Friday, November 23, 2012

Cultural Literacy through Minecraft Parody?

Our of our family's great vices is eating out. A while back, we were at a restaurant when our son began to sing and dance in his seat. It was the (in)famous Gangnam Style by Psy. Now, I just had to look up the title of the song to spell it correctly; I know the song because of the students at my school, but I never played it at home.  How did my son know about this phenomenon so well? It was because he watched a Minecraft parody song to the tune.




The interesting thing is that this isn't the first time that my son has known about popular music through Minecraft. I pulled him away from playing Minecraft (planting TNT in the Wither) to give me just a short list of the songs he knows that are Minecraft versions of current top 10 hits.

  • Revenge
  • I'll Make Some Cake
  • Creepers are Terrible
Unless he actually sings them or gives me the links (neither of which he was interested in doing when I interrupted him), I don't recognize what the original song is supposed to be. I vaguely recall there's a version of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" that is a tribute to Minecraft.  I wonder how many other current events or references are highlighted through Minecraft related videos?  After all, my son understands the Bible a lot more in depth because of that video game "The Binding of Isaac" (a game which, I should mention, he's never played; he has only watched play-throughs on YouTube). What else might he pick up when it wears a Minecraft skin?

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