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.
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ReplyDeleteTwo years after the release of her now infamous song "Friday," Rebecca Black recently released a sequel entitled "Saturday." I already love it
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/GVCzdpagXOQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spDdO_ZB-lE
ReplyDeleteAlthough this clip is more of an "advertisement in disguise" than a webisode, I think that the effort Pepsi put into the production of the Uncle Drew series should count for something.
When watching the Rebecca Black "Saturday" video, I couldn't help but think of the Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen Funny or Die videos we watched in class. The video seemed to be self-reflexive, poking fun at Rebecca's party-girl persona (if that party includes eating cereal out of a bowl marked "gotta have my bowl" and naming the days of the week) and mentioning the "Friday" video every few seconds in case viewers forgot her other infamous video. For all the cleverness, though, it also made me feel really uncomfortable to watch. Like Lindsay and Charlie, Rebecca clearly wants to be in the spotlight again, and is trying to recreate the magic of her other sensational, infamous video with this new one. But like Charlie couldn't bring back his "Two and a Half Men" days and Lindsay's comedy career peaked at "Mean Girls", Rebecca Black's "Saturday" is halfhearted. For a few days,websites and bloggers might find the song amusing, but it likely won't make an impact like her other song. It's like Chocolate Rain or that talking Huskie dog: I'm sure other videos of theirs exist, but for YouTube stars, gold often strikes only once. I'm sure Rebecca is a nice girl, and I'm glad to see her singing has improved (a little) since "Friday". But it's sort of sad that rather than trying to start a real music career, she's making fun of herself and trying for another silly viral hit.
ReplyDeleteIn the spirit of the holidays,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKrlkMnAVJE
The youtube clip, The Ultimate Christmas Movie, reminded me of some of the postmodern elements that Caldwell discussed in “Trash TV.” Since the video is a series of clips from a variety of different movies, all from different periods, it seems to represent the concept of perpetual presents. Caldwell states that this is a contradiction of time with no historical context. In this regard, the youtube video does not make any reference to the different periods in which the films were created. Additionally, they are not show chronologically; old and new movies are cut next to each other. This also makes it difficult to establish any context, which can be done but only by knowledge of the films depicted.
DeleteI think this could also be a form of pastiche since the video amasses films from various genres and styles, i.e. comedy (elf), family dramas (it’s a wonderful life), parodies (you pick), and even action (Die Hard?), but doesn’t make any statement or critique about the various styles or there evolution.
The video is also an instance of turning reality into images. The video creates a ‘hyper visuality’ by removing the clips from their context and presenting them in a gratuitous visual medley that becomes a spectacle in itself. I think it could also be argued that the quantity of such a wide array of films all revolving around one holiday is also an instance of the hyper visual postmodern world where we are always inundated with new films often depicting the same tale.
There are several things that I find interesting about this clip. The first being the remarkable amount of time it must have taken someone to edit all of these pieces together. That must have taken someone many, many hours. I am also interested in the process of deciding which movies to use and which clips to use from the movie. The movies were ostensibly chosen because they represent a typical Christmas movie for the individual. For some people, the movies selected might be correct, for others they might feel that their favorite movie is missing or that one has been included that should not have been. The clips were likely picked for the same reason. Even though the video is made up of a selection of clips, there is actually a storyline that moves throughout the video. The video starts with opening shots of snowy landscapes lit by beautiful Christmas lights, and then shows doors opening and families reuniting. Trees are decorated and admired, there is LOTS of kissing, and then we see both typical and unique family dinners. Halfway through the movie Santa, his sled, and his reindeer, there is a brief gunfight, followed by several different Santa battles. The video ends on a happy note though, with an image of a happy family. Basically every Christmas movie plotline is told through the clips. Beautiful Christmas backdrop, family togetherness, some sort of fight, but it all ends on a happy note. The video does a phenomenal job of explaining the plots of all Christmas movies in less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P_0s1TYpJU
ReplyDeleteI chose this because I find public pranks hilarious, but I also think it makes a really interesting comment on our society.
I think it’s so interesting that so many people were so cool with all that he was able to find out about them. Everything they post is just up for complete public consumption, all it took was someone actually putting in the effort to look at a stranger’s social media accounts. Personally, I’d be more than a little freaked out if this happened to me. While I think the reaction of the “Blanca” guy was a little over-the-top (threatening to call the police over things you voluntarily post on a public forum is stretching it), I think his was the more rational of all the people. Instead of just laughing and being like “Oh My God!” he actually was concerned about his accounts, which I think is something more people should take away from this. I think there is an even bigger commentary, however, in the fact that he went about doing all this, and instead of just revealing it to the people to maybe raise awareness about their privacy levels, he filmed it and posted it on yet ANOTHER social media site. And it was posted in a format that allowed people to share it quite easily across even more platforms – Facebook and Twitter especially (this video popped up on my feed on both sites).
DeleteThis clip reminds me so much of the supercut made of Aaron Sorkin's writing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S78RzZr3IwI). In general, I think the Christmas movie supercut and Sorkin's highlight how uncreative the film/TV industry can be. There are many Christmas movies in this clip, but what I think the supercut is trying to do is show how, under the broader theme of Christmas, movies tend to use the same storylines and gags to achieve a similar goal. Everyone loves Christmas movies, but eventually it becomes as if seeing one is like seeing them all. I think this clip also brings up a challenge the film industry is facing. Today, so many movies are remakes or sequels or adaptations of adaptations adapted from books, and the general creativity side of filmmaking and writing is lost because studios want to make money and if they know a franchise works, they will keep making sequels. With Sorkin, who wrote The Social Network, is an award winning writer, but from watching his supercut, you realize he perhaps just knows a really good formula and tends to go back it because if it worked once, then it’ll work again.
ReplyDeleteJack Vale’s social media experiment seriously freaks me out. I’m an incredibly private person in terms of social media (you may not believe me, but I got rid of my Facebook in 2011 and I only use Instagram to keep up with the Kardashians--seriously, you can check) and it scares me how naive people are about how much information they put on the Internet. On the other hand, the clip is really interesting to me because it makes the YouTube medium self-reflexive in a sense. Instagram has become a somewhat unconscious activity, but it is just as much a social media “effort” as something more taxing--like creating a YouTube video, as Jack Vale is doing. Vale is creating entertainment on one social media format, about posting entertainment on another social media format. Although the parallels are not exact, there’s something very Face in the Crowd about it all. There are so many crossovers between the various social media websites and apps at this point in time, and they’ve all begun referencing each other in various ways. But this clip (and ones like it) go beyond “integration.” This isn’t Vine posting automatically to Twitter. This is in the same vein as “The Filtered Network” (Funny or Die, shown in lecture) and other pieces of entertainment that reflect the constructions of today’s social media.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Sv-DSGCss&feature=youtu.be
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome feminist slam poetry. CAUTION: heavy use of language.
I think the Rebecca Black video is an interesting comment on the media industries these days. They create these personas that they use to sell products and ideas to us that can be entirely unlike the person themselves. Ke$ha is a great example – as a “persona” she’s a crazy, dumb blonde partier that sleeps around and is portrayed as trashy, yet the real Ke$ha is actually extremely intelligent and doesn’t really drink or party. Not that either Ke$ha is “right” or “wrong” but the industry-made Ke$ha is clearly used to sell a certain lifestyle in order to sell albums. Rebecca Black is the same thing. She was created by the media to sell a certain song and was made to be ridiculed, to be addictive yet laughed at, all so they could profit off of song sales and YouTube videos. This video shows insight to maybe what the “real” Rebecca Black is, consistently making fun of herself at every turn. In an interview she had done lately, where she reacts to watching “Friday” and she says “I don’t regret doing this because it has allowed me to do things now that I would have never been able to do.” Clearly she was not the brains behind “Friday” but she has parlayed that success to have better options. This “Saturday” video feels like she is embracing who she had to be in order to be the person she is today and is also making fun of her silly past.
ReplyDeleteThis web series is SO GOOD and shows gay representation in online content.
ReplyDeletehttps://vimeo.com/39287297
Chloe’s clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKrlkMnAVJE) reminds me of the Buffy and Twilight clip we watched in class. It demonstrates a new way for fans to interact and combine their interests together. Along with entertainment value it also points out the conventions used in many holiday movies, without really implying it is a positive or negative thing that so many movies have many of the same scenes, i.e. the Christmas dinner, the long awaited kiss, the family members coming home to a warm welcome etc.
ReplyDeleteThis trend allows a new form of content to be created without any truly original material being created by the user. It reminds me of some other beautiful videos from various youtube users that are made every year to commemorate the films of the year, such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0cstJdV16Q&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLmX4lISgRsiDkThzih1n3pOycxsisfz2h . I always find these entertaining and mind blowing as to how much time people put into creating something from other resources. It shows an appreciation for the original content. It also brings up the idea of copyright, as many of the scenes that are included are not featured in the trailer for each specific movie. However, my guess is that these do not get removed because the companies appreciate the advertising for their films.
I've been watching this youtube series, Emma Approved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeeXkf8LZ_8
ReplyDeleteIt's a modern retelling of Jane Austen's Emma, and I think it's a really interesting to see how it's been parceled up for the modern era.
I really like this because it reminds me of the Lizzie Bennett Diaries (I think they might be by the same people?) which was and still is one of my favorite web series out there. I love these modern retellings of these classic novels because of the way they are able to successfully combine the old and the new. These videos offer a way for our generation to enjoy these classic stories while simultaneously appealing to our more modern way of life. All of the videos are fairly short (no more than ten minutes I'd say) which goes allows them to appeal to viewers who do not feel like sitting down and reading an entire novel or watching a 20-to-40-minute episode. The time constraints also allows them to stay closer to the plots; I don’t know about Emma Approved, but the Lizzie Bennett Diaries was actually quite faithful to the original novel which makes it even more compelling for viewers who were fans of the original. I feel like Jane Austen novels are difficult to connect with unless you’re really willing to try and I know most people today do not have the time or the desire to really try to connect with a novel. Through these kinds of web series they are able to connect more easily with the characters and stories, both because of the more modern update and because of the shorter lengths, which could actually make them want to read the originals later on.
DeleteHere's a link to the Lizzie Bennett Diaries: https://www.youtube.com/user/LizzieBennet?feature=watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RImuHaQV2V4
ReplyDeleteWhenever Paul Rudd goes on Conan to promote one of his films he always shows the same clip from a 1980s movie, and every time he convinces Conan that he's not going to show the clip again. I chose this clip mostly because it made me laugh but also because I think it makes an interesting comment on the relationship between television and film industries.
In response to Bridget Labe's post about Pepsi's Uncle Drew series -
ReplyDeleteI have been a fan of this "series" since the first installment. In the context of this class, I think it makes an interesting point about the interactivity of not only television programs, but also the advertisements today. Television viewers are frequently encouraged to log online to websites or to youtube to check out additionally content in relation to their favorite programs. Pepsi's Uncle Drew series has managed to have television viewers logging on to youtube in order to view an entertaining, somewhat hidden additional advertisement for their brand. The Uncle Drew series, starring Cavalier's Point Guard Kyrie Irving has gained millions of views, greatly promoting the Pepsi brand. This is a great example of how Caldwell's idea of conglomerating textuality translates to advertisements as well.
Lately I have been re-watching the series Parks and Recreation, so two youtube videos that have been entertaining me are a couple of my favorite clips from the show. If you don't already watch the show, you should.
1. Treat Yo Self http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K4if6QkDbo
2. Andy's Bucket List http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1x4h6dO-ew