Must Watch Music Videos: Dillon Francis Sends Emoji-Filled ‘Messages’

[Editor’s Note: Two major trends have emerged in the recent history of new media: 1) Music videos are the new music and 2) YouTube is the new MTV. With that in mind and to keep you up to speed with the greatest and latest in this online video category, Tubefilter has partnered with INDMUSIC, YouTube’s largest independent music network, to bring you at least one must-watch music video every week. Turn up your volume and we hope you enjoy the analysis, sites, and sounds. For moreMust-Watch Music Video installments, click here.]

If you haven’t heard yet, Potato will eat you.

Potato is the new multiplatform endeavor from DJ/producer masterminds Skrillex, Diplo, and A-trak with support from managers Kevin Kusatsu and Tim Smith. It’s clear that all things Potato will be one half awesome and one hundred percent bonkers.

Messages is the latest video from Dillon Francis and is a collaboration with Potato andMad Decent.  Between frogs with eggplant arms, smiling poop ice-cream to psychotic rabbits and dancing bikini clad pigs, I like to think that Francis had a say in the placement of every single emoji in this video. It’s just plain fun, like a cracked out version of a lyric video. (If you’d like to compare and contrast, here is what a boring lyric video would look like.)

Perhaps we can even think of this as an alternate take on Bonobo’s video for Cirrus. While he masterfully created loops and a narrative with found footage from America’s golden years, in Messages Francis creates loops and a narrative using iPhone emojis; something that later generations will surely look back on as a “WTF” moment in American History. Yes, we spent hours of our lives looking at phones instead of speaking into them.  Or, then again, maybe they’ll think talking into phones is the crazy thing.

Arshan Sadri is the Channel Manager at Brooklyn based, INDMUSIC, YouTube’s largest music Network. He got his start booking comedy and music at the University of Maryland. On weekends he refuses to travel above 14th street, likes to run, and plays in two bands that are just ok.

INDMUSIC is YouTube’s Largest Music Network, allowing independent music content creators to monetize their YouTube views without sacrificing creative control or rights to their content.