Wear Sunscreen, An Email Hoax That Topped The Music Charts

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘97
Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.

The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, …………
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis
more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Nope we are not offerring you any advice here but just quoting the first few lines from the Sunscreen Song produced by acclaimed director Baz Luhrmann in 1997.

This song was voted as the 16^th most popular song out of 100 in 1997 and was a big hit all across the world. Thousands of listeners called into their local radio stations requesting the song, saying that it had struck a chord within them and how they really felt inspired after listening to it. Although the song sounds like a commencement speech, set to music it is infact an article called “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young” written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997. In her introduction to the column, she described it as the commencement address she would give if she were asked to give one.

The manner in which this seemingly strightforward newspaper article got converted into a chart bursting single forms a really interesting story. Sometime in August 1997, Mary’s article found it’s way onto the internet in the form of an email hoax, when a prankster – never identified except as “Culprit Zero” – copied it, labeled it as “Kurt Vonnegut’s commencement address at MIT,” and began e-mailing it to his or her friends. The pyramid began. Schmich’s quirky, smart style seemed believable as Vonnegut’s. It carried the implied authenticity of the printed word. And, on the Internet, the concept of “validity” is often less important than “bandwidth” and “really cool graphics.” The spread of the thing was amazing. Among the recipients was a friend of Australian film director Luhrmann.

Luhrmann, 35, is largely known for two youthful films – “Strictly Ballroom,” about competitive dancing, and a 1996 remake of “Romeo and Juliet,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Luhrmann was working on a CD in his home country when he saw the e-mail and was intrigued by Schmich’s column, which, at that time, was still misrepresented as a Vonnegut address. On the Internet, Luhrmann tried to find Vonnegut’s e-mail address, or the address of an agent, to buy the rights to the words and include it on the disc. Instead, he found stories debunking the hoax. He then contacted Schmich via e-mail, who put him in touch with Tribune management, which sold him the rights to Schmich’s column. Luhrmann and his producers made the music, they hired an actor to read the words, and a song was born. As for royalties, Schmich gets a small cut; the Tribune gets a bigger one.

“I’ve written songs in my life, but no one will ever make records of those,” Schmich says. For Luhrmann, though, it’s more than a hit song. It has become a watershed event in New Media. He says: “What I think is extraordinary, apart from the inherent values in the ideas, is that we were experiencing ourselves a historical moment in the life of the Internet, an example of how massive publishing power is in the hands of anyone with access to a PC.” (Above content partly reproduced from the Washington Post)

Well, whether he forcasted it or not it is quite true that as of today anyone with access to a Web enabled PC has massive publishing power at his disposal which sometimes even threatens the 4th estate with it’s speed and accuracy. Now if you’re still wondering what the big deal about sunscreen is, you should probably check out the movie below which is based on the song being talked about(It also runs in the background). You can also watch the original version of the song here.

Tags: sunscreen, song, email , hoax, internet, chicago, music, charts, advice, speech

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posted by krisdhingra in Random Events |