Sea Shanty
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A sea shanty is a traditional folk song genre commonly sung as a work song that was sung while carrying out rhythmical labor aboard ships and boats and boosted the morale of those working on the vessels.
Fandom
Assassin's Creed
When sailing was introduced in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, sea shanties were also introduced. The crew of Edward's ship would sing sea shanties while the player sailed, with the option to instruct their crew to move onto singing a different song. Sea shanties would return in subsequent games which had sailing.
ShantyTok
During the COVID-19 pandemic, sea shanties became very popular on the video-based social media platform, TikTok, starting a trend[1] that would sometimes be referred to as ShantyTok. Glaswegian, Nathan Evans, a 26-year-old postman and aspiring musician, started the trend[2] with a TikTok he posted singing the sea shanty Wellerman in December 2020. While the video remains up[3], due to Evans going on to create an album under the Universal Music label, the audio was lost when Universal Music Group did not renew their license with TikTok.
Believed to have become so popular because it helped people feel less isolated during long periods of isolation and lockdown during the pandemic, creators on TikTok soon began dueting each others videos. Often videos would end up with 4 or more people, each singing different parts or vocal ranges of the song; some singers became popular on TikTok from the trend and continued making similar videos long after ShantyTok's trend reduced. As with Evans' videos, many duetted videos which used tracks that Evans sang on were also struck by the UMG audio removal.
Example Videos
- Time for The Wellerman by thelongestjohns
- Leave her Johnny audio with slideshow posted by Ubisoft on TikTok, the song featured in Assassin's Creed IV
- Hoist the Colours with five vocalists' duet videos combined.
- The Last Shanty with three vocalists' duet videos combined.
Archives & Resources
- Wikipedia:Sea shanty
- Sea Sickness: The Viral Spread of Sea Shanties during the COVID-19 Pandemic by Cole Kirchenbauer (2022 Thesis)
- #SeaShanty at TikTok
- ^ "Sea shanties are having a moment amid isolation of pandemic". Archived from the original on 2021-01-29.
- ^ "The true story behind the viral TikTok sea shanty hit". Archived from the original on 2021-01-30.
- ^ Original TikTok of Nathan Evan's rendition of Wellerman (sans audio)