Blog 12 Socials

danliu3
Jan 29, 2024
6 min read

Updated: Apr 1, 2024

For my musician, the way of marketing and interacting with the audience is to use social media. Take Weird Al as an example, an approach that is off stream, artistic and uses other artist'

Posts on Twitter:

pre publishing and advertising, giving advance notice.

Instagram

The posts of Weird Al contained a mixture memes, intertextuality, and pop culture.

Main Page Study:

Main features:

Portrait of the Artist close up.
Pinned message is the advance notice of new songs.
Unified tone of the background and user photo.
Personalized description of the artist.
Artistic and abstract 'sentences' to build up the vibe of the post.
Collaborations with other platforms and brands.

User Main page:

For my user Photo:

Symbolism of the earth model and the Holy Bible are parallel with the serious facial expression, contrasting with the whimsical clothing. Including sarcasm of the Christianity, and power structure. The balanced composition 'Pic 1' also imply equality, judgement, and blindness.

These two photos used high contrasting lighting to build up the 'dark side' of the character. The gas mask and isolation suit are light up to portray a 'doomsday' effect. The umbrella colored by silver spray behind the actor works with the mysterious facial expression, forming a symbolic representation of the 'crime murderer'.

My Artist Main Page (Twitter):

This cover used a very provocative background page with heavy reference to the regulation of quarantine on Covid 19. Along the joined date of 2020, it further indicated the political message and sarcasm. I thought about changing the background and user photo in a specific date that parallel with an event in real life, which later the Yellow Cordon published his song to comment and criticize.

The second background page is more abstract and symbolic. It represent the living state of the Yellow Cordon, whimsical, colourful, artificial, and implicated. This is the neutral state of Yellow Cordon, the usual picture that he would show on daily bases.

For the description of the account, I referenced the part Matthew 10:39 in the Bible, which is the same as the one I included in my digipak design. The main message is the argument between whether to live based on belief (religion and faith for government) and take actions that benefits yourself. For the pinned post, I made the Lemonist a 'god/prophet‘ that lead his audience in the age of turbulence. However, the Yellow Cordon is a character like Arthur Fleck in 'Joker' 2019. His's unstable state makes him unpredictable, just like in the Mv, which is full of twist and psycho personality.

Possible interpretation of the background image:

This installation work ‘The Artist’, inspired by John Cage’s Water walk – a musical performance and Alison Knowles’s T-dictionary – a graphic performance. The whole piece simulates an abstract biological structure, reflecting Yellow Cordon's own state of living. I also used visual elements from the work ’Mussels with white sauce‘ by Marcel Broodthaers. Where the artist used a pod and mussels to reflect on conflicting identities of his country. In my practical, I used pieces of the Chinese board game ‘Go’ to fill the bottle, constructing national identity and simulating a metaphor of calculus inside human body.

Similarly, my work – constructed in four parts, builds a metaphysical world that reflect on the organic structure of a symbolic ‘I’. The first part, a coca cola bottle fit with balloons and connect to a foot pump – symbolized respiration and greed. It is also an interactive system that induces action. From here, the environment becomes a part of the main performance, where it is constantly invited to affect the actual content. Just like in John cage’s water walk, the audience (environment) is crucial in determining the state and meaning of the piece of art. The second part and third part are formed by two interconnected bottles with sound boxes and one bottle with colour lights, these simulate the hearings and sight. Unlike the coca cola bottle, which is given a foot pump to activate the system, the sound box and lights have their switches placed inside the bottle – showing a passive and closed state. This links to my last component of this piece of work, where I placed pop cans with black and white illustrations of daily objects, including nuts, fried eggs, locks, and sun - all inside shoes boxes. (Inspired by Andy Warhol’s Campbells soup cans and Alison Knowles’s T-dictionary). The ‘wrong configuration’ indicates the desire of consume and eat, while amplifying the function of storing memories and power of figure recognition.

Personally, this piece works as a deconstruction of myself, a transformation of my senses. As there are no clear focal point in the composition, every component treatsvothers as the environment, and yet every part is crucial for the system to function. The definition of environment depends on audience interpretation of what is more important that can be considered as the ‘main subject’.

My own social media

A close up photo of Louis wearing fake hair and sunglass. This is a typical rock star imagery, acting as a nostalgic post that the artist used it to build intimate connection with the audience. I desaturated the photo and added a grain effect to simulate the low resolution old photo back in the past.

An Asian meme from the Japanese singer Fuse Akira, the main core of this meme is the exaggerated singing and acting (which many audience think it is funny). This post displays humorous elements, while foreshadowing at LuZhou's fantastic acting' in his forthcoming song 'The Lemonist'.

The Cordon - as a psychopath, has deep interest in the film 'The American Pyscho'. This post simulate the scene of showing business card - the iconic line from Patrick Bateman. However, not like a formal card, this card has a very humorous approach in the description part.

A very classical post of pre-selling the single, with a photo from the Mv production.

Due to the complex identity of the YELLOW CORDON, I also added artist created artworks. A marketing post for the artist's digipak. The style of the postcard uses a warm colour palette, indicating various symbolism included in the MV. The cross and red stripes(International Red Cross

and Red Crescent Movement) refer to the desire of finding redemption, and indication of injury (bleeding). The fuzzy outlines of the brushstrokes simulate finger print imagery, which provides an intimate feeling.

After one day of releasing the single, the digipak is on sell.

Interaction with fans, a deconstruction meme of the action of blowing the condom.

Another nostalgic photo of the artist posing. It is both an advertisement for the coming events, and a little bit of narcissist that praise himself. This fits his unstable mood and personality that is constantly changing.

This post simulate the Vogue magazine cover vibe, which I made using Photoshop. I choose the image we took during the process of filming. It includes the whole body in the frame, the classical yellow isolation suit show the most iconic look of the artist, which increases identification. Louis slighting leaning on the cupboard with a natural blend in his body gesture. In additional to the Bible he is holding in his hand, with the glassy eyes portray an imagery of sculptures of the Ancient Greek Goddess. The conflicting nature of the Yellow Cordon is amplified with this juxtaposition of elegance body imagery and mundane environment of the factory.

A response to the use of Durex condom in the MV, serving as a comical post to attract audience.

Just like any other idol and singer, Luzhou has his peripheral products. Artistic signed card, posters, and portraits. The main selling point is the changing identity of Luzhou. This signed card uses imagery of Elvis Presley, a classical icon.

A 'random travel' post of the artist on a tour. The image includes the McDonald's Uncle with a guideboard - heavy directional lead, which links to the central quote of 'The Lemonist would help you to find your life.' The text 'Yellow, white, and a little blue' references to the book 'I Am Yellow, White and a Little Blue'. This book talks about racial diversity and segregation, which connects to our song's message. In addition, the McDonald's Uncle also foreshadows the advertisement, presenting some continuity.

An advertisment post for McDonalds. As the identity of the make up matches with Mcdonald's Uncle, I painted a facial make up using procreate. This deliberate 'fake' effect questions the authority of this post, which gives more discussion space to the audience.

Unlike the previous posts which are funny and unserious, these two are very formal and humanistic. The purpose is to exaggerate the split personality. There is also a connection between LuZhou's song 'The Lemonist' with the theme of isolation and the Help children in remote area. This makes LuZhou not only doing things about social hot spot, but actually helping the social and making effort in changing inequality.