Bill Wurtz

Bill Wurtz (often stylized in all lowercase) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, video producer, animator, and internet personality. He is known for his distinctive style of music, with deadpan delivery and singing, and his animated music videos, with surrealist, psychedelic graphics.

Wurtz has published music and videos since 2002. He has uploaded videos on Vine, where he first gained popularity, and on YouTube. Two of his animated videos on YouTube, History of Japan (2016), and History of the Entire World, I Guess (2017), went viral and inspired internet memes. In 2016, Wurtz won the Shorty Award for Best in Weird.

Early work
Wurtz's first published composition was an instrumental named "Late Nite Lounge with Loud Lenny", which was recorded on June 17, 2002, and his first song with vocals was "stuck in a rut" in March 2005. Beginning in 2010, he released songs more frequently.

Vine videos
Wurtz first became known on the short-form video-sharing website Vine, where he gained a following in 2014. He took short videos he had previously published to his website and edited them to fit Vine's six-second restriction. Before moving to YouTube, Wurtz was uploading a video to Vine nearly every day. In 2015, he received attention for the short video "Shaving My Piano". On April 11, 2016, Wurtz won the Shorty Award for "Tech & Innovation: Weird" at the 8th Shorty Awards. At the awards ceremony, his acceptance speech consisted of the words "Thank you." Wurtz withdrew from making Vines to focus on finishing History of Japan.

YouTube
Wurtz created his YouTube channel in September 2013. Despite disliking online streaming, he joined YouTube after a friend advised him to post content that was previously exclusive to his website.

History of Japan
In 2016, Wurtz released History of Japan, a nine-minute YouTube video that outlines Japan's history. The video gave him wider popularity, following an increase in subscribers due to his Vine popularity. Wurtz chose the topic due to his lack of knowledge of it. He took fourteen weeks to make it. The video covers key events of Japan's history, such as the spread of rice farming, the introduction of Buddhism, internal conflicts between rulers, its alliance with Britain, World War I, World War II, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and its post-war economic miracle. It showcases Wurtz's quirky visual and comedic style through fast-paced narration and animation, intercut with short musical jingles.

History of Japan went viral on social media after its release on February 2, 2016, and received over four million views by February 8. It received considerable attention on Tumblr and Reddit. It became a lasting internet meme, with people posting quotes and images from it while discussing subjects such as politics. , the video has over 82 million views.

Adario Strange of Mashable described the video as "an entertaining new approach to education". German Lopez of Vox called it a "strange", "pretty good – and surprisingly funny" video. Lopez noted the poor coverage of Japanese war crimes against Korea and China in the 20th century and attributed this omission to the video's short runtime. In 2021, Polygon listed it in its list of top 25 "dumb internet videos".

History of the Entire World, I Guess
Wurtz released a 20-minute overview of world history, History of the Entire World, I Guess, on May 10, 2017. The video took over 11 months to produce, including almost three months of research. It briefly covers the topics of natural history and human civilization from the Big Bang to the near future. The video marked the continued development of Wurtz's style, with fast-paced, absurdist humor and jazz-like musical interludes.

On the day of its release, History of the Entire World, I Guess was the top video on the YouTube trending page, receiving 3.2 million views. On Reddit, it became the most upvoted YouTube link. It became an internet meme and was listed eighth on YouTube's list of the top 10 trending videos of the year. , it has over 169 million views.

Vox German Lopez praised the video for not heavily focusing on Western history and successfully covering areas that may be neglected in American schools, such as powers in China, Persia, and India. Las Vegas Weekly called it a "must-see", and it has been considered Wurtz's magnum opus. In 2020, Thrillist ranked the video at number 40 on its list of the 100 greatest YouTube videos.

Post-History of the Entire World, I Guess career (2017–present)
In 2017, Wurtz released "Hi, I'm Steve", an absurdist animation about a man named Steve, which trended on Reddit. Other videos include animated music videos, such as "Mount St. Helens is about to Blow Up" and "and the day goes on", as well as nonsensical shorts.

In 2018, Wurtz appeared on the H3 Podcast, his first major interview. Wurtz's song "I Just Did a Bad Thing" inspired a trend of TikTok videos of people lip-syncing to the song and using it to accompany pranks and regrettable changes in personal appearances. Millions of videos used the audio, and #ididabadthing became the platform's top hashtag of March 2019.

Style
Wurtz creates music and animation in an absurdist, surreal style. Eddie Kim of MEL Magazine wrote 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. 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."

Music
Wurtz's music has been classified as jazz pop, incorporating elements of lo-fi music, smooth jazz, funk, and easy listening. 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." Wurtz's voice has been described by MEL Magazine as a "silky tenor with range and energy". He plays instruments including the piano, bass guitar, and drums. His songs feature prominent basslines, which he records on a keyboard rather than a bass guitar.

Wurtz started playing music at a very early age. 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."

Artists who have expressed admiration for Wurtz's music include indie musicians Daði Freyr and Sidney Gish as well as DJ and producer Porter Robinson.

Videos
Wurtz's videos are typically set in a lo-fi, neon aesthetic and have been described as surreal and psychedelic. They often involve deadpan humor, clip art images, dancing stick figures, vaporwave-like transitions, and neon, sans-serif text on-screen. He said on the H3 Podcast that his aesthetic arose to "get the job done [...] the only way I can do it, really." His aesthetic has been compared to that of the early internet.

Wurtz is against running advertising on or accepting sponsorships for his videos, despite feeling pressure to do so. He has explained that advertisements make him "uncomfortable" and that he thinks "they suck". Wurtz receives direct fan support through crowdfunding on Patreon, plays on music streaming services, and merchandise sales, but he does not heavily promote these revenue streams.

Public image
Wurtz has an online following, including a subreddit. He is known as a private person; he infrequently does interviews and has not gone on tour. On the H3 Podcast, he said that he "doesn't have time to do anything but make music". He struggles with perfectionism, making use of schedules and deadlines to overcome it.

Website
Wurtz launched his personal website, billwurtz.com, in 2014. Its simple design has been compared to late-1990s websites. The website contains his released songs and most of his videos dating back to 2002, as well as short journal posts and vlog-style "reality" videos depicting his creative process. Wurtz maintains a section on his website to answer anonymously submitted questions. The style of his answers has been described by the website OK Whatever as "[verging] on the poetic" and by MEL Magazine as "earnest, if somewhat loopy-sounding".

Wurtz is active on Instagram and Twitter, with humorous tweets in the style of Weird Twitter.

Other songs
The following songs are available on Wurtz's website: