The Medium is the Massage | Porter Robinson & Madeon's Shelter

A few days ago, I was watching the music video for Porter Robinson and Madeon's Shelter, their trending electronic single.  I was very surprised that Robinson had chosen to create an anime film to feature their hit song.  You can watch the video down below.

The story of the music video is straightforward, and is described in the description of the YouTube video:

"Shelter tells the story of Rin, a 17-year-old girl who lives her life inside of a futuristic simulation completely by herself in infinite, beautiful loneliness. Each day, Rin awakens in virtual reality and uses a tablet which controls the simulation to create a new, different, beautiful world for herself. Until one day, everything changes, and Rin comes to learn the true origins behind her life inside a simulation."

After watching this music video, I instantly thought of McLuhan's work.  As we have learned from Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage," often times the medium can have a larger effect on the message than the actual content itself.  Robinson could have chosen to make his music video like any other (live action), but instead, he decided to choose anime as his medium.  What is the message that we can take from this?

By choosing anime as the medium, Robinson was able to portray his ideas in a fantastical theme as often seen in many other anime films, as well as connect to a completely different audience as opposed to one he might have seen with a less original music video.  Additionally, Robinson was able to demonstrate the huge influence that Japanese culture and animation has had on his work.  Choosing the medium for this music video was not a small decision, and Robinson's collaboration with Madeon in Shelter shows us how the theory of McLuhan can be used in a real world example.