mytube

Facebook vs. the Man

celesteannamarie — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:21:21 +0000

It is said that Facebook is the place to meet friends. It is a place where people can connect. It changes the way we communicate by linking us to people we may not usually communicate with, and allowing them to see what is often very personal parts of our lives. It fosters an online community where relationships can be rekindled or formed. On the other hand, it is said that capitalism is a divider, separating those who have from those who have not. These two notions of conservative individuals and the community could clash in the near future on Facebook. Facebook is a private entity, a company that needs to turn a profit on a yearly basis. Having achieved the critical mass, Facebook is not only a place for people, it could potentially be the place for advertisers. However, people view their facebook as a sort of personal space, and resent the intrusion of advertisers. In a recent New York Times article that touches on the encroachment of advertisers on precious facebook space, Facebook Advertising director Sheryl Sandberg states that “We are trying to provide the antidote for the consumer rebellion against interruptive advertising,”
This antidote are the small ads on the side bars of any facebook page. Users can become “fans” of certain brands or bands or people that facebook thinks you will like, based on algorithms that analyze your usage. Fine. Those are easy to ignore right?
However, in an article from Wired.com Facebook’s Tim Kendall said that
“Marketers will be able to pay to accelerate usage they find valuable, to dial up and down actions that people take on applications, as part of the Social Ads program. For instance, News Feed uses an algorithm to communicate a users actions to the friends who would find it most interesting. Marketers will be able to pay for increased or enhanced distribution above and beyond what News Feed already provides.”

This means that Facebook will, in the future, be manipulating your likes and dislikes into endorsements for certain things. What does this mean for the community? I suspect that this will not be popular with facebook users and will make the facebook experience less authentic than it previously was.

wired.com article

NY times article

i hate twitter

celesteannamarie — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:47:43 +0000

i will call a big part of our popular culture “flaunting”. through the internet, and its various channels, we expose ourselves. Twitter enables that beautifully. only on Twitter can you update your friends (who dont even care) on your whereabouts, who you’re with, and what kind of hipster activities y’all are doing. it’s just like high school. a vast majority of people feel the need to assert themselves as members of an in-group. you don’t want to seem like debbie downer, the girl who couldn’t even get a date for friday night, so you must tell everyone ” debbie is out drinkin with da gurlz!!!”.
you don’t want to be seen as a threat to the system
so you gotta live by the status quo
and report all your happenings to the man (twitter)
so you don’t break the system

check out this entertaining article that inspired this blog:

this guy basically sums up my thoughts:

Not your parent’s tube

celesteannamarie — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:51:12 +0000

Youtube has been coming up a lot lately at the dinner table (yes, I still have dinner with my parents.). They are all riled up about an article last weekend in the Citizen in which the CBC insinuated that we will have to go to the internet to watch TV in the future. My mom hates watching things on the internet. My dad loved watching movies illegally for a day then got bored. Then there’s me, my ADD is so bad that the only news that I can watch is on youtube. (sorry PMans). My big question is, with the serious advent of the internet, will TV’s become obsolete? That would make my generation very much like our parents’, they grew up with TV as a relatively new thing and had to adapt to it, much to the chagrin of their parents. As a result, we are so on top of everything new: Take this video from CNN about Fred. For the record, I love Fred.

It’s funny because Fred, with seven million views, is unknown by my parents, their friends or even my older coworkers at work. Even the LA times guy David Sarno says “It’s my job to know about what’s going on on youtube and uh I’ve absolutely never heard of Fred at all” And then he also goes on to illustrate his own point, that there’s a cultural split between the generations. “We have never not known a world without internet” So while mommy and daddy are tuning into some annoying HBO special, I’ll be glued to Fred (cause I can only watch 2 minute clips at a time.)

i just love Bo Burnham

celesteannamarie — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 04:22:40 +0000

I really love him. I can’t seem to come to terms with the fact that he may not be a real nerd in real life (apart from youtube) and that’s okay because I haven’t found hard evidence to suggest otherwise (yet). So I found this beautiful song and video of his and I just had to comment on it.

In this video, Bo plays a cast of characters. The Bo in the introduction, is just too cute! He’s so obviously out of place at this party that it sets up the song perfectly.
Then we see Bo, the suave piano man. For a second, people actually stop and pay attention to him. But then it’s back to Bo’s life, where he illustrates the lyrics. His awkwardness is palpable and in many instances he is acting out the lyrics. The scenario screams FML (www.fmylife.com)!
At 1:28 Bo takes on the role of a gangsta. I guess this is what he thinks girls like (when in reality we all love sweet guys like Bo…). But as usual, he fails when he uses the corniest of pick up lines “Let’s rob an Asian kitchen or stroll down the block, either way it seems girl that we’re taking a walk (wok)”. Bo’s hubris seems to be his lack of confidence in himself, which I would say is typical of the nerd persona. He leads us into the bedroom, where he again, lacks confidence. I almost start to feel sorry for him, but his funny narrative (provided by song lyrics) are just too good to cry over. He leads us through an elaborate breakdown which illustrates his confusion but highlights his low confidence again. What I thought was realism throughout the whole video turns out to be false, as the whole video eventually turns out to be a dream.

I feel that Bo is quite authentic as he does play his part quite well, however the escape from the usual amateur production aesthetic that Bo is known for threw me for a loop. It made me question whether Bo is really a nerd, or if he’s an actor posing as a nerd. The use of multiple characters was genius, it really illustrated the narrative quite well. However, Bo played these characters so well, it made me question, who is the real Bo? Is it the gangsta? the piano man? or could it be the sweatpants wearing nerd? I’m not really sure I want to find out.

Bo Fo Sho!!!

celesteannamarie — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:25:29 +0000

Who is Bo?? Oh right, the white bread rapper (a born Bostonian!!) and nerd extreme from 2007. How could I forget… He’s hilarious. But I wonder… Does he have friends? I mean, this guy is so incredibly awkward, and his lyrics are so incredibly nerdy! Or is it all a front? He may just be a funny guy who happens to know something about science and math. They do exist…
His intro is him saying bye to a girl he just hooked up with. Either he a) gets a lot of girls and is playing a nerdy guy who never gets it on or b) he gets a lot of girls and is doing a parody of a nerdy guy. It’s so hard to tell!
He goes on to rap about all the usual rap things, getting laid, his ego etc. His rhymes are actually pretty witty, although the delivery is almost painful to watch, he is just that awkward. His clothes and his room are the perfect accompaniment to his video, they really help with the whole nerdy persona. He rhymes about tampons and other awkward subjects and name drops the Smithsonian. His whole awkwardness and quirky rhymes actually makes him quite endearing and begs the question “Is this dude fo real??”

mashup maestro

celesteannamarie — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:27:23 +0000

As I was claiming my luggage at 6 am in Toronto’s Pierson Airport earlier this week, I caught the news from one of many huge projectors they have broadcasting CBC 24/7. I’ll admit, I was anything but happy after leaving sunny California for the iceberg we call Canada. I was cheered up when a) my baggage actually came out of the shoot and b) by this cute piece about a “Youtube orchestra”.

Almost like a new “Idol” style contest, musicians around the world auditioned for a spot in the first “youtube orchestra” run by Carnegie Hall talents such as Tan Dun and Micheal Tilson Thomas. It marks an inevitable meshing of low and high cultures. It’s sort of a extreme makeover for Classical music, which usually isn’t viewed as hip. It also is another example of how the internet, especially Youtube can link people from all around the world. The orchestra will comprise of 90 musicians from over 30 countries including 5 Canadians. One of these musicians, Ian Whitman from Kitchener comments ”The only way classical music will continue on through this new generation is if we play on old instruments but advertise through new mediums,”. He’s totally right. Classical music isn’t the sort of thing you’re going to bump in your pimped out Honda Civic down Carling Avenue. And it doesn’t really have the sort of star image that you see in pop music. Maybe by Youtube embracing classical music, we can put more modern faces onto the talents. This international jam will definitely bring some hype to the genre and resuscitate interest in what I feel is the most diverse genre of music.

Here’s the link to the CBC.ca story

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/03/02/youtube-symphony.html

stardom and identity on MTV

celesteannamarie — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:57:06 +0000

After reading the chapter in Goodwin’s book about Stardom and Identity, I started to see some interesting parallels in today’s MTV.

Early on in the chapter, he uses the example of Madonna’s Material Girl music video to illustrate the concept of the star identity. He states that through the use of music videos like Material Girl as well as Madonna’s Rockumentary, her star image was built on, from her beginnings as a struggling artist to one surrounded with controversy. I believe that this type of framing by MTV is prevalent today. Though we hardly ever see Rockumentaries anymore, artists’ star image is still being shaped, by “reality” shows.

The first show that comes to mind is the mega drama The Hills. The show tells the real life adventures of Lauren Conrad and her friends who work in fashion and music. This show, watched by millions of teen girls online as well as on the tube, offers an excellent venue for the manipulation and creation of character/star identities. As an intern for the magazine Teen Vogue, Lauren and her best friend Whitney get to interview bands and artists. One up and coming rock band (Red Jumpsuit Apparatus) got the bad boy label one show, when they got their interviewers in trouble with scary boss Lisa Love (Is she really scary in real life or is this just her star image?) when they stayed out all night drinking. In another episode, RnB up and comer Sean Kingston makes an appearance, where he plays the ultimate sweetheart country boy. Through the use of cameo appearances on their shows, MTV can alter the star image of musicians to suit their needs.

I have also noticed how MTV’s “news” programs can alter the image of stars and bands. Take Amy Winehouse for example. The young Brit was caught up in drug scandals all last year. Although she is immensely talented and her music stands on its own, MTVs continual reporting of her drug issues has shaped her star image as a junkie with huge hair. The saturation of “news”, played often at commercial breaks in a “updates” style, has greatly influenced the star’s image. It can’t be said that Amy Winehouse’s drug issues have had a negative impact on her fame, but that her star image, that of a drug user, propelled by MTV has raised her profile in the media.

Through exploitation of “opinions” by opinion leaders throughout the MTV programming, the star’s image is shaped and changed. I believe that MTV is cognizant of this, and use it to their, and the stars advantage.

obamarama

celesteannamarie — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:04:59 +0000

I work at a local coffee shop in the Glebe where I have a good relationship with my “regulars”. Every now and again they will engage me in some really interesting conversation. Today, one of our affluent Glebites and I got to talking about Obama and the eerie resemblances he has with Hitler. Hitler was well loved, until we found out the truth about his motives.

“Obama is so charismatic and he has the whole world behind him at this point, what’s to say that he won’t pull something Hitler-esque and get away with it?” Said my client

But how could he? With CNN and other 24 hour news networks, how easy is it to get away with things? With the internet and youtube, anyone who wants to know the truth can indeed know a version of the truth. And of course, it’s always Fair and Balanced.

mytube

celesteannamarie — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:24:13 +0000

I think there’s something indicative about the nature of pop culture today by the name of one of its’ foremost purveyor- youtube. The “you” in youtube indicates a sort of ownership. In fact as a part of the generation most involved in this change, I feel as though I do own my culture to some extent. Youtube is unique in that you are able to listen, watch and experience any video (or song for that matter) on the internet at any hour of the day. You could be in bed, looking to watch a movie trailer, or at a party, showing your friend the latest Lil Wayne music video. The viral video has weaved its way into modern popular culture because of its convenience and its availability.

My favourite Youtube video at the moment is the “Dramatic Reading of a Break Up Letter”. I love it so much because, aside from being ridiculously funny, its not trying to sell me anything (directly), and because I like to spend time (mostly during especially banal lectures) thinking about what kind of person the girl writing to Loser (Chris) is. She obivously lacks any kind of comprehension of the English language and a basic notion of spelling. Other than that, you can just taste the anguish and heartbreak that this girl had, “I thought you liked me you said it yourself I hate you” as well as bold declarations of her feminism “I dont have to tell you who I like or who I am thinking of going out with got that to you loser”. I feel that the break up letter basically sums up pop culture in modern times. We are using the internet, and Youtube as an extension, as an avenue to express our feelings, even those that might have been embarrassing to share in times before.

But we, the generation Y, have no shame.