Bill Wurtz

Wurtz's first recorded composition was an instrumental named "Late Nite Lounge with Loud Lenny", which was recorded on June 17, 2002, and his first recorded song was "stuck in a rut" in March 2005.[2]

Wurtz was first known for his presence on the short-form video-sharing website Vine,[3][4] where he first gained a following in 2014.[2] He began by taking short videos he had previously published to his website and re-editing them to fit Vine's six-second restriction.[2] Before transitioning fully to YouTube, Wurtz was uploading a video to Vine nearly every day.[5] He received early attention in 2015 for the short video "Shaving My Piano", which was covered briefly in The Verge.[6] On April 11, 2016, Wurtz won the Shorty Award for "Tech & Innovation: Weird" at the 8th Shorty Awards; during the awards ceremony, attention was given to one of his Vine uploads "I'm Still a Piece of Garbage".[7] At the awards ceremony, his acceptance speech consisted of the words "Thank you."[2] Wurtz withdrew from making vines to focus on finishing history of japan.[r 1]

Wurtz's first known YouTube channel was a channel named "billynothingshow".[8]

Wurtz created his current YouTube channel in September 2013.[2]

External video
history of japan, YouTube video or download

Wurtz had originally intended to make a video on US history, but abandoned it.[r 2][r 3]

Alongside interest on Vine, Wurtz achieved wider popularity in 2016 with history of japan, a nine-minute YouTube video that outlines Japan's history.[9] Wurtz chose the topic due to his lack of knowledge of it.[r 4][2] The video covers key events of its history: "Buddhism, internal conflict, alliances with Britain, World War I, World War II, the dropping of atomic bombs and its post-war economic miracle".[10] It showcases Wurtz's quirky visual and comedic style through a mixture of fast-paced narration and animation, intercut with short musical jingles. The video was described as "an entertaining new approach to education".[11] It went viral on social media after its release on February 2, 2016, and under a week later, received over four million views by February 8.[10] It particularly received considerable attention on Tumblr[3] and Reddit.[9] As of August 2021, the video has over 68 million views. German Lopez of Vox called it a "strange", "pretty good – and surprisingly funny" video. Lopez noted the poor coverage of Japanese war crimes committed against Korea and China in the 20th century, particularly the Nanjing Massacre and the use of Korean sex slaves, and attributed this omission to the video's short runtime.[12]

External video
history of the entire world, i guess, YouTube video or download

Wurtz released a 20-minute overview of world history, history of the entire world, i guess, on May 10, 2017.[13] The video took over 11 months to produce, including almost 3 months of research[5] – it briefly covers the topics of natural history and human civilization spanning from the Big Bang to the near future.[14] The video marked the continued development of Wurtz's cinematic style, with fast-paced, absurdist humor and jazz-like musical interludes.[15]

History of the entire world, i guess was the top video on the YouTube trending page on the day of its release, receiving 3.2 million views on its first day, and on Reddit it became the most upvoted YouTube link of all time.[4][16] It became an Internet meme[17] and was listed at eighth place on YouTube's list of the top 10 trending videos of the year.[18] As of September 2023, it has over 161 million views.[19] Writer German Lopez for the news website Vox praised the video for not heavily focusing on western and US history, and successfully covering other areas in world history which may be neglected in US schools, such as powers in China, Persia, and India.[20] Because it resists specialization and assembles history in chronological order starting from the beginning of the Universe, history of the entire world, i guess can be considered a work of Big History, and is probably one of the most popular works associated with the discipline. It has been called a "must-see"[21] and is considered to be Wurtz's magnum opus.[2][13] In 2020, Thrillist ranked the video at number 40 on its list of best YouTube videos of all time.[22]

Wurtz's song "Just Did a Bad Thing" and the accompanying video spawned TikTok videos of people lip-syncing to the opening lines; in the platform, #ididabadthing became the top hashtag of March 2019.[23][24] Following this, Wurtz would only post four more videos before his break, ending with "Might Quit". After "Might Quit" was released, Wurtz would not post any new videos to YouTube for nearly two years, before continuing to release music and videos animated in 3D with Blender.

Wurtz's music has been classified as jazz pop, incorporating elements of lo-fi music, smooth jazz, funk and easy listening.[2][27] Overall, his music evokes malaise, self-deprecation, and a "blurring of the lines between irony, parody and honesty".[28] 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."[29]^: 0:00:46 Wurtz's voice has been described as "silky tenor with range and energy".[2] He plays instruments including piano, bass guitar, and drums.[2]

Artists who have expressed admiration for Wurtz's music include indie musicians Daði Freyr[30] and Sidney Gish[31] and DJ and producer Porter Robinson.[32]

Wurtz started playing music at a very early age.[q 1] 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."[33]

Wurtz's videos are typically in a lo-fi,[34] neon[3] aesthetic, and have been described as surreal[26] and psychedelic.[5][11] They range from "nonsensical" shorts to animated music videos,[34] and often involve deadpan humor, dancing stick figures, vaporwave-like transitions[2] and neon, sans-serif text on-screen.[25] Wurtz often follows patterns in his videos such as multi-layering,[5] and clip art images.[34] He has stated the low-budget quality arose out of a necessity to publish videos regularly and evolved naturally.[5]^: 0:35:27

At Vidcon 2018, Wurtz was asked why his style is so different from other YouTube musicians. He stated that he chooses to "live under a rock" and produce his music in isolation rather than take inspiration from other creators on the platform.[35] Wurtz publicly struggles with perfectionism, making use of schedules and deadlines to overcome it.[5]

Wurtz is decidedly against running advertising on or accepting sponsorships for his videos, despite admitting an "enormous" pressure to do so.[2][34] He has explained that advertisements make him "uncomfortable"[5] and that he thinks they "suck".[34] Wurtz does receive direct fan support, which includes crowdfunding on Patreon,[4] streams on music streaming services, and merchandise sales,[34][5]^: 0:44:15 but does not heavily promote any of these revenue streams.[5]

From his first video up until early 2019, Wurtz used Final Cut Express 4, a program that was discontinued as far back as in 2011.[5] In 2019, he switched to Final Cut Pro X.[q 2][q 3] Wurtz also taught himself the 3D animation software Blender, which enabled him to create significantly more complex and realistic graphics for his videos.[q 4]

• What the Fuck (2010)
• Church Sessions (2010)
• The Summertime (2010)
• Fun Music (2011)

• Yikes (2009)
• The Song Song (2009)
• Guerilla Myspace Project (2009)
• Bach Garageband (2010)
• Burger King Spring (2010)
• April Flowers (2010)
• It's All About the Ladies (2010)
• Fly July (2010)
• Short Butt Suites (2010)
• Fall Sprawl (2010)
• Murder Your Demon (2011)
• When is it Time to Come Home Again? (2011)
• Soap Boat (2011)
• Love (2011)
• Pain (2011)
• Hi-Bye (New Shorts) (2013)
• New School (2014)
• We Could Just Get Right (2014)
• Eat Dirt Shorts (2014)
• My Next Album (2014)
• High Enough (2014)

Wurtz has published numerous full-length music videos on his YouTube channel:

Wurtz has published many other full-length songs not accompanied by music videos. They are all available on his website,[39] and some are also available on streaming services. Songs include:

2009

2010

2011

2014

2017

Furthermore, Wurtz has published a myriad of shorter songs or jingles on his website ranging from a couple of seconds to up to a minute in length.[39]