Hello, and welcome to another installment of View From The Sidelines!
In the era of digital media, instant gratification is the norm rather than the exception. It’s no different in HBCU Band Culture. LONG gone are the days where you really DID have to wait until Saturday afternoon to see what a program was working with, or waiting until some pioneering bandhead went through the time and effort of uploading audio clips in RealPlayer (or transferring to hours of raw band footage to VHS tape). As golden as that age was for the growth of HBCU bands, the the evolution of social media (and the technology-driven digital media ecosystem that contains it) has turned that golden era into an entirely different animal. It’s turned halftime into its own mainstream competitive entertainment art form; It’s also turned the cultural platform surrounding HBCU bands into a truly GLOBAL phenomenon. Nowadays, digital mediums like YouTube, Twitch TikTok, and even the dark lord Elon’s Twitter, serve up all sorts of HBCU-Centric sports and culture content pretty much on-demand.
That ecosystem has birthed an entire generation of forward-minded content creators, most of whom are dedicated to the positive exposure and visibility of HBCU Bands and Culture. The more visible programs have extremely polished and professional footprints online, both within their home institution’s framework and outside of it. There’s also a flourishing community of 3rd party content creators have turned HBCU band coverage into one of the more visible social media endeavors for HBCUs, on the Web. High Profile programs like Florida A&M, Southern University, Jackson State, North Carolina A&T State University, and Alabama State have some of the most polished school affiliated media teams in the craft. Individual creators like SmashTime Productions, The Rogers Brothers, MarchingSport, and others, have brought a level of exposure to the craft that we couldn’t have imagined 20 years ago. That exposure has been the catalyst for the FURTHER expansion of HBCU Bands and the EXTENDED Culture into mainstream homes and audiences. The growth of the culture in the age of social media has been explosive, but it’s also come with some drawbacks.
Of course, increased mainstream visibility brings increased scrutiny. That critique can come from inside the culture, as well as from voices that are outside of the HBCU experience. It always carries the potential to shed a not-so-flattering narrative on a given program or institution, under a specific set of circumstances. We’ve seen some pretty specific and powerful examples of that maxim over the years, with the most visible of those events centering around hazing incidents (and tragedies) within some programs. For better or worse, the current paradigm of HBCU Band Culture being front and center within the realm of the overall HBCU experience is here to stay. Everyday, there are more talented contributors entering the space, bringing their own narrative lens to what HBCU bandom is, and where it can (and will) eventually go. How will the medium force the craft itself to evolve? Will the increased exposure finally serve as a catalyst to develop a concrete competition framework for the craft? Will more institutions embrace the idea of having a viable HBCU band program as a powerful marketing tool for their respective universities or colleges? HBCU Band craft in today’s social media and digital media landscape presents one thing above almost everything else…
Opportunity.
Until the next entry!
#PreserveTheHistory #ProtectTheCraft #VFTS