YouTube, Video Games and Library Music in Everyday Life During the Pandemic

UIDB/00693/2020 UIDP/00693/2020 SFRH/BD/139120/2018 SFRH/BD/136264/2018One of the main impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic was the sudden change of routines and daily life on a global scale. The day-to-day activities that were once spread across several spaces – cars, cities, public transport, offices and other workplaces, schools, restaurants and bars – became, for many, confined to the domestic space, often shared between several people. The transposition of these activities to a domestic context eroded the distinction between places dedicated to leisure, and those dedicated to work and study. This shift also stimulated the creation of new sound and audiovisual content tailored for audiences in quarantine who accessed this content predominantly online. Musicians were also required to adapt, with the majority of their professional activity moving to digital mediums. In this paper, departing from three different online contexts - a video game, a YouTube channel and library music websites - we analyse and discuss some of the ways in which the pandemic motivated the creation and circulation of new digital and sound content, in addition to the impact of this content in day-to-day life during Covid-19. publishersversionpublishe