A new viral video currently tearing up the internet shows Justin Bieber and EDM production duo Jack U, composed of super producers Skrillex and Diplo, creating none other than the theme song to the iconic hit sitcom Seinfeld. The clip was created by inserting new audio containing the comedy theme into a previously-released clip detailing the making of one of the trio's real hit tracks.
The video, presented on the Seinfeld2000 Facebook page, pokes fun at the somewhat pretentious original clip, in which the artists wax poetic about how they created "Where are U Now." The song, released last year, was a creative departure for Bieber and proved instrumental in reviving his career after it had flat-lined. "Where Are U Now" brought Bieber his first top 10 song on the Billboard Hot 100 in several years and paved the way for the enormous breakthrough success of his Purpose album, on which Skrillex also produced several hit tracks, including number one hits "Sorry" and "What Do You Mean."
The funniest parts of the bit include Skrillex poking at his keyboard to play the notes of the song that are now perfectly timed to the Seinfeld theme.
"Probably, if you see this interview, this is the first time anybody has ever heard any of the other versions," teases Skrillex, who then, after painstakingly wiping down his laptop, plays an alternate "version" that turns out to be a crazy dubstep stomper as opposed to the quirky sitcom theme that plays in the rest of the parody clip, which has already amassed almost a half million views on Facebook.
The video was apparently done as a reaction to the unintentional pretention of the original YouTube clip, uploaded by the New York Times, which conducted the original interview. In it, Bieber mutters classic lines like, "It's expensive, you know what I mean, it's like the sounds that are used are not cheap, they're very expensive-sounding sounds" and "Actually, it was like super weird for me at first. I was like, this is wrong, but no, it was wrong-right, I just had to get used to it."
While the incongruousness of the newly-inserted music juxtaposed with the participant's descriptions is the most obvious laugh-getter, there's also a subtler and subversive viewpoint underlying the humor. Changing the song in question from the painstakingly sophisticated production of "Where are U Now" to the minimalistic and straightforward yet iconic theme from Seinfeld creates an ironic take on the seriousness with which the participants take themselves and their creation in the original clip (whose view count will soon be surpassed by the parody) by contrasting their work with a simple yet classic tune from a comedy that prided itself on being "about nothing."
