Bill Wurtz

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Not to be confused with Bill Wertz or Bill Wirtz.

Bill Wurtz
A green umbrella on a black background
Wurtz's YouTube icon
Background information
Also known asBilly Wilds (2009-2010)
Genres
Occupation(s)
Instrument(s)
  • Vocals
  • piano
  • keyboards
  • bass guitar
  • drums
Years active2002–present
Websitebillwurtz.com
YouTube information
Channel
Years active
  • 2010
  • 2012–present
Genres
Subscribers5.47 million[1]
Total views751 million[1]
100,000 subscribers2016
1,000,000 subscribers2017
Last updated: February 5, 2024

Bill Wurtz (stylized in lower case as bill wurtz or billwurtz) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, animator, video editor, and internet personality. He is known for his distinctive musical, comedic, and narrative style which includes calm, deadpan delivery and singing paired with colorful surrealist, psychedelic, and non-sequitur graphics.

Wurtz first published material on YouTube in 2013. He set up a website in 2014, presenting a catalog of music and videos he had created since 2002. Wurtz proceeded to upload edited versions of his videos on Vine, where he gained his initial popularity. He experienced breakout success on YouTube with his animated videos, history of japan (2016), and history of the entire world, i guess (2017).

Career[edit]

Early work[edit]

Wurtz's first recorded composition was an instrumental named "Late Nite Lounge with Loud Lenny", which was recorded on June 17, 2002, and his first recorded song was "stuck in a rut" in March 2005.[2]

Vine videos[edit]

Wurtz was first known for his presence on the short-form video-sharing website Vine,[3][4] where he first gained a following in 2014.[2] He began by taking short videos he had previously published to his website and re-editing them to fit Vine's six-second restriction.[2] Before transitioning fully to YouTube, Wurtz was uploading a video to Vine nearly every day.[5] He received early attention in 2015 for the short video "Shaving My Piano", which was covered briefly in The Verge.[6] On April 11, 2016, Wurtz won the Shorty Award for "Tech & Innovation: Weird" at the 8th Shorty Awards; during the awards ceremony, attention was given to one of his Vine uploads "I'm Still a Piece of Garbage".[7] At the awards ceremony, his acceptance speech consisted of the words "Thank you."[2] Wurtz withdrew from making vines to focus on finishing history of japan.[r 1]

YouTube[edit]

Wurtz created his current YouTube channel in September 2013.[2]

history of japan[edit]

External videos
video icon history of japan, YouTube video or download

Alongside interest on Vine, Wurtz achieved wider popularity in 2016 with history of japan, a nine-minute YouTube video that outlines Japan's history.[8] Wurtz chose the topic due to his lack of knowledge of it.[r 2][2] The video covers key events of its history: "Buddhism, internal conflict, alliances with Britain, World War I, World War II, the dropping of atomic bombs and its post-war economic miracle".[9] It showcases Wurtz's quirky visual and comedic style through a mixture of fast-paced narration and animation, intercut with short musical jingles. The video was described as "an entertaining new approach to education".[10] It went viral on social media after its release on February 2, 2016, and under a week later, received over four million views by February 8.[9] It particularly received considerable attention on Tumblr[3] and Reddit.[8] As of November 2023, the video has over 80 million views. German Lopez of Vox called it a "strange", "pretty good – and surprisingly funny" video. Lopez noted the poor coverage of Japanese war crimes committed against Korea and China in the 20th century, particularly the Nanjing Massacre and the use of Korean sex slaves, and attributed this omission to the video's short runtime.[11]

history of the entire world, i guess[edit]

External videos
video icon history of the entire world, i guess, YouTube video or download

Wurtz released a 20-minute overview of world history, history of the entire world, i guess, on May 10, 2017.[12] The video took over 11 months to produce, including almost 3 months of research[5] – it briefly covers the topics of natural history and human civilization spanning from the Big Bang to the near future.[13] The video marked the continued development of Wurtz's cinematic style, with fast-paced, absurdist humor and jazz-like musical interludes.[14]

History of the entire world, i guess was the top video on the YouTube trending page on the day of its release, receiving 3.2 million views on its first day, and on Reddit it became the most upvoted YouTube link of all time.[4][15] It became an Internet meme[16] and was listed at eighth place on YouTube's list of the top 10 trending videos of the year.[17] As of May 2024, it has over 167 million views.[18] Writer German Lopez for the news website Vox praised the video for not heavily focusing on western and US history, and successfully covering other areas in world history which may be neglected in US schools, such as powers in China, Persia, and India.[19] Because it resists specialization and assembles history in chronological order starting from the beginning of the Universe, history of the entire world, i guess can be considered a work of Big History, and is probably one of the most popular works associated with the discipline. It has been called a "must-see"[20] and is considered to be Wurtz's magnum opus.[2][12] In 2020, Thrillist ranked the video at number 40 on its list of best YouTube videos of all time.[21]

Music[edit]

Wurtz's song "Just Did a Bad Thing" and the accompanying video spawned TikTok videos of people lip-syncing to the opening lines; in the platform, #ididabadthing became the top hashtag of March 2019.[22][23] Following this, Wurtz would only post four more videos before his break, ending with "Might Quit". After "Might Quit" was released, Wurtz would not post any new videos to YouTube for nearly two years, before continuing to release music and videos animated in 3D with Blender.

Style[edit]

Wurtz has developed an absurdist, surreal style on both his music and animation.[24][25] Eddie Kim wrote for MEL Magazine that Wurtz "refuses to mimic anyone else's animation or musical style, but it's not weird for weirdness' sake alone", comparing him to Thundercat and Louis Cole and highlighting Wurtz's pretty pop melodies, unexpected chords and multi-layered rhythms as commonalities.[2] Geoff Carter of Las Vegas Weekly stated: "Merge Don Hertzfeldt, Jenny Holzer and Thundercat and you might get someone a little bit like Bill Wurtz".[20]

Music[edit]

Wurtz's music has been classified as jazz pop, incorporating elements of lo-fi music, smooth jazz, funk and easy listening.[2][26] Overall, his music evokes malaise, self-deprecation, and a "blurring of the lines between irony, parody and honesty".[27] In an interview with Genius, Wurtz stated that "it's a good... songwriting technique to write about something bad with a good sounding melody, because if you can get people to feel good about something bad, then you're bulletproof in life."[28]: 0:00:46  Wurtz's voice has been described as "silky tenor with range and energy".[2] He plays instruments including piano, bass guitar, and drums.[2]

Artists who have expressed admiration for Wurtz's music include indie musicians Daði Freyr[29] and Sidney Gish[30] and DJ and producer Porter Robinson.[31]

Wurtz started playing music at a very early age.[q 1] In an interview with Bass Guitar magazine, he said he was "wholly self-taught" as a musician, and he downplayed the importance of music theory in songwriting and composition, saying,"'Theory' may be fun, but it's made of liquid and has a tendency to melt. The music comes first and then you figure out how to describe what happened, although fully describing it can never be done."[32]

Videos[edit]

Wurtz's videos are typically in a lo-fi,[33] neon[3] aesthetic, and have been described as surreal[25] and psychedelic.[5][10] They range from "nonsensical" shorts to animated music videos,[33] and often involve deadpan humor, dancing stick figures, vaporwave-like transitions[2] and neon, sans-serif text on-screen.[24] Wurtz often follows patterns in his videos such as multi-layering,[5] and clip art images.[33] He has stated the low-budget quality arose out of a necessity to publish videos regularly and evolved naturally.[5]: 0:35:27  Wurtz publicly struggles with perfectionism, making use of schedules and deadlines to overcome it.[5]

Wurtz is decidedly against running advertising on or accepting sponsorships for his videos, despite admitting an "enormous" pressure to do so.[2][33] He has explained that advertisements make him "uncomfortable"[5] and that he thinks they "suck".[33] Wurtz does receive direct fan support, which includes crowdfunding on Patreon,[4] streams on music streaming services, and merchandise sales,[33][5]: 0:44:15  but does not heavily promote any of these revenue streams.[5]

Website[edit]

10.9.18  7:48 pm how the heck are you so gosh darn wacky?
i'm just trying to be reasonable
— A question and answer on Wurtz's website[q 2][33]

Wurtz launched his personal website billwurtz.com in 2014.[33] Its simple design has been compared to a late 1990s website.[33] The website contains all of his released songs and most of his videos dating back to 2002, as well as vlog-style "reality" videos depicting his creative process.[2] Wurtz maintains a section on his website to answer anonymously submitted questions. The style of his answers has been described as "verging on the poetic"[33] and "earnest, if somewhat loopy-sounding".[2]

Wurtz is active on Instagram and Twitter, with humorous Tweets in the style of Weird Twitter.[2]

Awards[edit]

Year Award Category Nominee Result Ref.
2016 Shorty Awards Tech & Innovation: Best in Weird Bill Wurtz Won [7]

Discography[edit]

Music videos[edit]

Year Name Views (millions)[note 1]
2014 "I'm Sad" 0.3
"I'm a Diamond" 1.8
"Barf On Me" 0.1
"Feel Okay" 0.2
"Dance The" 0.2
"Tape Deck" 0.1
"New Canaan" 0.7
"Still Silly" 0.1
"I Like" 0.3
"Tuesday" 0.3
"Icy James" 0.1
"I'm Confused (I Love You)" 1.1
"Blind (To no Avail)" 0.2
"Hey Jodie Foster" 0.1
2015 "I'm Crazy / It's Raining" 1.4
"You're Free to Do Whatever You Want to" 1.8
"School" 11.6
2016 "Alphabet Shuffle" 7.7
2017 "I Wanna Be A Movie Star" 4.0
"Outside" 6.4
2018 "La De Da De Da De Da De Day Oh" 13.6
"And the Day Goes On" 7.9
"Hello Sexy Pants" 3.4
"Hallelujah" 1.9
"I'm Best Friends with my Own Front Door" 3.1
"Mount St. Helens Is About to Blow Up" 8.6
"The Moon Is Made of Cheese (But I Can't Taste It)" 3.9
"When I Get Older" 2.7
"Long Long Long Journey" 3.4
"Slow Down" 2.5
"Christmas Isn't Real" 2.3
"Just Did a Bad Thing" 9.2
2019 "At the Airport Terminal" 3.2
"Might Quit" 14.2
2021 "Here Comes the Sun" 9.6
"I'm a Princess" 4.0
"Got Some Money" 4.9
"More Than a Dream" 2.0
2022 "I'm Scared" 2.3
"Fly Around" 1.2
"9 8 7" 1.1
"At the Corner Store" 1.2
"If the World Doesn't End" 1.0
"I'm a Huge Gamer Most of the Time" 1.4
"The Ground Plane" 0.8
"Meet Me in September" 0.6
"I Like to Wear Soft Clothing" 0.7
"The Ending" 1.1
"Where I've Been" 1.7

Bandcamp releases[edit]

Albums:[34]

  • What the Fuck (2010)
  • Church Sessions (2010)
  • The Summertime (2010)
  • Fun Music (2011)

EPs:

  • Yikes (2009)
  • The Song Song (2009)
  • Guerilla Myspace Project (2009)
  • Bach Garageband (2010)
  • Burger King Spring (2010)
  • April Flowers (2010)
  • It's All About the Ladies (2010)
  • Fly July (2010)
  • Short Butt Suites (2010)
  • Fall Sprawl (2010)
  • Murder Your Demon (2011)
  • When is it Time to Come Home Again? (2011)
  • Soap Boat (2011)
  • Love (2011)
  • Pain (2011)
  • Hi-Bye (New Shorts) (2013)
  • New School (2014)
  • We Could Just Get Right (2014)
  • Eat Dirt Shorts (2014)
  • My Next Album (2014)
  • High Enough (2014)

Other songs[edit]

The following songs are available on Wurtz's website:[35]

2009

  • "The Song Song" (August 10, 2009)
  • "15 Minutes" (November 28, 2009)

2010

  • "Be Free and Don't Sell Records" (July 8, 2010)
  • "Desk and Chair" (July 15, 2010)
  • "Song 41" (August 26, 2010)
  • "2010" (September 7, 2010)
  • "Eat Bread (Feel Sure)" (September 13, 2010)
  • "The Trees" (October 14, 2010)
  • "I'm About to Graduate from School" (November 7, 2010)
  • "Fever" (November 11, 2010)
  • "Dream of Evil" (November 24, 2010)

2011

  • "Murder Your Demon" (January 14, 2011)
  • "Dumpies" (January 25, 2011)
  • "Blue Boy" (May 22, 2011)
  • "How Am I Spost" (May 22, 2011)
  • "Home Again" (May 23, 2011)
  • "The Stupid Song" (June 1, 2011)
  • "No Place like Home" (June 16, 2011)
  • "Do the Thing" (June 20, 2011)
  • "I Love You" (June 20, 2011)
  • "Go to the Store" (June 24, 2011)
  • "(What) Love Is" (July 11, 2011)
  • "Do What You Want to Do" (July 15, 2011)
  • "All U Need Is Love" (August 2, 2011)
  • "The World" (September 2, 2011)
  • "Home" (September 9, 2011)
  • "I Guess I've Got to Listen to Bob Marley" (September 23, 2011)
  • "Stupid Song" (September 26, 2011)

2014

  • "Textin on my iPhone" (February 12, 2014)
  • "Rabbit Snakes" (February 26, 2014)
  • "The Future Song" (March 5, 2014)
  • "We Could Just Get High" (March 19, 2014)
  • "I'm in Bryant Park" (March 26, 2014)
  • "It's Gonna Be Alright" (April 23, 2014)
  • "Write a Song on the Count of 3" (May 28, 2014)
  • "This Is a Song for my Next Album" (June 11, 2014)
  • "Goo Soup" (July 9, 2014)
  • "I Wanna Sail You Away" (July 23, 2014)
  • "I Can Play" (September 3, 2014)
  • "The Road" (September 17, 2014)

2017

  • "In California" (May 30, 2017)
  • "I Love You" (June 6, 2017)
  • "Got to Know What's Going On" (June 20, 2017)

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Last updated: April 2024

References[edit]

Bill Wurtz's questions page[edit]

  1. ^ Wurtz, Bill (February 15, 2021). "[...]Did people in your life have an influence on you developing this skill?". billwurtz.com. Retrieved February 16, 2021. i was able to hear a lot of music on records[...]and I will confess I also had access to a piano/keyboard instrument, and a drum set.[...] Having an extremely early start, it was pretty natural to find me in many many personal and professional music relationships with peers (well at first it was usually people much older than me because I was so young to start)
  2. ^ Wurtz, Bill (October 9, 2018). "how the heck are you so gosh darn wacky". billwurtz.com. Retrieved September 5, 2019. i'm just trying to be reasonable

Bill Wurtz's reality page[edit]

  1. ^ Wurtz, Bill (2016). "1.16.16". billwurtz.com. made a serious decision to stop doing vines which i know seems like madness, but we're doing it for a good reason: we're finishing the long projects and then we're finishing more projects after that.
  2. ^ Wurtz, Bill (2015). "2015-10-25". billwurtz.com. I would like to try history of Japan, just because it's random. I know nothing about it, it just seems like a sweet spot.

Other sources[edit]

  1. ^ a b "About billwurtz". YouTube.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Kim, Eddie (October 12, 2018). "Meet Bill Wurtz, the Internet Musical Genius You've Never Heard Of". MEL Magazine. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c Feldman, Brian (May 11, 2017). "Bill Wurtz Returns to Teach the History of the Entire World, He Guesses". New York. Retrieved August 10, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c Gutelle, Sam (May 11, 2017). "Bill Wurtz's "History of the Entire World" Gets 3.2 Million YouTube Views in Its First Day". Tubefilter. Retrieved May 12, 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Klein, Ethan; Klein, Hila (December 1, 2018). The H3 Podcast (podcast). The United States: h3h3 productions. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
  6. ^ Sheffer, Sam (July 13, 2015). "Why can't I stop watching this video of a piano being shaved?". The Verge. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  7. ^ a b Lee, Ashley. "Shorty Awards: The Complete Nominations List". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on September 11, 2018. Retrieved August 24, 2019.
  8. ^ a b Gaudette, Emily (May 10, 2017). "Viral 'History of Japan' Video Finally Has an Update on the Entire World". Inverse. Retrieved August 14, 2019.
  9. ^ a b Moran, Lee (February 8, 2016). "WATCH: Trippy Video Teaches The Entire History Of Japan In Just 9 Minutes". HuffPost. Retrieved December 28, 2016.
  10. ^ a b Strange, Adario (February 6, 2016). "Psychedelic history of Japan turns learning into an acid trip". Mashable. Archived from the original on February 9, 2016. Retrieved August 10, 2019.
  11. ^ Lopez, German (May 18, 2017). "The most bizarre, entertaining history of Japan you'll ever watch". Vox. Retrieved September 9, 2020.
  12. ^ a b Shamsian, Jacob (May 18, 2017). "This 20-minute animated video explains the entire history of the world – and the internet is obsessed with it". Insider. Retrieved July 20, 2019.
  13. ^ "The (almost) entire history of the world in under 20 hilarious minutes? This video is your answer". Scroll.in. May 18, 2017. Retrieved September 10, 2020.
  14. ^ "What to binge on YouTube, the original "quick bite" video service – Las Vegas Weekly". lasvegasweekly.com. April 23, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  15. ^ Gartenberg, Chaim (May 11, 2017). "History of the Entire World, I Guess could have been the best online video of 2005". The Verge. Retrieved June 24, 2017.
  16. ^ Hathaway, Jay (May 17, 2017). "Viral 'History of the World' video turns into a meme bonanza". The Daily Dot. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  17. ^ Spangler, Todd (December 6, 2017). "YouTube Reveals 2017 Top Viral and Music Videos". Variety. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  18. ^ Wurtz, Bill (May 10, 2017), history of the entire world, i guess, retrieved May 14, 2017
  19. ^ Lopez, German (May 7, 2018). "Watch this bizarre, hilarious history of the whole world". Vox. Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  20. ^ a b Carter, Geoff (April 23, 2020). "What to binge on YouTube, the original "quick bite" video service". Las Vegas Weekly. Retrieved September 10, 2020.
  21. ^ "The 100 Greatest YouTube Videos of All Time, Ranked". Thrillist. Archived from the original on August 26, 2021.
  22. ^ Scheetz, Cameron (August 20, 2020). "Follow the Old Town Road: 20 songs that got a boost from TikTok fame". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  23. ^ Lee, Dami (August 2, 2019). "TikTok turns one: its first 12 months, as told through TikToks". The Verge. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  24. ^ a b Shi, Diana (July 9, 2017). "Watch This Absurd Animation Where a Little Man Climbs a Mountain to Avoid Taxes". Vice. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  25. ^ a b Muncy, Julie (May 1, 2018). "This Surreal Inspirational Cartoon Will Have You Ready To Face Anything". Gizmodo. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  26. ^ Ring, Julian. "These Viral Musicians Are Still Making Great Songs". Pandora Blog. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved August 14, 2019.
  27. ^ Manning, Walker (January 31, 2018). "Bill Wurtz Is The Musician Our Generation Deserves". The Odyssey Online.
  28. ^ Reneau, Steven (January 11, 2019). "Bill Wurtz Breaks Down The Meaning Of "Mount St. Helens Is About To Blow Up"". Genius. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
  29. ^ "Get To Know... Daði Freyr". DIY. May 27, 2020. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
  30. ^ Beriss, Ben (January 25, 2019). "WBRS brings indie spirit to campus". The Brandeis Hoot. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
  31. ^ Bein, Kat (July 16, 2018). "Porter Robinson Shouts-Out Mat Zo, Nina Las Vegas and More of His Favorite Artists to Celebrate His Birthday". Billboard. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
  32. ^ McIver, Joel (April 2, 2019). "WURTZ CASE: YouTube sensation Bill Wurtz has a secret weapon – bass – but not the way you'd expect. He reveals the method behind his three million subscribers". Bass Guitar. No. 168. p. 32. ISSN 1476-5217.
  33. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pandell, Lexi (January 16, 2019). "How Bill Wurtz's Videos Make the Internet a Better Place". OK Whatever. Retrieved July 20, 2019.
  34. ^ "bill wurtz". Bandcamp. Archived from the original on February 6, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2021.
  35. ^ "billwurtz". billwurtz.com. Retrieved June 19, 2019.

External links[edit]

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