There are many music genres, too many to count, but one that is often overlooked is Nerdcore. Nerdcore is a genre, or subgenre of music that depicts characters, scenes, settings, or topics of other art forms that are considered “Nerdy” or “Geeky” such as anime, games, shows, books, movies, and comics. A key part of Nerdcore is that it’s made by the fans of the media, for fans of the media, acting as a sort of open love letter to series and creators, whilst being their own form of entertainment in and of themselves.
Arguably one the most popular examples of Nerdcore is found in songs based around the 2014 indie-horror hit: Five Nights at Freddy’s. The most popular of which is the aptly named “Five Nights at Freddy’s 1 Song” by The Living Tombstone. The video, at the time of writing this, has 370 million views on YouTube. Being a fan-favorite of its niche, even making its way on the big screen in the end credits of the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.
Other times when Nerdcore artists got an on-screen performance include PARANOiD DJ’s “Just Look My Way” getting an original animation and cover for the show Helluva Boss by Vivzeepop, and the song “Deadpool Rap” by TeamHeadKick being featured in the 2016 movie Deadpool.
As well as movies and shows, Nerdcore has been featured in games. An example of this is in the 2019 game Subnautica: Below Zero, wherein the publisher, Unknown Worlds added multiple fan songs in the form of an in-game item called the “Jukebox Disc” These songs the notable “Diving In Too Deep” by Nerdout! And “Take the Dive” by Jt Music. Another wildly popular game that included fan songs is Bendy and the Ink Machine by theMeatly, which includes songs from DAGames, JT music, and Kyle Allen, all played by hidden radios in several of the chapters.
The reach of Nerdcore is hard to understate, as the most popular example of all being songs and parodies based on the best-selling game of all time: Minecraft. A testament to the popularity of Minecraft music is TryHardNinja and CaptainSparklez’ “Fallen Kingdom” which, despite being a parody, briefly surpassed the original song, “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay in views on YouTube. After the success of the first parody, CaptainSparklez and TryHardNinja later made several original songs in the same series that gained hundreds of millions of views.
In conclusion, Nerdcore as a genre has been used to define entire communities and bring people together, as well as being used as a way to re-tell a story in a different way. Personally, Nerdcore has played a large role in my life as it’s helped me make friends, explore complex topics, and allowed me to find games and movies I wouldn’t have otherwise. I strongly believe that Nerdcore is a genre that deserves much more recognition, and that the transformative property of turning a game or movie into a song is a beautiful thing.
