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TikTok Killed the Video Star

MTV turned music into spectacle. The app is doing the opposite.
Source: Getty; Alex Cochran

The defining music video of the past decade is probably the one in which Beyoncé showed off her laundry pile and Lubriderm. In 2014, about a year after the pop queen popularized the term visual album by surprise-releasing 17 expensive-looking music videos all at once, she dropped a lighthearted B side: “7/11.” It came with a clip of the singer shimmying in drab hotel corridors, on a rumpled bed, and between bathroom counters cluttered with products you might find at CVS. Every shot could’ve been captured by Beyoncé herself, using an iPhone. Giggles and apparent mistakes were plentiful. The goddess of #flawless was loosening up.

Or at least, that’s how it appeared. Packed with details and quick cuts, “7/11” had no doubt been sweated over like any other Beyoncé product, to clever effect. The video let viewers indulge deep-seated human desires to pry into other people’s bedrooms and to connect with celebrities as if they were siblings. It also gave the public yet another chance to marvel at this particular celebrity’s fabulousness: her vision, her body, her work ethic. Everyone knows

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