Please post a webisode or youtube video that's entertained you lately. Don't worry about commenting much on it in introduction, but please use your 200 words to comment on a clip that another class member uploads. Last blog post due anytime before course final exam.
This video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2rPEiWDbgo - was posted by Bo Burnham, a musician-comedian that started his career on Youtube 7 years ago. His first full length special was paid for and filmed by Comedy Central who originally posted it on Netflix but have since removed it. That filmed version now belongs to Comedy Central instead of to Bo, the show's creator.
ReplyDeleteThe "coming soon" video itself speaks to the artistic freedom of the Youtube space, and how the artist can maintain control over his or her own content. As he says, this decision on his part was a step towards a "more personal and less profit driven exchange of ideas". That is not to say that he isn't making profit. Bo Burnham will be able to glean a share of the money made by any commercial videos (pre-rolls) or banners that are viewed before or during the Youtube video itself, and as the video suggests, he is selling the studio album (which is FANTASTIC!) - a more classically profit-driven medium. Bo is also known for not only allowing, but encouraging his fans his fans to record his shows and share them on Youtube.
The full show, called "What." was posted this morning and can be viewed on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejc5zic4q2A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shkj5akJmzs
ReplyDeleteA lot of my favorite videos on YouTube appear to be edited footage from VHS tapes found at garage sales. This one is a personal favorite of mine because it’s hilariously ‘90s and the kids are really cute. (I like when the little boy says “You’re the only person that has that heart, that skin, that hair.”) Also, the weird bullying lady who seems to be getting some kind of sadistic pleasure out of insulting children to their faces is hysterical. YouTube channels such as this one, “Deeper Understanding,” or “Everything is Terrible” find outdated, obscure videos about Beanie Babies ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llNAsoF64Ng ) or sponge painting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptwqeP4Feak (GASP! EARTH TONES!) and remove much of the context. The result are funny, peculiar, and strangely familiar videos that many people can relate to even if they don’t really understand them. I don’t know how I would characterize this “genre” of videos, but they are some of my favorite things to watch. A lot of them have gone viral, such as the cat massage instructional video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnZhi5gaX8g ) and “how to dance hip-hop” ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs72vl4h_pU ). They’re the epitome of short-attention span internet videos – silly and useless. But still a lot of fun.
This video--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PVhIMr4ScI—Show Your Joe, was a holiday 2013 commercial for Kmart. It was super entertaining to me mainly because of the bell-choir mockery that ensues. In my high school, the bell choir was a huge part of every celebration, whether a concert or a religious event, so it was hysterical to me to see it done through dancing. It was a clever way to advertise for the holiday boxer line, and was definitely entertaining to viewers. I originally saw it as a television commercial on ABC and looked it up online only to discover it had nearly 17 million hits on YouTube, far surpassing the popularity expectations I had for it when I first watched. It was also surprising to me that it was played on ABC during an earlier primetime slot, at 8 pm, during a show that is generally family friendly. While the commercial wasn’t completely inappropriate, the sexual innuendo did make it more inappropriate for younger audiences. Generally there is such an effort to keep inappropriate content for the later hours on TV, so it was surprising I saw it during the family hour. That being said, it was an incredibly entertaining commercial that would have been funny for all who saw it.
ReplyDeleteFor my video I’m posting one by TomSka who gained most of his YouTube fame from creating the ASDF animated comedy shorts. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akjUcRHSPdU&list=UUOYWgypDktXdb-HfZnSMK6A)
ReplyDeleteAs far as the other posts so far, I think Bo Burnham is a great comedian. He is also one who has really used the new forms of social media to his advantage. This YouTube video is a great example of him promoting his own upcoming content, but also creating that stands alone and can be funny in itself. It also caters to the internet crowd in the way that it encourages the sharing of his content and aligns him on their side of the media sharing debate, which endears him to his fans even more. Bo also uses Vine videos to constantly connect with fans and show his comedic prowess in other forms (they’re really funny so I’d suggest watching this compilation of several of them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WMWrNPYbc8).
As far as the second video, I think we can easily see a form of out of context humor that is very popular right now. Obviously the way the video is cut is used to get the maximum hilarity out of every quote by removing it from any sort of meaning it had in the original video. This humor has recently translated to memes and other internet comedy forms with a lot of success to make serious comments and reactions into objects of other social significance, but usually in a less serious sense. For example, the Boromir quote from LotR where he remarks that “one does not simply walk into Mordor.” Now the meaning has been warped to generally remark on the nature of anything impossible from passing classes to getting health insurance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s6UiEuCYXA
ReplyDeleteThe first youtube video that I had thought of which has entertained me was the pilot of the web series, Mortal Kombat Legacy. Initially, the director wanted to make a full length film of this idea. However, the idea was not given the green-light so he could not fulfill his plan. Though, due to positive reception from fans (of the trailer), he simply thought it best to shoot it as a web series, releasing new episodes once a week.
One youtube video that one class member uploaded was the K-Mart video titled “Show Your Joe.” I initially thought that mixing a Christmas carol and sexual innuendos (especially of men) just seems downright wrong. However, by the end of the clip, I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought that K-Mart did an absolutely great job with this very creative and daring video. In addition, I thought the video tried to make an homage to this video that came out a year earlier, “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isPm79xTzM4,” which depicts five NBA basketball players dribbling to a common Christmas song. Regardless if the K-Mart video was trying to copy or use the same concept as the NBA video, I still thought that it was pretty entertaining to watch.