I'm a young shanty enthusiast. I might be able to help give some context on the current chantey craze.

TikTok originally started in china as an app for making lip syncing videos. It's got music at the heart of its design. You can overlay music tracks into your videos easily, and you can "duet" other people's videos with your own video to sing collaboratively. All this is just to explain that it's a perfect place for a chantey craze to kick off, especially during covid.

On top of that, I cannot stress enough how much young people like chanteys-- or rather they like the idea of chanteys. Video games with shanty soundtracks are really popular just because of the music, and lots of tv shows aimed at young people have jokes about the idea of shanties (the new Netflix She-Ra is a good example). People in my generation know about sea shanties, but they don't actually really know what they are or where to find them. If they are somehow in a situation where they hear a shanty, they love it, but they have no idea where to find more of that kind of music. It might sound weird, but I've heard it from multiple friends over the years. Folk music can be a little opaque if you are first trying to get into it, and people my age just have no idea where to begin. I actually have a friend right now who keeps texting me to ask me to send her links to songs, because she doesn't know how to find them otherwise, except on TikTok.

I could make something up about the youth of today feeling oppressed by technology and longing for the freedom of the open waves, but really I think it just boils down to the fact that shanties are good. People like them. Kids just didn't know where to listen to them until this TikTok craze.

I'm just excited that my weird interest in shanties is suddenly cool among my friends. Maybe some of them will stick around after the craze is over. Maybe some of them will even learn the difference between a shanty and a forbitter song. Maybe.

Sorry for the wall of text. I'm a longtime mudcat lurker, but this is actually my first time posting.