Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts

SEP 04 2006 · 12:00

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts (2006) Director: Karen O Era: Post-Punk Revival / Web 1.0 Participatory Media Era (2006) - Indie rock peak intersecting with early user-generated content culture, predating YouTube's mainstream dominance; fan-sourced video collage reflects DIY ethos and proto-UGC aesthetics of mid-2000s alternative music. High curatorial value as a confirmed early example of artist-directed fan-submission video, produced before UGC became industry standard. Directed by the artist herself, the video collapses the boundary between performer and audience and offers a unique document of global indie rock fandom in 2006. Its technical heterogeneity, multi-source footage, varied quality, mixed aspect ratios, makes it an aesthetically distinctive object for archival study of both the post-punk revival and the emergence of participatory digital media culture. Context: Released in 2006 at the apex of the NYC post-punk revival, 'Cheated Hearts' arrived as Yeah Yeah Yeahs' second album Show Your Bones cemented their transition from raw garage energy to more polished alternative rock. The video's crowdsourced construction, pulling 25 fan submissions from a global call for performance mimicry, placed it at a unique intersection of indie fan culture and the nascent participatory media web. Predating YouTube's mainstream dominance and years before UGC became standard music video practice, this release represents an early institutional embrace of fan creativity as primary visual text, reflecting the democratizing spirit of mid-2000s internet culture and the tight artist-fan bonds characteristic of indie rock communities of the era. Director notes: Directed by Karen O and edited by Stephen Berger of Final Cut/Los Angeles. The video was constructed from approximately 30 hours of fan-submitted footage in which fans around the world filmed themselves impersonating the band and performing the song. Approximately 25 distinct fan submissions were included in the final edit, alongside footage by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs themselves. Released July 20, 2006 via Interscope Records. The video is a landmark early example of artist-curated fan-generated content predating the normalization of UGC video platforms.