Jesse Welles: social media and imagined communities
By Edward Clark
EDWARD CLARK conceptualises ‘Imagined Communities’, and the political messaging of protest music that shifts audiences from online, into the real world.
In 1983, social historian Benedict Anderson argued that ‘print-capitalism’ was the cornerstone of modern political mobilization: for left-wing revolutionaries around the globe, newspapers and pamphlets were the most efficient method of spreading information and political ideas. Nearly fifty years on, short-form video content on social media has taken precedence for the rapid dissemination of ideas, especially political ones. Platforms such as TikTok and Instagram allow creators to quickly gain followings, with algorithms tailoring user’s feeds to the content they are most interested in. One artist taking advantage of this system is folk musician Jesse Welles.
Welles’ music is potent. His direct lyrics suit themselves to TikTok’s short-form content, the titles intentionally attention-grabbing. His most viewed videos – ‘Cancer’, ‘Fat’, and ‘Fentanyl’, for example – have some of his most inflammatory titles. These titles are displayed in large font in every video, the audience engaged within the first second. His recent success is the result of a musical rebirth. After releasing music to limited success in the 2010s as Jeh Sea Welles and Welles, and as frontman of bands Dead Indian and Cosmic-American, Welles found an audience on TikTok in 2023. Now simply Jesse Welles, the artist took to releasing punchy, politically minded, stripped back folk through the regular release of short-form content. His lyrics are radically left-wing. On ‘War Isn’t Murder’ he sarcastically bites ‘War isn’t murder, ask Netanyahu / He’s got a psalm for that, and a bomb for you’. Reminiscent of overtly political American folk singers such as Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger, Welles uses his platform to speak against injustice.
TikTok and Instagram Reels offer a unique opportunity to comment on current issues at rapid pace – an aspect of the platforms which Jesse Welles takes advantage of. His ability to very quickly write and release music, responding to a headline within hours of its publication, is regularly commended by critics and fans alike. In an interview with the New York Times, Welles stated that he was simply ‘singing the news’ as a way to ‘make sense of what’s going on around [him]’. Perhaps a subtle reference to Phil Ochs’ 1964 album All the News That’s Fit to Sing, Welles positions himself as the next protest artist in a tradition of great American political folk musicians.
Even the visual image of Welles’ short-form videos seems to respond to current and continual debates and protests. Sat under an electricity wire in Arkansas, his visual presence blends the natural and manmade. As if his art is in conversation with Joni Mitchell’s lament that ‘they paved paradise and put up a parking lot’, every scroll reminds the audience of the conflict between ‘paradise’ and the manmade. This juxtaposition has become a part of his identity as an artist: the title of his 63-song LP Under the Powerlines not only refers to his content released online, but also emphasises a recurrent criticism in his lyrics of the role of technology and the manmade in modern society. Despite jumpstarting his career on social media, he is not afraid to criticise it – in his popular song ‘Bugs’ he sings ‘And I don’t know why what the mantis is praying for / But he’s probably just thanking the Lord / That he don’t live in a home / And he don’t got a phone / And he don’t sit around all angry’. He highlights how the mass communication he has benefitted from also allows for the dissemination of hate and negativity. Welles takes no prisoners.
Benedict Anderson saw the development of mass communication as a key factor in creating what he coined ‘Imagined Communities’: through the rapid dissemination of information, readers became connected through their political affiliation despite having never met one another and likely having little in common. Social media allows for ‘Imagined Communities’ on a broader scale to form in the same way. In lieu of the structure of a political party, followers of Welles are connected in their support of him, and by extension their shared political views. His music, which is often quickly released in response to notable political events, offers an opportunity and ‘community’ for his like-minded followers to discuss both the song and the event. For example, the comment section of his satirical song ‘Join ICE’ on Tiktok are filled with both celebrations of how ‘This is the Bob Dylan for this generation’ and criticism of President Trump’s immigration policies. This ‘Imagined Community’ created through social media is one example of countless similar micro-communities on online platforms.
Welles’ own community fits into a larger ecosystem of communities surrounding left-wing creators: users which interact with his content, by liking, commenting or watching, are more likely to be recommended other videos with similar political messages or styles. In this sense, Jesse Welles’ music is a part of a broader ‘Imagined Community’ for each user – whether a folk-head or a socialist. This community is then shifted offline with his extensive set of live performances, whether at festivals, in concert halls, or on the streets of London or New York, where he regularly busks for free, providing accessible performances for his audience and new material for his online media channels. As the new standard for mass communication, social media elevates Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’ to previously unimaginable heights. Jesse Welles is just one artist to have made a career out of it.
