Bill Wurtz (stylized in lower case as bill wurtz or billwurtz) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, animator, video editor, and internet personality. He is known for his distinctive musical, comedic, and narrative style which includes calm, deadpan delivery and singing paired with colorful surrealist, psychedelic, and non-sequitur graphics.
Wurtz first published material on YouTube in 2013. He set up a website in 2014, presenting a catalog of music and videos he had created since 2002. Wurtz proceeded to upload edited versions of his videos on Vine, where he gained his initial popularity. He experienced breakout success on YouTube with his animated videos, history of japan (2016), and history of the entire world, i guess (2017).
Career
Early work
Wurtz's first recorded composition was an instrumental named "Late Nite Lounge with Loud Lenny", which was recorded on June 17, 2002, and his first recorded song was "stuck in a rut" in March 2005.[2]
Vine videos
Wurtz was first known for his presence on the short-form video-sharing websiteVine,[3][4] where he first gained a following in 2014.[2] He began by taking short videos he had previously published to his website and re-editing them to fit Vine's six-second restriction.[2] Before transitioning fully to YouTube, Wurtz was uploading a video to Vine nearly every day.[5] He received early attention in 2015 for the short video "Shaving My Piano", which was covered briefly in The Verge.[6] On April 11, 2016, Wurtz won the Shorty Award for "Tech & Innovation: Weird" at the 8th Shorty Awards; during the awards ceremony, attention was given to one of his Vine uploads "I'm Still a Piece of Garbage".[7] At the awards ceremony, his acceptance speech consisted of the words "Thank you."[2] Wurtz withdrew from making vines to focus on finishing history of japan.[r 1]
YouTube
Wurtz's first known YouTube channel was a channel named "billynothingshow".[8]
Wurtz created his current YouTube channel in September 2013.[2]
Wurtz had originally intended to make a video on US history, but abandoned it.[r 2][r 3]
Alongside interest on Vine, Wurtz achieved wider popularity in 2016 with history of japan, a nine-minute YouTube video that outlines Japan's history.[9] Wurtz chose the topic due to his lack of knowledge of it.[r 4][2] The video covers key events of its history: "Buddhism, internal conflict, alliances with Britain, World War I, World War II, the dropping of atomic bombs and its post-war economic miracle".[10] It showcases Wurtz's quirky visual and comedic style through a mixture of fast-paced narration and animation, intercut with short musical jingles. The video was described as "an entertaining new approach to education".[11] It went viral on social media after its release on February 2, 2016, and under a week later, received over four million views by February 8.[10] It particularly received considerable attention on Tumblr[3] and Reddit.[9] As of November 2023, the video has over 80 million views. German Lopez of Vox called it a "strange", "pretty good – and surprisingly funny" video. Lopez noted the poor coverage of Japanese war crimes committed against Korea and China in the 20th century, particularly the Nanjing Massacre and the use of Korean sex slaves, and attributed this omission to the video's short runtime.[12]
Wurtz released a 20-minute overview of world history, history of the entire world, i guess, on May 10, 2017.[13] The video took over 11 months to produce, including almost 3 months of research[5] – it briefly covers the topics of natural history and human civilization spanning from the Big Bang to the near future.[14] The video marked the continued development of Wurtz's cinematic style, with fast-paced, absurdist humor and jazz-like musical interludes.[15]
History of the entire world, i guess was the top video on the YouTube trending page on the day of its release, receiving 3.2 million views on its first day, and on Reddit it became the most upvoted YouTube link of all time.[4][16] It became an Internet meme[17] and was listed at eighth place on YouTube's list of the top 10 trending videos of the year.[18] As of September 2023, it has over 161 million views.[19] Writer German Lopez for the news website Vox praised the video for not heavily focusing on western and US history, and successfully covering other areas in world history which may be neglected in US schools, such as powers in China, Persia, and India.[20] Because it resists specialization and assembles history in chronological order starting from the beginning of the Universe, history of the entire world, i guess can be considered a work of Big History, and is probably one of the most popular works associated with the discipline. It has been called a "must-see"[21] and is considered to be Wurtz's magnum opus.[2][13] In 2020, Thrillist ranked the video at number 40 on its list of best YouTube videos of all time.[22]
Music
Wurtz's song "Just Did a Bad Thing" and the accompanying video spawned TikTok videos of people lip-syncing to the opening lines; in the platform, #ididabadthing became the top hashtag of March 2019.[23][24] Following this, Wurtz would only post four more videos before his break, ending with "Might Quit". After "Might Quit" was released, Wurtz would not post any new videos to YouTube for nearly two years, before continuing to release music and videos animated in 3D with Blender.
Style
Wurtz has developed an absurdist, surreal style on both his music and animation.[25][26] Eddie Kim wrote for MEL Magazine that Wurtz "refuses to mimic anyone else's animation or musical style, but it's not weird for weirdness' sake alone", comparing him to Thundercat and Louis Cole and highlighting Wurtz's pretty pop melodies, unexpected chords and multi-layered rhythms as commonalities.[2] Geoff Carter of Las Vegas Weekly stated: "Merge Don Hertzfeldt, Jenny Holzer and Thundercat and you might get someone a little bit like Bill Wurtz".[21]
Music
Wurtz's music has been classified as jazz pop, incorporating elements of lo-fi music, smooth jazz, funk and easy listening.[2][27] Overall, his music evokes malaise, self-deprecation, and a "blurring of the lines between irony, parody and honesty".[28] In an interview with Genius, Wurtz stated that "it's a good... songwriting technique to write about something bad with a good sounding melody, because if you can get people to feel good about something bad, then you're bulletproof in life."[29]: 0:00:46 Wurtz's voice has been described as "silky tenor with range and energy".[2] He plays instruments including piano, bass guitar, and drums.[2]
Wurtz started playing music at a very early age.[q 1] In an interview with Bass Guitar magazine, he said he was "wholly self-taught" as a musician, and he downplayed the importance of music theory in songwriting and composition, saying,"'Theory' may be fun, but it's made of liquid and has a tendency to melt. The music comes first and then you figure out how to describe what happened, although fully describing it can never be done."[33]
Videos
Wurtz's videos are typically in a lo-fi,[34]neon[3] aesthetic, and have been described as surreal[26] and psychedelic.[5][11] They range from "nonsensical" shorts to animated music videos,[34] and often involve deadpan humor, dancing stick figures, vaporwave-like transitions[2] and neon, sans-serif text on-screen.[25] Wurtz often follows patterns in his videos such as multi-layering,[5] and clip art images.[34] He has stated the low-budget quality arose out of a necessity to publish videos regularly and evolved naturally.[5]: 0:35:27
At Vidcon 2018, Wurtz was asked why his style is so different from other YouTube musicians. He stated that he chooses to "live under a rock" and produce his music in isolation rather than take inspiration from other creators on the platform.[35] Wurtz publicly struggles with perfectionism, making use of schedules and deadlines to overcome it.[5]
Wurtz is decidedly against running advertising on or accepting sponsorships for his videos, despite admitting an "enormous" pressure to do so.[2][34] He has explained that advertisements make him "uncomfortable"[5] and that he thinks they "suck".[34] Wurtz does receive direct fan support, which includes crowdfunding on Patreon,[4] streams on music streaming services, and merchandise sales,[34][5]: 0:44:15 but does not heavily promote any of these revenue streams.[5]
From his first video up until early 2019, Wurtz used Final Cut Express 4, a program that was discontinued as far back as in 2011.[5] In 2019, he switched to Final Cut Pro X.[q 2][q 3] Wurtz also taught himself the 3D animation software Blender, which enabled him to create significantly more complex and realistic graphics for his videos.[q 4]
Website
Wurtz launched his personal website billwurtz.com in 2014.[34] Despite this, it has been compared to a late 1990s website due to its simple design.[34] Apart from containing all of his released songs and most of his videos dating back to 2002,[2] the website also features many other types of content not available elsewhere. For example, Wurtz posts vlog-style 'reality' videos depicting his creative process.[2] Wurtz maintains a section on his website to answer anonymously submitted questions. His answers to questions are considered an aspect of Wurtz's creative output; the style of his answers have been described as "verging on the poetic"[34] and "earnest, if somewhat loopy-sounding".[2] One such answer, highlighted by the website Ok Whatever, addresses a question concerning Wurtz's personality:[34]
10.9.18 7:48 pm how the heck are you so gosh darn wacky?
i'm just trying to be reasonable[q 5][34]
From 2009 to 2014, Wurtz self-released his music on Bandcamp. Since then, he has eschewed the album format, though he has stated that this is due to his disliking of the format.[36][37][38]
Albums
What the Fuck (2010)
Church Sessions (2010)
The Summertime (2010)
Fun Music (2011)
EPs
Yikes (2009)
The Song Song (2009)
Guerilla Myspace Project (2009)
Bach Garageband (2010)
Burger King Spring (2010)
April Flowers (2010)
It's All About the Ladies (2010)
Fly July (2010)
Short Butt Suites (2010)
Fall Sprawl (2010)
Murder Your Demon (2011)
When is it Time to Come Home Again? (2011)
Soap Boat (2011)
Love (2011)
Pain (2011)
Hi-Bye (New Shorts) (2013)
New School (2014)
We Could Just Get Right (2014)
Eat Dirt Shorts (2014)
My Next Album (2014)
High Enough (2014)
Music videos
Wurtz has published numerous full-length music videos on his YouTube channel:
"The Moon Is Made of Cheese (But I Can't Taste It)"
3.8
"When I Get Older"
2.6
"Long Long Long Journey"
3.3
"Slow Down"
2.4
"Christmas Isn't Real"
2.2
"Just Did a Bad Thing"
9.0
2019
"At the Airport Terminal"
3.0
"Might Quit"
13.7
2021
"Here Comes the Sun"
9.2
"I'm a Princess"
3.8
"Got Some Money"
4.6
"More Than a Dream"
1.9
2022
"I'm Scared"
2.1
"Fly Around"
1.1
"9 8 7"
1.0
"At the Corner Store"
1.0
"If the World Doesn't End"
0.9
"I'm a Huge Gamer Most of the Time"
1.3
"The Ground Plane"
0.7
"Meet Me in September"
0.5
"I Like to Wear Soft Clothing"
0.6
"The Ending"
1.0
"Where I've Been"
1.3
Other songs
Wurtz has published many other full-length songs not accompanied by music videos. They are all available on his website,[39] and some are also available on streaming services. Songs include:
2009
"The Song Song" (August 10, 2009)
"15 Minutes" (November 28, 2009)
2010
"Be Free and Don't Sell Records" (July 8, 2010)
"Desk and Chair" (July 15, 2010)
"Song 41" (August 26, 2010)
"2010" (September 7, 2010)
"Eat Bread (Feel Sure)" (September 13, 2010)
"The Trees" (October 14, 2010)
"I'm About to Graduate from School" (November 7, 2010)
"Fever" (November 11, 2010)
"Dream of Evil" (November 24, 2010)
2011
"Murder Your Demon" (January 14, 2011)
"Dumpies" (January 25, 2011)
"Blue Boy" (May 22, 2011)
"How Am I Spost" (May 22, 2011)
"Home Again" (May 23, 2011)
"The Stupid Song" (June 1, 2011)
"No Place like Home" (June 16, 2011)
"Do the Thing" (June 20, 2011)
"I Love You" (June 20, 2011)
"Go to the Store" (June 24, 2011)
"(What) Love Is" (July 11, 2011)
"Do What You Want to Do" (July 15, 2011)
"All U Need Is Love" (August 2, 2011)
"The World" (September 2, 2011)
"Home" (September 9, 2011)
"I Guess I've Got to Listen to Bob Marley" (September 23, 2011)
"Stupid Song" (September 26, 2011)
2014
"Textin on my iPhone" (February 12, 2014)
"Rabbit Snakes" (February 26, 2014)
"The Future Song" (March 5, 2014)
"We Could Just Get High" (March 19, 2014)
"I'm in Bryant Park" (March 26, 2014)
"It's Gonna Be Alright" (April 23, 2014)
"Write a Song on the Count of 3" (May 28, 2014)
"This Is a Song for my Next Album" (June 11, 2014)
"Goo Soup" (July 9, 2014)
"I Wanna Sail You Away" (July 23, 2014)
"I Can Play" (September 3, 2014)
"The Road" (September 17, 2014)
2017
"In California" (May 30, 2017)
"I Love You" (June 6, 2017)
"Got to Know What's Going On" (June 20, 2017)
Furthermore, Wurtz has published a myriad of shorter songs or jingles on his website ranging from a couple of seconds to up to a minute in length.[39]
^Wurtz, Bill (February 15, 2021). "[...]Did people in your life have an influence on you developing this skill?". billwurtz.com. Retrieved February 16, 2021. i was able to hear a lot of music on records[...]and I will confess I also had access to a piano/keyboard instrument, and a drum set.[...] Having an extremely early start, it was pretty natural to find me in many many personal and professional music relationships with peers (well at first it was usually people much older than me because I was so young to start)
^Wurtz, Bill (August 18, 2019). "Why haven't you made a video for 5 months?". billwurtz.com. Retrieved June 21, 2020. [...]it occurred to me that now might actually be the finest time to go ahead and do what is known as the 'final cut transition', which long story short means I have to entirely abandon the primary video editing software I have used for the last 5 years. the reason for that is because it was discontinued in 2011. [...] I always used to say, 'there's never a good time to re-learn everything I know'[...]
^Wurtz, Bill (January 2, 2018). "Will you upgrade to final cut 10?". billwurtz.com. Retrieved August 19, 2019. i wouldn't consider that an upgrade, that would be more like switching to something entirely new. but i am still probably going to do it
^Wurtz, Bill (2016). "1.16.16". billwurtz.com. made a serious decision to stop doing vines which i know seems like madness, but we're doing it for a good reason: we're finishing the long projects and then we're finishing more projects after that.
^Wurtz, Bill (2013). "4-22-2013". billwurtz.com. i just breezed through U.S. history. the secret is, you can go into more depth or less depth.
^Wurtz, Bill (2014). "11-29-2014". billwurtz.com. i started writing a long video about the history of the united states. seems like a lot of fun and i've never really done it. i'm ready to do it.
^Wurtz, Bill (2015). "2015-10-25". billwurtz.com. I would like to try history of Japan, just because it's random. I know nothing about it, it just seems like a sweet spot.
^McIver, Joel (April 2, 2019). "WURTZ CASE: YouTube sensation Bill Wurtz has a secret weapon – bass – but not the way you'd expect. He reveals the method behind his three million subscribers". Bass Guitar. No. 168. p. 32. ISSN1476-5217.
