> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://aftermath.site/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Tech Is Ruining Everything—Except Karaoke - URL: https://aftermath.site/tech-is-ruining-everything-except-karaoke/ - Published: 2026-10-28T15:38:44.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-28T16:52:05.000Z - Description: In the face of a dying world, karaoke is better than it's ever been - Author: Merritt K - Tags: Inside Baseball Week 2026, karaoke, #top-story Doesn't it feel like everything — especially everything Big Tech touches — is getting worse? Generative AI, not merely content with robbing humans of our craft and jobs, has escaped containment into physical reality in the form of shitty event flyers and small business signage. Hugely profitable industries like video games and film are being torn apart by the financialization of the economy as shareholders seek ever-increasing short-term profits. Algorithmic pricing of rent and groceries threatens to further punish the working class for the crime of not being born rich. But in the heart of despair, we must reach for that which is good and pure and — dare I say it — *better* than it used to be. Karaoke is one of those things. And it is better not because of the disruption of tech giants, but, as is often the case, thanks to the work of enterprising maniacs toiling in obscurity, purely out of the love of the game. ## The Old Ways I love karaoke, despite having less range than a Cybertruck towing a trailer. I've been doing it for about two decades now, and I firmly believe in its primal power to bring human beings together. As Molly Mary O'Brien [writes](https://www.ienjoymusic.net/lemmy-caution-karaoke-deactivation/?ref=aftermath.site), karaoke "has a natural vulnerability that allows people to connect with each other at an accelerated velocity… and it's a taste of rock stardom that I genuinely believe is good for the soul." But if you are under thirty, you may not have had the experience of old-style karaoke, in which patrons flip through three-ring binders (one organized by artist, another by song) to find the corresponding code for their desired track, then punch it into the room's machine or, in bar karaoke, take it up to the KJ (karaoke jockey). Thousands of hands had touched those binders before yours, and while you hoped they occasionally sanitized each plastic-coated page, it was best not to think about it at all. These volumes were full of songs licensed by whatever karaoke companies the establishment dealt with. Their catalogs were typically made up of standbys dating back to Sinatra, plus the last few decades of Top 40 hits. Sometimes there were "New Release" pages inserted into the front of these binders, for a very loose definition of "new." In 2007, you might have to wait six or seven months to sing Rihanna's "Umbrella" after the first time you heard it on the radio. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-97d47ca1-3266-427c-b7ea-c8612ed7785f.jpeg) **Lion's Roar Karaoke, photo by the author* Western karaoke fans in the 80s and 90s faced even more limiting circumstances. Host and track creator Patrick Storck, aka DJ Penfold, got into karaoke while in high school in the 1980s, the days of "KJs lugging around suitcases full of discs." But he and his friends quickly ran into frustration when the tracks they wanted to perform weren't available commercially. Years later, he began hosting trivia at the legendary Baltimore venue Ottobar, and when the owners wanted to give karaoke a shot, they tapped him to run it. After their $800 karaoke machine gave out, Storck started running the night off his laptop, using a collection of karaoke tracks a friend had given him. At the time, track quality varied wildly. In part, this was a result of shifting technologies. The earliest video karaoke setups played off Laserdiscs produced by companies like Pioneer. But in the 90s, formats like video CDs and MIDI tracks became more popular in Southeast Asia, partly due to their greater transportability. It was cheaper and easier to instruct a computer to play a MIDI file than it was to record and distribute CD-quality music. That meant that well into the late 2000s, you would stumble on karaoke tracks like Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" that were *only* available sounding like bootleg background music from a shareware DOS game featuring an edgy squirrel bragging about how he was just as good as Mario. But things were already starting to change. More and more hobbyists like Storck were getting into running karaoke events, and the streaming video revolution was enabling them to do things that would have been impossible just years earlier. ## Karaoke By The People Lion's Roar is a small karaoke venue in Brooklyn run by husband and wife couple Roberto and Zaida Williams. The casual observer might not even know it was there from the outside, tucked as it is into an unremarkable Bushwick apartment block. It was my birthday weekend, and there was nowhere else I'd rather celebrate with my friends. We pressed the buzzer to be let inside, where Zaida's smiling face greets us. She ushered us into the mood-lit space, an open-concept living room slash kitchen that is actually part of her and Roberto's apartment. Roberto oversees the proceedings, introducing newcomers as to how it works and referring, without fail, to all of us as "friends." He informed us that his life-size statues of Batman and Robin, fixtures of the space, were sadly damaged by careless "friends" last month and are currently undergoing reconstruction. We mourned their absence, but quickly settled into an excited energy as we dashed out our song selections onto slips of paper and passed them to Roberto, seated in his KJ booth built into the wall. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-4b6fc12a-d974-4e27-a903-604c548e81d5.jpeg) **Lion's Roar Karaoke, photo by the author* A partial list of tracks I've performed at Lion's Roar includes: Pulp's "Underwear," Jay-Z and Linkin Park's "Numb/Encore," Neil Cicierega's "Bustin'," [Rodney Dangerfield's "Rappin' Rodney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWTKhQzQl1A&ref=aftermath.site)," The Dead Kennedys' "Holiday in Cambodia," Richard Cheese's interpretation of "Down With the Sickness," and RXKNephew's "John Fetterman." It would be difficult to imagine finding most of these songs in a traditional karaoke catalog. They were available for me to serenade/terrorize my friends thanks to the work of individuals like the eponymous administrator of Funbox Karaoke. Funbox — who enjoys the pseudo-anonymity he enjoys online — has been uploading karaoke tracks to YouTube since 2019\. But he got into hosting karaoke-adjacent parties back in the mid-2000s, when he was "the guy who had every song on *Guitar Hero* and *Rock Band*," not to mention a *Pump It Up* arcade machine in his home. By the mid-2010s, his house parties had begun to shift their focus towards the karaoke aspects of the Harmonix rhythm games, and Funbox started to collect bootlegs of the old Sunfly karaoke discs. That name might not immediately ring any bells, but if you've ever done karaoke, I bet this image will. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-abfe8073-63d9-4a2e-b291-d57f80172da3.png) **"Mr. Wendal? You mean Baba Oje? The titular Mr. Wendal was a homeless man."* In 2017, Funbox started running karaoke nights as a side hustle while working as a poker dealer at Harrah's Las Vegas. But like Storck, he wasn't content with the offerings of Sunfly and its peers. He started making his own karaoke tracks and uploading them to YouTube, prioritizing songs without existing karaoke versions, material by acts like Of Montreal, The Roots, Mindless Self Indulgence, Wu-Tang Clan, and MF DOOM. Last month, he uploaded his 3,000th video: "It's Getting Boring by the Sea" by UK alt-rock duo Blood Red Shoes. Funbox is just one of the many independent karaoke creators who produce videos on YouTube. People began uploading their own backing tracks to the platform shortly after it launched in 2005, and music corporations got involved a few years later. KaraFun, a French company that currently boasts over three million subscribers on YouTube, posted Sinatra's "New York, New York" in September 2011\. But YouTube karaoke's Cambrian explosion didn't really begin until the pandemic era. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-8694692d-acef-420b-acc1-64173ae91856.jpeg) **Lion's Roar Karaoke, photo by the author* Storck discovered the diveBar Discord during quarantine. Now boasting over 1,800 members, the community there showed him the ropes of karaoke track generation. "The first track I made was one that I'd wanted forever: The Dickies' 'Killer Klowns' \[from the film *Killer Klowns from Outer Space*\]. It was clunky. I was learning. But I wanted to be able to do it." With the help of the Discord, he wasable to. And he's not the only one, either. YouTube channels like Cloud Eleven, Fatbird, Peareoke, Scream Queen, and Storck's Black Lodge Karaoke have sprung up around the diveBar community, each pursuing their own particular musical interests. As a result, you're more likely than ever to find whatever niche track you're looking for. Hell, there are *two* versions of "John Fetterman," the 2025 diss track that got RXKNephew banned from Distrokid. On the diveBar Discord, track makers share methodologies and tools. But they mostly reject tech's efforts to push AI into the karaoke space. Storck notes that there are now full-service AI toolkits which will strip vocals, time out lyrics, and deliver a completed karaoke video, but says that "the results are about what you would expect. If I find out that a channel I've been sourcing tracks from has been doing their stuff that way," he adds, "I'll stop using it. Because chances are if somebody picks one of those songs, they're going to have a bad time." Similarly, when users show up requesting karaoke versions of AI-generated music, like the slapdash novelty songs that proliferated on YouTube a couple of years ago (e.g. "what if System of a Down was motown?"), the Discord will send them on their way. ## The Industry Strikes Back Corporate karaoke entities on YouTube aren't terribly well-regarded by small karaoke creators. Storck says that while the quality from the major brands has improved, there are still a lot of issues. Karafun, for instance, does well with the lyrics, but sometimes strips out backing vocals without adding the corresponding directions to sing them. Funbox is a little less diplomatic. He describes Sing King, a channel with nearly 15 million subscribers, as "a soulless corporate karaoke vendor that started as a ringtone company \[and which\] benefits from first movers' advantage from being the first karaoke channel on YouTube over a decade ago." Their videos are "deep-fried ass," many of their videos are "heinously offbeat," and "apparently after over a decade of polluting YouTube, they still don't know what a lead-in is." Certainly hobbyist YouTubers have significantly improved and expanded the karaoke experience beyond anything the corporate world could offer. Unfortunately, they, unlike the big players, have little protection against abuse of YouTube's draconian copyright strike system. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/10/data-src-image-2c2ebbfa-60ce-4fff-a632-cdfea404ca7a.jpeg) **Lion's Roar Karaoke, photo by the author* Funbox says that most of his tracks are monetized to the original rights holders thanks to YouTube's copyright detection algorithms. That's fine by him, and Storck agrees. But rights holders aren't always content to let free use prevail and rake in whatever ad revenue they're entitled to. In February 2024, Tyler, the Creator left YouTube's Content ID system, triggering [dozens of copyright strikes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxRjdrnqbtc&ref=aftermath.site) on karaoke channels. Enough of these strikes hit Lemmy Caution Karaoke — one of the biggest hobbyist channels, with over 3,000 tracks uploaded — to take it offline in accordance with YouTube's "three strikes" policy. The channel's owner reached out to the artist and attempted to resolve the issue, but received no reply. Other karaoke channels have similarly been taken down by copyright strike blitzes, which speaks to [a larger issue with YouTube's copyright system](https://www.404media.co/archivists-back-up-nonprofit-museum-of-classic-chicago-television-before-sony-copystrikes-get-it-taken-down-from-youtube/?ref=aftermath.site). Meanwhile, venues seeking to play YouTube karaoke tracks face their own issues. Traditional karaoke licensing companies acquired songs from their publishers, and venues contracted with them for both their catalogs and the rights to play them. YouTube karaoke comes with no such rights, meaning that venues can be hit with large fees if they're caught doing it without the appropriate permissions in place. This isn't a hypothetical problem, either. Earlier this year, Ottobar got hit with nearly $20,000 in legal damages after BMI sued them for the unlicensed performances of three songs during Storck's karaoke night. You might wonder how that's possible. Ottobar is a physical venue, not a Twitch account or YouTube channel with constant algorithmic surveillance. Did they get investigated by the Karaoke Cops or something? In fact, that's exactly what happened. BMI heard about Ottobar's successful karaoke night and sent out an investigator who drew up a floorplan of the space, created a list of all songs performed, and [took photos of patrons](https://thedailyrecord.com/2026/06/25/ottobar-baltimore-karaoke/?ref=aftermath.site), all in an effort to extract licensing fees from the venue. When Ottobar didn't respond, BMI took them to court. "Ottobar thought they had everything covered," Storck says, "but since the karaoke involved files that weren't on YouTube or Spotify, it wound up being a little carveout that fell between the licensing agreements. If they can find a way to say that you owe them money, they will. I've seen them go after cafes for allowing covers at open mic nights." ## The New World Despite these issues, karaoke feels more vibrant than ever thanks to the efforts of the people who genuinely care about it. "The scene has gotten better due to people's access to higher quality karaoke backing audio," Funbox tells me. "Shows that haven't updated their offerings are the same, or probably worse (I don't attend those), while shows using modern media and wider song selections are thriving and exciting." Lion's Roar is undoubtedly one of the latter. The party was winding down, and per our request, Roberto closed out the night with a song of his own. He absolutely crushes Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight." When he wraps up and everyone's getting ready to leave, I thank him and Zaida and we get to chatting about their work. It was clear that the two of them put a great deal of thought into the experience, from greeting guests to dialing in the audio. "I adjust the levels for each singer," Roberto told me. "I'm a performer myself, so it's important to me to get it right." Storck echoes that sentiment from the track creator side of things, saying, "we're fans. We're spending the time, really putting the work in. I'm not making a penny off any of the tracks I make, I'm not selling them. I'm just making them for people to have a good time. And if I'm going to do it for that, why do a shitty job?" 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