On April 10, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” was published. This American tragedy tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a wealthy man pursuing his love, Daisy Buchanan. Initially, this novel was not well-received, but today it is one of the most famous books in American literature. A musical based on this book opened in New York on April 25, 2024, about 99 years after it was published. Starring Jeremy Jordan as Gatsby and Eva Noblezada as Daisy, this musical has attracted about 233,000 people, making it a huge success. But what has made it so popular?
This musical has done something on social media that is incredibly unique—it has created its own TikTok and YouTube accounts, going so far as to post videos of the cast and commenting on other people’s videos related to “The Great Gatsby: A New Musical.” Videos were posted teaching other people part of the original dance to a song titled “New Money,” starting a trend of people taking videos of themselves doing the dance and posting it to their social media accounts. On TikTok, the musical has 107.8K followers and 19K subscribers on YouTube. Undoubtedly, this new marketing strategy was a huge success.
However, there is some controversy about the musical, as several changes have been made from the original book. The characters of Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker become closer to each other and have an affair in the musical, whereas in the book, Fitzgerald writes that Nick had a “tender curiosity” about her. Also, towards the end of the show, Daisy sings a slow ballad that brushes the blame off her shoulders, but the book makes it appear that the tragedy towards the end of the story was everyone’s fault.
These changes, however, did not take away from the show very much, as the musical did a pretty good job of staying close to the book it was based on. The theme that money cannot buy you everything was clearly conveyed, and many people are already huge fans of the musical. Its unique way of marketing contributed to the show’s popularity—what marketing tactics will be tried next?