And the credit goes to.. WHO CARES!

So browsing through my previous video posts I came across a related video to ‘My New Haircut’ that caught my attention. This is a video called ‘The Truth Behind My New Haircut’, where it accuses My New Haircut of being a ripoff of another video called ‘Look at My Striped Shirt’. Watching both videos in comparison, you can definitely see the similarities.

‘Look at My Striped Shirt’ is actually based on a book called ‘Look at My Striped Shirt: Confessions of the People You Love to Hate’. It is obvious that ‘My New Haircut’ is a cover of the original video however many would say that it actually improves the idea. YouTube users expressed this through their comments posted below the ‘Truth’ video:

akeboshi09: wow.. he’s right.. the only difference between the two videos is that his friend mike’s video sucks balls..

entroducing420: your friend wasn’t a good enough actor/comedian to make the idea tip & this guy was, a lot of people sang bob dylan songs better than he did but you didn’t see him bitching & moaning to the press about it

OnePointFiveMedia: It’s all about presentation and performance asshole.
Why do you think VHS > Beta? as an example.
Quit crying and find something else useless to argue about with your life.

These are just some of many examples. I simply believe that arguing about plagiarism on a site such as YouTube is like calling a time-out in a boxing match because of a broken nail. It’s bound to happen. As explained by Virgina Heffernan of The New York Times, “..But does it matter? Maybe the maker of the first video “deserves credit,” as Joe puts it, but from whom? The people? God? If you put something on YouTube and then someone makes a better, more popular version — mashing and cutting and improving existing YouTube vids is what the site’s about — what does that guy owe you? All his profits? Nothing?” (http://themedium.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/covers-credit-and-my-new-haircut/)

So if he is simply looking for credit, keep the videos coming. Just another 20 million viewers to go. And if he is looking for fame, come to terms with the fact that the original video never reached YouTube Stardom (and for good reason..)

Free Hugs Anyone??

You’re walking down a busy downtown street and you see someone walking towards you with a sign. This isn’t a sign arguing against any political movements or people, stating religious beliefs or protesting for higher wages; it is a simple sign that has two very important words on it.. ‘Free Hugs’.

The Free Hugs Campaign is a social movement that was commenced by a man in Australia who goes by the pseudonym of Juan Mann. His campaign was a result of the utter joy he experienced from receiving a hug from a random person one night out on the town. After that, he started carrying around the iconic ‘Free Hugs’ sign and giving people free hugs in an attempt to spread the joy.

This campaign was made famous however not by newscast or interviews, but by a simple music video posted on YouTube. (Wikipedia – Free Hugs Campaign – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Hugs_Campaign). You can see by just the sheer number of views how many people it has reached. The original music video has close to 41 million views. The social movement that followed this video has been far reaching. I myself have witnessed a number of ‘Free Hug Campaigns’ while walking in both downtown Ottawa and Toronto. You can also find Free Hug Campaign videos that have sprung up from places such as South Korea, Poland and Tel Aviv to name a few. (World Peace Society – Free Hugs Campaign – http://worldpeace.org.au/freehugs.asp)

Through the use of YouTube, one man in Australia has been able to create a social movement that has spread across the globe to a point that the ‘Free Hug’ signs are deemed iconic. This just shows the power that YouTube actually has in giving the everyday person the ablity to have a voice that can not only be heard but replicated by a mass audience.

Volume – 12 – Living in a Barbie World

Barbie. A simple childs toy? Some may say so, although many would argue that it is a symbol expressing social reality. That this simple doll embeds meaning and power over our social psyche. This was discussed briefly today by Dr. Strangelove during his lecture, bringing up the idea of the highly sexualized femininity that is involved with the Barbie doll.

The author Kristen Noelle Weissman stated in her novel The Icon, The Image, The Ideal the following:

The Barbie doll is an iconic image. The symbol of the “feminine ideal” which has caused women to perceive & recognize this figure in a personal light..As a predominant feature in American culture & society, she is a fictitious character that many have contrived into a reality. She is a name that strikes instant familiarity, & she is a name that evokes controversy, emulation, & success.

The symbol is so strong in fact that as Dr. Strangelove stated, children who play with a Barbie dolls are proven to be unsatisfied with their own figure and personal appearance after some time. In my eyes, Barbie is just another reflection of the expectations of society. One can see these expectations in all forms of media but espicially throuhg advertising. Unfortunately, there is no other symbol for the ‘feminine ideal’ that reaches children at such a young age. This can often lead to troubling issues involving self-image with many young children. This had such a strong effect on one women in particular, Cindy Jackson, that she actually has consistently reconstructed her physical appearance into the image of the Barbie doll. Kristen Noelle Weissman further stated in her novel The Icon, The Image, The Ideal the following:

The examination of the doll and her glamorous lifestyle was to Jackson a parallel symbol of womanhood, and the attraction persisted until her visualization was immersed into reality… She proclaims that her acceptance into the popular culture and society will only be formulated when she has achieved the “right look” in its entirety

This is obviously an extreme case however the point is made clear all the same. Barbie is a symbol of the ideal form of feminity, and giving it to young girls as a toy is an obvious way to create a negative influence on their self-image. The fact that this image is literally physically impossible to obtain just reinforces the social pressures facing women in todays society.

Volume – 11 – Problem of community formation.. I think not.

Our modern world has resulted in an evacuation of meaning, a problem of community formation. This is what Grossberg is trying to say in his text. However, like Professor Strangelove stated in class, I too beleive that we are actually living in a world that involves an explosion of meaning, and with this an abundance of community.

I first came across this idea in a ‘Technology, World and Society’ class that I took in my third year. I remember the professor bringing up the idea that people believe that we are living in a world that no longer has an emphasis on community or on meaning. He gave a few examples of the number of people who vote is on the decline as well as relations with those in your neighbourhoods. Will Hunton, a writer for Common Dreams News Centre, wrote the following in an article titled “Death of the Community Spirit”:

‘Everyone in society now only seems to be concerned with their own achievements and ambitions,’ she declared. ‘We are in danger of creating a rootless generation… We have lost our collective compass and are paying a heavy price’

So there is obviously this idea of the death of community in our everyday society. I, on the other hand do not believe in this, I believe we have simply created new forms of community. My copy of the Oxford English Dictionary offers a number of definitions of ‘community’: a group of people living together in one place; the people of an area as a social group; a group of people with a common religion, race or profession; the holding of certain attitudes and interests in common.

Therefore community is something which occurs when we have common interests with other people or we lie within the same social group. Technology, espicially that of the Internet, has allowed people to reach out and form communities based on these interests in ways in which they could not do in the past. The priority of community has been moved away from that with people who live together in one place (i.e. a neighbourhood) simply because people now have the opportunity to be a part of a much bigger commuity into which they relate better. These communites are often much more fragmented in the past as well, ranging anywhere from the large community of Facebook to smaller niches such as booklovers or politics.

And politics is an interesting community in and of itself. My professor from third year argued that yes, voting rates may be lower then what they were in the past, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that political interest has fallen. Simply, in the past, your vote was all that you had. The parties had all the power. However, in todays society a persons vote doens’t hold the ultimate power and neither do the parties. Modern technology has allowed people to form communities on unique political topics that interest them and has for the most part allowed them to have an influence with their involvement within these communities themselves. Therefore the vote is no longer a persons only way to make a change, and political parties hold less perceived power then in the past.

Volume – 10 – The Era of De-institu-what?

Just over a century ago (if not less), the meer thought of giving birth within a hospital, with doctors, nurses, equipment and drugs all within ones reach was much more a dream then a reality. However, with the evolution of technology has come the evolution of the birth process. We have taken a natural beginning of life and handed it over to the institution, taken it out of the home and into a large, dreary and often smelly hospital.

This idea of the institutionalization of the birth process is in some ways good. It helps if there are any medical emergencies or problems that would not be able to be properly handled within the home. However, some people are not fond of the idea of taking such a beautiful part of life and giving it over to someone else to have control over, to make it routine and just another day on the job. In The New Midwifery: Science and Sensitivity in Practice, the authors Lesley Ann Page and Rona McCandlish discuss the modern issues with this idea.

Part of the risk of being in an institutionalized environment is the effect it has on the individual in terms of compliance and the difficulty to resisting others expectations and rules… of being exposed to the greater coerciveness of an ideology in its own setting and to our socialized and gender learnt responses to institutional power.

In other words, the institution is taking away womens power and comfortableness with their own birth process. This is why a small percentage of the population is leaning towards the deinstitutionalized methods of birth, whether it be natural, unassisted or with a midwife. They are trying to keep the birthing process as sacred and natural moment in their life rather then the institutionalized process that it has turned into.

Viewer Discretion is Advised

YouTube has offered us a way to post and view things that we otherwise may not see. An example of this is the ‘Unassisted Birth’ video which we watched in class last week. The unassisted birth movement is just one example of a private practice that has been made public. This made me wonder about what other sort of  private practices or rituals are now being posted publicly on sites such as YouTube. While doing research, I found information on people commiting suicide on live video streams (i.e. The case of Abraham K. Biggs who committed suicide on the video site justin.tv), videos of suicide bombers and much more. Frankly, I had no interest in watching any of these videos simply because I don’t think that death is something that should be freely viewed by the public. However,  video sites are making them readily available due to the lack of censorship which exists. What traditionally was reserved for few to no eyes can now be seen by anyone who can get past the ‘Warning: Adult Content’  screening process, which let’s face it, is not that tough.

The video that I posted below is that of a human autopsy. So be aware, it is graphic and I highly suggest not watching it. It is simply there to prove a point. Online video sites have given rise to a new form of reality TV, true reality. Life and death. Something that few can actually bare to watch is now in the public eye for all to see. This idea scares me because it brings rise to the possibility that people will get accustomed to viewing of death, suicide and so on.

Online videos, succeeding yet again to bring the private to the public, in the most disturbing way possible..

Volume – 9 – Twitter me this

Twitter – a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 bytes in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. (Wikipedia – Twittier <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter>)

So another social networking site has made its way into pop culture. Another form of lifecasting, where instead of having a steady stream of videos, people are instead using a steady stream of posts to let people know what they are doing, thinking, feeling, whatever.. Personally I have yet to make a Twitter account and plan to hold off as long as possible. I don’t see the need to update people on the mundane actions of my daily life (i.e. Just ate breakfast!.. At the gym.. Working ’till 11.. Meeting up with Freya for drinks!..). I also have no interest in reading the status updates written by others, if I wanted to know, I would call/email/text/talk face-to-face with these people I call my friends.

Richard Clark, writer for ‘Christ and Popular Culture’, stated in his article The Theology of Twitter:

One observation that is foundational to the beginnings of twitter is the state we are in as a culture. If there is one thing that has suffered in our age it is relationships. People have very little time to cultivate relationships, share concerns and hopes, and make their needs known.

Richard Clark says it perfectly. Twitter is a new means of self-representation that gives people the allusion of maintaining relationships with those among us. The following video sums up my feelings about Twitter perfectly and is quite hilarious so I suggest watching it.. Enjoy!

Everybody is copying my new haircut!

Okay, I’ll start off by saying that I think this video is pretty hilarious, and with over 21 million views I would say it’s safe to say that others share in this view as well. Personally, I’ve been a bartender for a few years now and I’ve definitely seen my fair share of guys like this. Even at the gym, if you go at certain times in the days you won’t be able to miss them. This video, in its rude language and exagerrated cruelty, is a social commentary on what is commonly refered to as a ‘guido’. A guido, as defined by Wikipedia, is the following:

A slang term for a younger lower class or working class Italian-American or Italian-Canadian male from the urban Northeastern United States or urban Central Canada, most often New York and the surrounding area due to the large number of Italian-Americans living in the area. The Guido stereotype is often portrayed as humorously thuggish and overtly macho attitude and an unyielding pride in his Italian ancestry.

So however crude the video may be in making fun of a certain ethnicity, people like it because they see it to a certain extent in their everyday life. This video is acting as a parody to the people that are in our social world. This video has had such a strong impact in fact that it has collected quite the listing of parodies of itself. In the ‘Related Videos’ section on this particular YouTube page, you can find a My New Hair Cut: Mexican Edition, Asian Edition, Senior Edition and Nerd Edition in this section alone. However, none of these videos carry the same amount of popularity as the original edition. This is due to the idea of authenticity brought forth by Dr. Stangelove in a number of his lectures, whereby one video may gain popularity and millions of viewers, but once that video is replicated or the user posts a newer version of this video, the authenticity is lost and with that go the viewers.

Stick and stones may break my bones but a parody will never hurt me

Parody, defined as a ‘literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule’. (Answers.com – Parody – http://www.answers.com/topic/parody). This type of video is very popular on YouTube whether it be a parody of a companies advertising campaign, a movie, a person or even another YouTube video. The following is one of many examples of a parody done of the popular Mac vs. PC commercials, done in a Christiannity vs. Christ fashion.

Even though this video serves as a means to ridicule the advertising campaign of Apple, I personally believe that it serves them better in the end. These type of videos allow for certain aspects of popular culture to be brought to the attention of a mass audience. This video in particular, while not mentionning Apple within the video itself (although in the title) still brings the viewer to think of a Mac computer while watching it. And this in and of itself is a marketers dream come true. Keeping Apple in the spotlight, even if it is only to poke fun, keeps the company in the mind of YouTube viewers. So even though parodies can be used as a means to redicule the parties involved, they do have some good to these parties in the end.

Volume – 8 – Watch Justin go to the bathroom…(really?)

In class a few days ago Professor Strangelove brought up the idea of lifecasting, and how we are moving into a society where we lifecast huge chunks of our life on the internet. Personally, I think we are well on our way towards this society. First, I’ll start off by defining lifecasting.

Lifecasting is a continual broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media.  Typically, lifecasting is transmitted through the medium of the Internet and can involve wearable technology. Lifecasting reverses the concept of surveillance, giving rise to sousveillance (the recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant in the activity) through portability, personal experience capture, daily routines and interactive communication with viewers. (Wikipedia, ‘Lifecasting’. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifecasting_(video_stream)>)

Steve Mann was the first to experiment with lifecasting in the early 1980s, since then there have been several others including Jennifer Ringley, Lisa Batey and Justin Kan who currently runs his lifecast from justin.tv.

Surprisingly enough, Justin Kan’s lifecast has actually made him into a small celebrity. As a guy in his 20s, his show can be summed up simply; It’s a cross between ‘The Trueman Show’ (Movie about a man being filmed 24/7), ‘Entourage’ (A show about young guys) and the famous episode of Seinfeild where George attempts to pitch a show to executives by saying that the ‘show is about nothing’.

So apparently we’re moving into an age where everything and nothing has become interesting to watch, and when I say everything, I mean everything. Viewers tune in to watch Justin sleep, eat, go to the bathroom, sit on a park bench, ride a city bus, you name it. It wasn’t too long ago that a movie (The Trueman Show) came out where I thought simply the idea of it was bogus and no one would ever waste there time watching someone else live their life. Little did I know it would become a new form of reality TV, as stated by Jessica Guynn of the Los Angeles Times:

Call it Reality TV 2.0, the next step in the Internet’s evolution as an entertainment medium… Lifecasting comes naturally to today’s youths, who are used to living their lives in public, posting details of every hookup and breakup on their Facebook or MySpace pages. Anyone with a laptop, Webcam and Internet connection can do it. (Guynn, J. (10/15/07) Lifecasting Creating the age of Self Made Stars: People Turn Cameras on Themselves and on Their Worlds. Los Angeles Times. <http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2007/oct/15/business/chi-mon_livecast_1015oct15>)

So there we have it, we are moving into the realm of lifecasting faster then we know it. Who knows, maybe sometime soon you’ll be able to tune in to watch me eat breakfast, write a paper, watch TV or attend class. Any takers?