Like a lot of people, we here at WIRED have spent a good portion of these early weeks of 2021 obsessed with sea chanteys. Although the merchant marine songs date back to the 19th century, they recently became a craze on TikTok, where scores of people use the duet feature to create massive harmonized versions of the songs. (Have you seen those videos of folks singing about sugar, tea, rum, and “tonguing”? Then you know what we’re talking about.) Not too long after they stormed social media, the general public—desperate for respite in these days of quarantine—climbed aboard the trend. Stephen Colbert even sang their praises on The Late Show.
Never ones to keep our obsessions to ourselves (that’s why you love us, right? Right?!), we decided it was time to take our own personal love of sea chanteys to the public. So today, around 1 pm ET, we’re going to be heading to our Twitch channel to do a little singing. If you’re worried that our rusty pipes alone may not be worth tuning in for, fear not. We’ve asked the a cappella folk group The Longest Johns to join us. They’re professional chantey singers and, as luck would have it, avid gamers, so they’re going to be teaching us a few tunes while hosting us on their Sea of Thieves ship. Sound like fun? Join us in the Twitch stream above and get ready to sing along and score some loot.
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