[HOST] One of the many trends sweeping Tik-Tok today is an homage to Adult
Swim - the late night TV destination for a generation of millennials and Gen-Z.
But the trend isn’t honoring Adult Swim’s animated classics like Aqua Teen Hunger Force,
The Boondocks or even Rick & Morty.
RICK: You’re staying in here where it’s safe.
[HOST] Instead, it’s focused on the commercials or bumps that would air in between the shows.
The Adult Swim ethos of sound & verbiage is really
what links it all together...But I’ll get into all of that later.
The viral videos tap into viewers' sense
of nostalgia - full of late nights staying up to watch ‘Loiter Squad’
WELL THIS IS NOT HOW I CLEAN UP
or ‘Squidbillies’ while Adult Swim reminds you that maybe it’s time to go to bed.
But how did this trend start and how did take off so fast?
Vano: the importance of Adult Swim in my life is freedom.
[HOST] That’s Vano 3000 - the creator of both the beat and the trend that blew up
on TikTok. He spoke with Genius to break down his inspiration and talk about the
importance of Adult Swim’s musical ethos. VANO: I feel like Adult Swim has gone out
of their way to like choose the avant garde style of music and imagery and a
representation of culture that's not represented. [HOST] Vano started the trend in late May,
when he flipped the beat of “Time Moves Slow” from Toronto based band BadBadNotGood.
VANO: The same day that I made the beat, I had decided just to upload it. ‘Cause
I was, I had a special feeling about it. [HOST] He released a mukbang with
the beat but it was a chance recording of a Times
Square Spiderman that forced it to take off. VANO: When I look back on that video and I
played the beat, I was like, yo, this looks like an adult swim commercial...I
wrote this sound works with everything, try it out and then I put the Adult Swim bumper...from there
it just blew up. It just went out of control. [HOST] The irony is that Adult Swim’s commercials
are primarily white text on a black background. What Vano is talking about here is a cheeky
feeling of watching a video being in on the joke, soundtracked to some chill but dope music.
Since the channel’s inception in 2001 as a late night follow up to Cartoon Network’s youth
focused programming, Adult Swim’s earliest bumps, soundtracked by Dust Devil’s “D Code,” served as a
way to show that it was for “grown ups.” Adult swim! All kids out of the pool!
[HOST] But in 2003 they switched to the white text on black background that we know today.
According to data from Adult Swim, they have produced nearly 20k bumps since then.
The music in the bumps was meant to be relaxing.
Adult Swim Senior VP Jason DeMarco once said quote.
And since then, these small commercials have been putting
us on to work from hundreds of artists from the late great like J Dilla...
to MF Doom...
...to Flying Lotus - who only submitted his beats after seeing a call out on the channel.
FLYLO- It just blew me away man. The only TV you would watch you’re hearing you music on.
[HOST] Lotus has had dozens of his sounds featured in these interstitials - like
his song “Massage Situation''off of 2007’s ‘Reset’ being flipped into “baggage room”...
And it doesn't stop there. There are hundreds of beats from legendary artists like Madlib,
Danger Mouse, and Thelonius Martin.
Martin, like the aforementioned Flying Lotus
cites Adult Swim as formative in his music knowledge. He once said quote.
ELI: The bumps are like, again, it's the heart and soul of Adult Swim. The black and white
text is super iconic for everyone who knows. It's been around way before I've been there
and it continues to be a large part of what keeps Adult Swim, Adult Swim
[HOST] That’s Elijah Watkins, Associate Writer and Producer for Adult Swim’s social media team.
According to him, they had no hand in this at all. ELI: My first thought was, one, oh damn,
this is really cool. That it's not like Rick and Morty or something, that's at the
moment blowing up on the internet. Our actual aesthetic, quote-unquote, and two, I thought,
wow, people are amazingly creative. [HOST] But when they caught wind,
they were quick to let everyone know to keep going.
Eli: Extremely dumbfounded that, kids who never even grew up with cable,
there's no way they could have seen Adult Swim and the bumps, were able to quickly understand
it and replicate it in the way that they did. [HOST] The bumps serve as a way to give the
channel a voice and speak directly to its viewers - making the network more of a
friend than a TV channel. A published media studies paper once noted quote.
Eli: I would say Adult Swim is your real friend sometimes they’re funny and they’re irreverent
and a dick but also sometiems they’re giving you great music and great vibes.
[HOST] And the range of TikTok’s that have been posted go from just jokes to inspiration.
Eli:The voice of what people were doing with those from bump challenge trend, was to me one of the
most inspiring things about the trend, because I loved how wholesome it was. Everyone kept using
the word wholesome. I would agree with that. [HOST] As for Vano, this is the breakout song
he’s been looking for his whole life. VANO: We may have a chance at charting
if the streams keep up the way they are right now...I think we're going to
hit a 100,000 streams today on the first day, [HOST] Adult Swim’s 15 second commercials were
ahread of their time and really left an imprint. Showing us that mining the past
for the present really let an imprint - they were ahead of their time and the
music left us with some great memories. I’m Jacques Morel with Genius News,
bringing you the meaning and the knowledge behind the music. Peace!