So Steve Streza Made a Mashup, And Then... ⇒

A week ago, software engineer Steve Streza uploaded “Like A Bad White Guy Party Gangnam Style” to Youtube.1 It’s an epic mashup of PSY’s Internet earworm/sensastion “Gangnam Style.”

It’s a hit. And there’s a lesson to be learned.

The mashup itself is catchy, but it’s far from being technically great. There are issues with some parts of the song not mashing well, clashes between keys, mismatched song syncing and beatmatching, issues with the video clips not being perfectly aligned, etc. It’s my first time making a mashup, and it was meant to be a learning experience, not a viral hit with flawless execution. I’ve heard my own song dozens of times, both during and after the process of making it. When you hear your own work that much, and you know exactly how it is pieced together, the faults are not only obvious, they get in your face no matter how much you try to shut them out. But it’s too late to do anything about that now. The Internet has taken the song and given it legs to run. It’s out of my hands, technical merits be damned.

Great reflection from Steve on what it means to take a chance and share something you made with the world. This one’s definitely worth bookmarking.


  1. Doug Stephen’s site is where I first saw it. ↩︎