The sound of the 2010s was still taking shape. Taylor Swift was moving toward pop dominance. Mumford & Sons was leading a folk revival. Obama-era indie rock was soaring like a Foster the People chorus. EDM was having a different kind of cultural takeover. Daft Punk‘s Discovery and Justice‘s rock ‘n’ roll-inspired dance beats laid the foundation for the 2010s DJ explosion. Suddenly, names like Deadmau5, Zedd, and Avicii became recognizable stars, almost like the internet’s rock stars.
No one embodied the internet’s new rock-star culture quite like Sonny Moore, aka Skrillex. The former vocalist for post-hardcore band From First to Last, Skrillex had an instantly unmistakable sound, with aggressive drops, cartoonish samples, and exaggerated synths. His music seemed destined for video games, YouTube, internet culture, and the early 2010s, just as social media was truly taking shape. From his style to his sound, Skrillex took dubstep into the stratosphere for a brief moment in cyberspace.
American brostep was built for the internet. Wobbly bass pounded through shaking subwoofers; abrupt drops sent tracks into sonic chaos, and lines like “Yo Skrill Drop It Hard” were shareable from the start. Yet even within the scene, Skrillex stood apart. His hipster glasses, unique haircut, and chaotic, melodic, theatrical, catchy tracks made him recognizable by sight and sound. Tracks like “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” mixed euphoric melodies with brutal bass drops.
“Bangarang” was an instant earworm, from the pounding beats to Sirah shouting out “To All My Lost Boys”. “Make It Burn Dem” fused reggae with niche EDM. “Breakin’ a Sweat” featured vocal samples of Jim Morrison, like a prophet announcing the future of music through the voice of the past. Tracks like “Cinema”, featuring Gary Go, showed off pop-facing choruses with brostep bridges made for the internet’s most obsessive music fans.
Skrillex had a sonic and visual identity as distinctive as his production style, interweaving internet shorthand with pop sensibilities. Meme remixes of Skrillex with the Cory in the House theme song made perfect sense within online culture. He built tracks as if for a culture migrating to the internet. Every track felt like an event, and each new release felt like the most exciting thing happening in EDM at the moment. It was music made for adrenaline, for the fast-paced, increasingly cinematic world of a changing gaming landscape.
YouTube began as a home for skateboarding dogs and inexplicable viral videos, but by the early 2010s, the term “YouTuber” was part of the zeitgeist. Creators like PewDiePie and Markiplier became central to the platform, and their Let’s Play channels turned video games into spectator entertainment for the masses. As Let’s Plays and video game footage began to permeate YouTube during the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 era, the platform was flooded with gameplay footage and trickshot montages, often scored to the sounds of dubstep.
Groups like FaZe Clan and OpTic Gaming became internet tastemakers, helping circulate music by artists such as Logic and Macklemore. Yet dubstep was the genre most embedded in Call of Duty‘s culture. The chaotic music mirrored the hyper-frenetic gameplay of high-level Call of Duty. Suddenly, gaming montages felt cinematic. Online culture took shape in real time as FaZe Temprrr synced acrobatic gameplay footage to the blasting beats of “Kill Everybody” by Skrillex.
What had circulated through message boards and SoundCloud now found a new life in gaming. Unlike traditional video game soundtracks, this was a musical movement that gaming communities helped circulate. Montage editors associated with groups like FaZe Clan became informal music curators; word of mouth increasingly meant a shared clip, a message-board link, or a song encountered on YouTube’s front page. Suddenly, the song you found through a gaming montage could become the song you needed on your iPod, your playlist, or the soundtrack to your own online adventure.
However, gaming communities were only one part of the story. YouTube gave the tracks a visual life as gameplay footage and fan remixes populated the site. SoundCloud helped make electronic music feel part of a constantly evolving online conversation. DJs could build an audience through remixes and by sharing tracks across online communities, alongside radio airplay and the club scene, rather than relying on any one of them alone.
An artist like Skrillex, whose sound might once have seemed destined to remain niche, could build a global fanbase because the internet can take a distinctive sound and let it travel between scenes. SoundCloud gave him a global business card. The internet is far from the sole reason for his popularity, but it created the infrastructure to reach a larger audience. Skrillex’s early uploads of his remix of Gary Go’s “Cinema” were more than new music; they exposed his sound to audiences in a new format and embedded dubstep in the internet lexicon.
“Cinema” is far from the beginning, but it remains a core example of Skrillex’s pop-forward melodies fusing with dramatic bass drops. He didn’t leave the underground; the underground expanded around him. He won Grammys, headlined major events, and collaborated with Justin Bieber. “Bangarang” took an instantly recognizable hook, references to the movie Hook, and heavy maximalist production, making it an anthem for subculture and mainstream audiences alike. His music had already appeared in gaming montages; now it showed up in major releases like “Make It Burn Dem” with Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley in Far Cry 3 and “Try It Out” in Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
The relationship had become an ouroboros: music that first found an audience through gaming culture was now being licensed directly into the games themselves. His Jack Ü collaborations with Diplo expanded his EDM palette with “Where Are Ü Now” featuring Justin Bieber. At the same time, his signature style bled into co-writing and co-producing hits for Bieber on Purpose, such as “Sorry.” It was the collision of underground EDM credibility with global pop. He could transcend scenes, cool kids, gamers, ravers, pop audiences, and everyone online. His sound was a mixtape made by the internet and made for a growing digital culture.
However, the party couldn’t last forever. As online immediacy grew, trends moved faster than ever. Vine, Instagram, and eventually TikTok fueled new trends as social media adopted new formats. Dubstep’s commercial moment receded, and electronic music split into what seemed like a million directions. Skrillex followed EDM’s evolution, but mainstream audiences didn’t. Recess saw Skrillex expand beyond traditional dubstep and the ideas that initially brought him popularity.
He became an artist more interested in moving between EDM subgenres than recreating the 2011 sound. Skrillex’s earlier sound never disappeared entirely. The melodies of “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” or the brutality of “Ruffneck” could never truly leave his setlist, but the sound expanded and was recontextualized by an artist willing to explore.
Online communities rarely vanish; their sound aesthetics and references become a part of the internet’s vocabulary and digital archive. Like a meme or viral clip, dubstep’s sound can persist long after its original moment has passed. In 2026, Skrillex explored dubstep on Soma, blending it with Brazilian funk, trance, and techno. On Soma, he creates experimental tracks like “Tranki” and “Pente Rala”, further showing his willingness to blend genres even in the context of dubstep. But those who want to relive the classic 2010s sound can still find plenty of monstrous remixes on Skrillex subreddits or in classic FaZe Clan YouTube playlists.
The next generation inherits the bass drop. Modern EDM producers like Porter Robinson and Madeon have developed their own emotionally expansive take on electronic pop. Their collaboration on “Shelter” doesn’t feel like typical dubstep, but the building pop cadence, breezy melodies, and blissful (rather than brutal) drops show that dubstep’s bones still inspire the scene. Robinson released his EP Spitfire on Skrillex’s label, OWSLA, and Madeon’s remix of “Raise Your Weapon” showcases his early dubstep through pounding drum beats.
Perhaps the most fascinating example of dubstep’s influence is Ninajirachi’s hyperpop take on I Love My Computer. Ninajirachi’s album is more than nostalgia for the internet scored by Skrillex. It also carries echoes of 2010s EDM, with tracks like “I Want to Fuck My Computer” and “iPod Touch”. None of these artists directly copy Skrillex, but their sound is defined by maximalist production and carries the imprint of a genre born online.
It’s not just the new generation of EDM carrying on Skrillex’s legacy. 2010s nostalgia is cycling back, as viewers revisit classic World of Warcraft and dive into fan-made RuneScape servers. Skrillex hit the EDM scene just as the internet became an increasingly powerful cultural force, preserved through old uploads, memes, reaction videos, and playlists. Songs no longer need to chart or become hits to stay culturally alive. Today, those looking for dubstep can still find devoted communities on Reddit, Twitch, SoundCloud, or wherever they listen to their music. Internet archives preserve memories of past online lives and niches, keeping moments like dubstep alive for future audiophiles.
The internet is the perfect vehicle for preservation and rediscovery. EDM never truly left the worlds of streamers and YouTubers. Streamers still use over-the-top EDM tracks to punctuate videos. Festival DJ sets now circulate across social media, reaching audiences far beyond the dance floor. And dubstep gets a second life anytime someone remembers the days of “FaZe Up,” when Modern Warfare 2 became a global phenomenon. The internet preserves the moment and carries it on as the sound migrates between games, memes, dance clubs, and memory.
Skrillex didn’t just write the soundtrack for the internet of the 2010s; his music became inseparable from the way an entire generation experienced gaming and online culture. Dubstep was never meant to remain mainstream. It was always too strange and abrasive for the mainstream to sustain indefinitely. But online communities give dubstep, like many subcultures, a long afterlife after the limelight fades. Because online, even when the trend dies, the bass still drops.