4/05/2007

Virginia summarizes the Sopranos summary on YouTube (prev.), paying tribute to the art of the found footage video. It's great that the Grey Lady now publishes regular, respectful reviews of amateur videos posted online. Good for them. But the cycle of cool video surfaces → MSM story gives the background is getting a little predictable, and it makes recognition from the established press a kind of endorsement of value. Of course, it's the reverse of how the industrially-produced media generally work, which is for the audience to get the context (reviews, interviews, publicity, ads), then the text. It helps to have context to understand the text. But so much of what makes these online videos exciting is their very lack of context, their lack of standard valuation.

Now perhaps some able reporter can work on this story for next week: who is behind this inspired recreation of Do The Right Thing with Fisher-Price Sesame Street Toys?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mikey Mike,

Not so fast on trashing the mainstream media. Couldn't recognition by the MSM be one of the goals for amateur video enthusiasts or vloggers, either because it would provide the financing needed to turn a hobby into a profession or because it offers the prospects of greater power and a larger audience? Don't the cases of Amanda Congdon or those guys with the mentos and coke say something about the fact that this "predictable narrative" may be something these people actually want?

Anonymous said...

Did that come off as trashing? Not my intention. You are absolutely right. These Sopranos in 7 minutes guys must be thrilled to be written up in the Times, and beyond thrilled to hear that David Chase watched their video and didn't call them names. I'm just reporting from my perch as a consumer of these videos and MSM stories that I'm finding the cycle predictable, that something of the experience of the amateur video is lost when you know too much about who made it and how they did it.

Thanks for the comment!