle ground.

In 1968, Walter Cronkite spoke out against the Vietnam War on CBS.  “It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate,” he told America. As a result of Cronkite’s address, American opinion of the war shifted overnight.  Lyndon Johnson is rumored to have said, “I’ve lost Middle America.”

For millions of baby boomers and their parents Cronkite was considered an influential celebrity; someone who because of his years as a journalist could be trusted.  As media continues to democratize, generation Y’s concept of celebrity continues to change. Today, with the advent of YouTube, becoming a celebrity is easier than ever.  YouTube not only promotes existing celebrities, but it also breeds its own stars.  

Although YouTube makes it easier to develop a fan base, no modern celebrity matches the authority had by Walter Cronkite. “Our concept of ‘celebrity’ has become so diluted,” said Adam Penenberg, a journalist and author whose book, “The Viral Loop,” examines companies that survive by going viral. “Today, there is no one celebrity that has this kind of power.”

 In 2008, YouTube attracted 300 million viewers worldwide, more than any network on television. It is the second largest search engine in the world behind only Google, according to comScore Media Matrix.

Of the top ten most viewed clips on YouTube, six are music videos made by chart-topping pop stars like Avril Lavigne and Rihanna. The other four are celebrities whose fame is exclusive to YouTube and the surrounding Internet community. The crossover between the two groups remains limited.

Some success stories have percolated through to the mainstream celebrity status.  Bo Burnham is a comedic musician whose channel on YouTube earned him a recording contract, a special on Comedy Central and a 26-city tour across the United States.   

Like Burnham, independent filmmaker Jon Foster expanded his celebrity beyond YouTube. Foster was nominated for a BAFTA award for an interactive zombie film that he started on YouTube. It was then picked up by the BBC.

But, not all YouTube celebrities experience success like Foster or Burnham. Since YouTube is still a developing medium, the proportion of Internet celebrity recognition remains lower than mainstream celebrity recognition. YouTube’s grassroots promotion style is ideal for producing a large quantity of celebrities, but their fame is extremely limited.

So, how does a Burnham or a Foster make it on YouTube?  “The appeal of most viral and truly popular videos tends to be rooted in a sense of intimate authenticity,” wrote author Vicky Allan in her article, “Famous for 15 Minutes? Who Needs that Long?” This authenticity is difficult to produce artificially, which is why Hollywood has not been able to tap into YouTube as well as the standard contributor. 

YouTube, still an emerging medium, has not caught up to Hollywood, which for almost a century has shown that it has the power and money to build celebrities.  “Back during the ‘I Love Lucy’ era, there were only three networks on television,” said Penenberg. “So, advertisers knew where to put their money.” Today, without the support of advertisers, big YouTube stars can’t flourish the way Lucille Ball once did. The internet is too chaotic and unstable.

While YouTube stars haven’t addressed a nation on the Vietnam War or cast their footprints on the Hollywood walk of fame, they are slowly infiltrating mainstream media. These YouTube stars are creating a new platform for a more viral celebrity status—one click at a time.