Category Archives: Findings

Traditional Media Naivete

Excerpt from MTV News article, Bryan Singer’s ‘H+ The Digital Series’ Shuts Down Hardwired Humans

“An advantage of placing “H+” on YouTube is the audience’s ability to control their viewing experience and share it with others. Episodes can be watched in scripted order or chronological order, or based on storyline, character or location.

“People are going to be able to create their own curated playlists, out of as many or as few episodes as they want,” said Cabrera. “What we’re hoping that creates is a new form of what I like to call social distribution, where the actual audiences themselves become a part of the storytelling process.”

…

This shows some naivete regarding the platform, either on the part of John Cabrera (H+) or Tami Katzoff (MTV News) or both.

What Cabrera likes to call “social distribution” (i.e. user-generated playlists) has existed on YouTube for several years. YT audiences have been curating their own programming blocks for that long. It is only a new form of distribution if you’ve never administered a YT channel before.

The challenge is that the vast majority of Web audiences still retain a traditional media mindset. They either don’t know that they are their own Brandon Tartikoff and/or they simply don’t want to be their own Brandon Tartikoff. Traditional media audiences have been spoon-fed their A/V content for 117 years and that form of delivery has become habitual.

Many people use TV and Cinema as devices for relaxation and escapism; it allows them to turn off their own analytical thoughts and consume someone else’s thoughts for a little while. Our brains are wired for consumption OR analysis, not both at the same time. As soon as you start analyzing content, you’re no longer engaged in its consumption. Your brain contextualizes every frame differently.

For some, that activity spoils (for lack of a better word) future consumption, which is why many content creators cannot consume content without recognizing the content elements. It’s very rare that I will watch a movie without thinking, “ok there’s the inciting incident”, “there’s the departure from the familiar world, we’re now in Act 2”, etc, etc. That’s the same analytical part of the brain that is used to make playlists on YouTube in the way that Cabrera is describing.

The majority of user-generated playlists on YouTube are really no different than that user’s Favorites playlist. The videos are unrelated other than the fact that this user has bunched them all together and called the playlist “Funny Vids”. There’s very little thought – if any – given to narrative flow or thematic relationships.

I suspect Cabrera is going to be unsatisfied with the results of his “new form” of distribution. If H+’s producers were smart, they’d just take the extra few hours and create these theme-based H+ playlists themselves. Hoping audiences will do it is just plain naive and lazy. Audiences need to be retrained and rewired for Cabrera’s goal to be fulfilled.

Teenage Age

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I’ve been on YouTube a lot recently, managing the user base for the Sexy Nerd Girl channel.

I’ve been monitoring who comments on videos and the SNG channel page. I go to their channel page, see if they’ve subscribed. If they haven’t, I’ll send them a friend request.

Judging by the content of their channel page – their favorites, their “about me” description – it is very obvious to me when a user is a teenager. I’ve been one myself. I know the score.

What I’m finding predominant is that when they lie about their age, they usually make themselves 20-years-old. I’ve seen hundreds of profiles in the past few weeks that list an age of 20, while it’s clear from all the signs that they are a teenager.

20 seems to be the magic age. Not so young that someone might think they’re lying about their age and not so old that they’d think they’re old.

It seems appropriate. When I was 13-17, I couldn’t imagine what 20 would look like. It was so far away.

Cappie Minivox and Math Class

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There’s a little voice in my head that keeps me safe. It is a reactionary voice that makes such instant judgment calls as “This is bullshit,” “They’re trying to screw you out of something,” and “Don’t mess this up like those other things you messed up.”

If this voice were personified as a fellow human being, his name would be Caput Minivox. Cappie, to his friends. Not that he really has “friends” in the strictest sense of the word.

Cappie is a bit of a loud mouth. He shouts so loud that it’s often hard to hear other voices over his.

“Shut up, shut up, I’m talking,” he says.

And then when he’s done talking and someone else starts talking, he’s interjects, “Shut up, shut up, I’m not done talking.”

He can be a bit of a jerk sometimes… Most times… All the time. He’s got some kind of a complex. I’m not sure if it’s an inferiority complex or a superiority complex or mother issues or father issues or trust issues or mortality issues or intimacy issues or if it’s some kind of lymphatic imbalance. Suffice to say, the dude is not cool. He’s like a jaded 5-year-old in the body of a however-old-I-am-year-old.

Cappie is always trying to undermine people. He’s completely blind to intention. He can’t see past immediate concerns. He has no sense of a bigger picture. No sense of the future.

It’s difficult for Cappie to lose first impressions. Cause that would mean changing his point-of-view. And he’s stuck in this singular point-of-view – the point-of-view he’s always had. The dude is overwhelmed with fear in that regard. A fear of change.

Once, while traveling across the San Jacinto Mountains in Southern California, I stopped at a vantage point rest stop to admire the topography. Also parked there was a dark beat-up van, its roof covered with an array of a dozen satellite dishes pointing off in all directions. When asked what they were doing, one of the two scruffy guys inside replied, “We’re listening.”

Cappie is crazier than those guys, okay.

Cappie would come to the same assumption that there’s an answer to some cosmic question floating around out there in the ether that some secret conclave of immoral intelligentsia is keeping from him. However, Cappie would not get a van and cover it with satellite dishes. He would simply assume there’s no point in listening because there’s nothing that can be done about it – everything has already been decided for him.

Cappie is one of those cynical conspiracy buffs. He says, “Of course,” a lot. For instance, “Of course Oswald was drinking a soda in the lunch room at 12:30pm. What are you – stupid?”

Cappie reminds me of this math teacher I had in the tenth grade, Mr. Reid. He was tall, wore fake eyebrows and called this one recently-immigrated kid “stupid” whenever he got a question wrong. Reid always seemed to have this really negative demeanor. As if we were to supposed to feel blessed that he had lowered himself to teach math to fifteen-year-old’s and, at the same time, permit him to feel resentful towards us because we were the cause of all his educational woes. I didn’t learn much from Reid, other than “don’t make fun of immigrants.”

I hold Cappie at arm’s length now. He used to show up drunk on my doorstep at 3am, wanting to stay up all night bitching about something. I eventually had to give him the boot. And ever since then, I don’t see him as often. He’ll always be in my life, but at least now, he knows not to fuck with me.

Monday. Math class.

The Coffee Rule

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One morning ten years ago, I attempted to have a phone conversation before having had a cup of coffee.

John Fucile was on the other end of the conversation. Unable to piece together most of what I was uttering, John suggested that I never answer the telephone without first having had a cup of coffee at some point during the day.

I have abided by this rule ever since.

Here’s to another ten years. Hip! Hip!

The hard way and the harder way

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I love the Internet for the opportunities it presents. An email I received:

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Arkadiy Tumaykin wrote:

Hello! My name’s Arkadiy. I’m 19 and I’m very positive and creative
person. I have the huge wish
to take part in movies, advertising. Please answer me,
how can I get my aim without special actor education? Thank you.

My reply:

Hello Arkadiy,

Thank you for your email and thank you for giving me the opportunity to help you.

I can provide you with a Canadian perspective to your question; some of these points might not apply in all parts of the world.

There are two ways to take part in theater, TV or movies – the hard way, and the harder way.

The hard way is that of what is usually called an “insider”. It relies primarily on the structure of the entertainment industry that is already in place.

The hard way involves many of the following :

– going to film or theater school for 1 to 4 years,
– working on other people’s poorly executed artistic productions for free,
– working at a job that has little to do with your artistic passion but at least it puts food on your plate,
– struggling to find an agent who can provide access to employment opportunities,
– competing with other artists for the very few opportunities that are available,
– networking with other artists to create opportunities for expressing your passion,
– dealing with personal insecurities when you are faced with 100 rejections for every 1 acceptance,
– endorsing products that you yourself would not purchase,
– trusting other artists,
– eventually, working on artistic productions only because they pay well, not necessarily because they create an artistic playground
– being hired by someone else for the same kind of role or performance over and over and over and over again
– possibly making your artistic expression your sole means of income
– being boxed, packaged and labeled by someone else as a brand and commodity

The harder way is that of what is usually called an “outsider”. It relies primarily on the structure that the artist creates for themselves.

The harder way involved many of the following :

– reading as much as you can about the history of any kind of art or form of media
– listening to as many DVD director’s commentary tracks as you can – I recommend Robert Rodriguez and Steven Soderbergh
– practicing everything that you learn,
– creating your own poorly executed artistic productions,
– learning from your errors, recreating the circumstances that led to those errors and making a different choice before the same error reappears
– working at a job that has little to do with your artistic passion but at least it puts food on your plate,
– networking with other artists to create opportunities for expressing your passion,
– building or joining a community of others with similar artistic intentions,
– dealing with personal insecurities when the community you’ve built or joined begins to outgrow you,
– trusting other artists,
– eventually, working on artistic productions that create a playground for those artists involved, though these productions might pay little, if at all
– feeling the joy of hiring, engaging or inviting another artist to express their own passions
– being able to make your choices before anyone else makes their choices
– possibly making your artistic expression your sole means of income
– boxing, packaging and labeled yourself as a brand and commodity

Either way is valuable and legitimate and both provide opportunities for you to express yourself.

Personally, having tasted both ways, I prefer the harder way. And I am a fan of any who follow it. Following the harder way is what creates the opportunities for other artists to follow the hard way.

Ultimately, the choice is yours.

One more thing : nobody tries to be an artist. If you create art – any kind of art – you are an artist. The audience that experiences the art you create decides for themselves what value to take from it.

spasiba,
sf