How Electracy Shaped Bobby Shmurda’s Career

In my English, technical writing class, I have learned and read a lot about electracy. Electracy is what the world is coming towards, everything being revolved around the Internet. The world is moving from a world of literacy to a world of electracy. Electracy has changed our lives by the way we think, write and respond to situations. The Internet is a host for a lot of things, good and bad. Electracy is participating on the Internet and all around us. Bobby Shmurda aka Ackquille Jean Pollard is just a regular American rapper from the projects in Brooklyn who made a video to one of his rap songs “Hot Nigga” that exploded the summer of 2014. The power electracy has, Bobby Shmurda was able to become as famous as he is today through, spreadability, entertainment, play and trace.

When the “Shmoney Dance” came out, it has blown up on Vine, and Twitter. On YouTube it has more than 92 million views. Viewers thought this meme was interesting that made them repurpose it into their own meme while participating in it causing this meme to become spreadable. Spreadability is the ability for online participants to share, comment and like something causing it to be shared globally all over the world. Viewers made up their own version of the dance, uploading it to various websites mimicking the “Shmoney dance.” It became viral that even celebrities started making their own videos and uploading them creating more views of the shmoney dance. This builded Bobby Shmurda’s name making him become more famous. This spreadability was 100% successful in electracy, which means the Internet was used to promote participating and sharing of this meme.

Entertainment is all over the Internet. It is not only videos but also photos, & comments as well. Entertainment and play goes hand in hand with the shmoney dance. In electracy, on the Internet, memes are apart of entertainment for the viewers and play is apart of the entertainment. In Bobby Shmurda’s video, the play or movie video aspect is apart of its entertainment. In the video, he plays as if he is shooting a gun; smoking marijuana; has a cup in his hand as if he was drinking alcohol and also he plays around with his shmoney dance making it entertaining for viewers. Also he used the hood as his location for the video including many friends from the area. His video received over 92 million views on YouTube because of the entertainment & play Bobby Shmurda performed on his video.

Each and every link shared, liked or commented on makes up Bobby Shmurda’s Identity. There is always a trace on the Internet of every individual. The Internet always leaves a possibility for traces every time you launch another site or even post a blog, comment or like a picture. Everyone’s traces on the Internet of Bobby Shmurda made up his identity. This links together with the attraction display in electracy. If it attracts the audience it would be shared. He is successful in creating an identity for himself by the help of others sharing and repurposing his video that was shared virally around the world. His video attracted many viewers. Many people did agree that his video took off because of the “hood” aspect of the video and his signature shmoney dance. The hood aspect of the video, relates to many people with Bobby Shmurda, smoking, drinking, and using gunplay. The Shmoney dance he does, is simply moving your legs right to left with your own twist to it. This attraction display in the video, promoted itself, and was repurposed by everyone who participated in sharing his music. They left a trace of him and, those traces makes Bobby Shmurda who he is today.