What Song Are You Listening to?

About

What Song Are You Listening to? or Hey You! Interviews refers to a series of man-on-the-street interview videos where the interviewer asks people wearing headphones what they're listening to. After they answer the song is often edited into the video alongside its title, artist and sometimes album cover. The earliest viral video to do this was uploaded to YouTube in 2011 by Ty Cullen. It inspired a number of viral videos doing the same thing over the following years and became widely popularized by YouTubers and TikTokers in mid-2021.

Origin

On May 25th, 2011, YouTuber^[2] Ty Cullen uploaded a video titled "Hey You! What Song are you Listening to? NEW YORK" where he walks around New York and asks people with headphones what they're listening to. They answer and he edits the song over the video, which plays until the next interview (shown below). The video gained over 6.2 million views in 10 years.

The video inspired a number of other videos like it that year. For example, on June 20th, 2011, YouTuber^[3] clavernu posted a video directly inspired by Cullen's asking the question to people in Amsterdam, gaining over 1.3 million views in 10 years (shown below).

Spread

On October 11th, 2011, YouTuber^[4] HotWopf uploaded a video doing the same thing in Toronto, gaining over 110,000 views in 10 years (shown below, left). These videos continued to appear on YouTube over the following years. On July 26th, 2012, YouTuber^[5] Оля Оля uploaded a video asking people in Moscow what they're listening to, gaining over 233,000 views in nine years (shown below, right).

On September 24th, 2015, YouTuber Onward State posted a video following the format at Penn State, gaining over 1.9 million views in six years (shown below, left). The trend became increasingly popular in 2021. On April 16th, 2021, YouTuber Stef C posted a video following the format in Vancouver, Canada, gaining over 715,000 views in six month (shown below, right).

On June 14th, TikToker @beyondthebucket uploaded his first "Hey You!" video, asking people around Los Angeles what song they're listening to, gaining over 199,000 views in four days. The user uploaded a second video like this on September 7th, gaining over 8.9 million views in a month (shown below, left). He continued to upload these videos over the course of the month, with many going viral. On September 14th, he uploaded the sixth part of this series, gaining over 9.5 million views in a month (shown below, right).

On September 17th, TikToker^[6] @shan_rizwan began uploading videos following this format to TikTok (example shown below, left). He uploaded his first "Hey You!" video to YouTube^[1] on July 18th, gaining over 852,000 views in three months. On September 22nd, TikToker^[7] @nicolasnuvan began uploading videos following the format, with many going viral over the course of the month (example shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References