Be Careful When Watching OK Go’s New Music Video – Obsession

Have you seen the new music video from OK Go? The video is called Obsession and is super weird.  Weird isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I just can’t decide if I like it or not.  Watching it definitely sparked the migraine receptor in my brain to start twitching.  It’s also very colorful, in a 1960s Monkees kind of way.  Many are warning that if you are prone to seizures then you watch the video with caution.  And I can see why.  There are actual threshold measurements for designing websites that must be met in order to minimize seizures from occurring.  I’m not sure that this video meets that threshold.  We should note that all the paper printed in the video is real and so are the printers.  OK Go then recycled all the paper, but it still seems wasteful to me.

This is a typical music video for OK Go.  In others, they have used scooters, cars, planes and even treadmills.  And don’t get me wrong, the videos look really neat.  But in this instance, they’re kind of going old school.  Like I said, the color scheme and the setting feels like it’s from the 60s, rather than 2017.

In their new video, Obsession, OK Go has created a wall of 557 printers that are used for the backdrop throughout the video.  Literally, everyone is wondering why this kind of paper wasting is necessary.  But OK Go is saying that they are recycling all the paper.  But is that enough?  I’m skeptical of recycling programs.  I should note that I am a hardcore recycler and I don’t use a lot of paper unless I can recycle it.  But I’m skeptical of the cities who do the recycling.  Is it actually going somewhere to be recycled or is it ending up in the landfill?  But that’s the part of me that is leery of government.

Rolling Stone is calling the video innovative.  But is it?  OK Go is known for some pretty out there music videos, but is this really that innovative?  It’s printers – printing paper.  Literally, a printer doing its job.  The interesting part is that the printers have to work in unison to create the background.  If any of you have tried to use your office printer for anything, then having all these print in unison is a miracle unto itself.  But I’m still not sure that I would call it innovative.

Whoever decided that this was the way to choreograph the video has an interesting eye.  To me, that is extremely creative from an art perspective.   In addition, the video uses stop-motion imagery which is what gives us such an intense effect.  Again, I’m not sure if it’s innovative, or simply an artist’s way of looking at something.  If you haven’t seen the video and you’re not prone to seizures (or migraines, or motion sickness) then you should definitely check it out.  Add it to the long list of fun and unique videos that we get from OK Go, and enjoy it!