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whereby one video may gain popularity and millions of viewers, but once that video is replicated or the user posts a newer version of this video, the authenticity is lost and with that go the viewers.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?

Volume – 7 – BULLSHIT!

Bullshit.. we come across it every day. Whether it be in the morning paper, an advertisement you see while watching TV or simply coming out of a politicians mouth.. let’s face it, it’s everywhere. As discussed in class a few days ago, bullshit, or this notion of truthiness, has become an acceptable part of our society. Truthiness, defined as ‘Truth isn’t defined as the fact of the matter, but how true you feel it is’ is sufice to say, bullshit of a term.

However, this term obviously holds some truth in our modern society since it was voted the 2005 Word of the Year as discussed in the following:

In its 16th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted truthiness as the word of the year. Recently popularized on the Colbert Report, a satirical mock news show on the Comedy Central television channel, truthiness refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. As Stephen Colbert put it, “I don’t trust books. They’re all fact, no heart.” (American Dialect Society, http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/truthiness_voted_2005_word_of_the_year/)

Personally, I find this to be quite interesting, that we can live in a society that knowingly is living, breathing and consuming falsified ideas. Stephen Colbert applied this term to George W. Bush with his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court along with his decision to invade Iraq. Yet looking around this can be seen in many other areas as well. Take advertising for example. Truthiness is an advertisers dream. This allows them to successfully market their product to consumers by playing on their emotions, even if their reason and logic are telling them a different story.

This notion of truthiness does bring up a disturbing idea though. Truthiness, and its relation to bullshit, seems to relate heavily to one major aspect that holds true in almost everyones life. RELIGION. No matter what religion or spirituality a person may follow, I can guarantee that there is no fact, reason or logic that would prove it true. Similar to truthiness, defined earlier as ‘Truth isn’t defined as the fact of the matter, but how true you feel it is’ which again, is not based on fact, logic or reason. So does this mean that religion and spirituality are synonyms for bullshit? I hope not. Let’s just hope that Stephen Colbert doesn’t catch wind of this..

Barack Roll

Technology is constantly evolving, which has had an impact on the way in which we create art. With this, we have seen the emergence of the ‘mash-up’ which typically takes copyrighted material and substantially changes it to a new form of work.

This appropriation of corporate material can be seen regularly on sites such as YouTube. The question of what is ‘fair use’ in these video mashups often arise, but many go by unnoticed by the corporate realm. These mash-ups are most often made as parodies or as a means to send out a message, and in some cases, both. When writing my previous post regarding Obama, I couldn’t help but remember one particular video mashups that I’ve seen of him. Set to `Never Gonna Give You Up`by Rick Astley, Obama`s speeches are tied together in order to have him theoretically singing the song. The reason it stuck out in my memory is because the first time I saw it I couldn`t help but wonder how many speeches the amateur video maker had to watch in order to fill the song. The dancing doesn`t hurt either..

Volume – 6 – Taking it Back

Dr. Strangelove commented in his class today that ‘every advance in communicative freedom has been met by a struggle to take it back’. Specifically, I would like to dive into the issue of YouTube and its association with fair use and copyright laws. Currenty in the United States, the only way to deal with the issue of fair use is to have it resolved in court. When doing this, the judge will look at four aspects of the video in question:

1. the purpose and character of your use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.

(Stanford University Libraries (2008) Copyright and Fair Use Overview: Measuring Fair Use. The Four Factors. <http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html>)

This idea of fair use has allowed certain copyrighted material to be reproduced for various purposes, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. (U.S. Copyright Office – Fair Use <http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html>). In the past YouTube was able to get away with using plenty of copyrighted material under the notion that it was used under fair use. Recently however, YouTube has undergone a fair use massacre. Dr. Strangelove stated in class that in January and February of 2009 alone, more videos have been taken off of YouTube then in all of 2008. The two main reasons for this are expressed in the following by Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney for Electronic Frontier Foundation:

First, it appears that more and more copyright owners are using YouTube’s automated copyright filtering system (known as the Content ID system), which tests all videos looking for a “match” with “fingerprints” provided by copyright owners.

Second, thanks to a recent spat between YouTube and Warner Music Group, YouTube’s Content ID tool is now being used to censor lots and lots of videos (previously, Warner just silently shared in the advertising revenue for the videos that included a “match” to its music).

Because in both situations an automated tool/filtering system is what is being used to sift through the thousands upon thousands of YouTube videos for copyright infringement. However, these systems are not perfect and can sometimes mix up copyright infringement with a video that follows the rules of fair use. The corporations don’t mind though, as long as they get their copyrighted material off the Internet they are happy. This is their way of fighting back against this new form of communication where consumers are now the producers. However, they can only fight back for so long…

Volume – 5 – Obama-RAMA!

‘Affective empowerment is increasingly important in a world in which pessimism has become common sense, in which people increasingly feel incapable of making a difference, and in which differences increasingly seem not to matter, not to make any difference… Affective relations are, at least potentially, the condition of necessary for any struggle to change the world.’ (Grossberg  – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place – p.86)

After reading the above quotation it is not a large leap to say that today is a world of pessimism. And where does this pessimism stem from you ask? One word, recession. I honestly did not think it was possible to hear one word repeated so many times in one day, and not only that but on a day to day basis. All forms of media are making this recession known, whether it be through the news, talk shows, marketing and advertising campaigns etc… this word can not be escaped. The common pessimistic thought from investors is that this current economic downturn  is going to get “a lot deeper and a lot broader” (Fitzgerald, J. (3/3/09). Pessimism Grows as Investors See ‘Awful’ Recession. Boston Herald. <http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1155853>) This thought has become common sense to most North Americans, allowing pessimism to reign.

Grossberg defines affective empowerment as involving the ‘generation of energy and passion, the construction of possibibility… Affective empowerment enables one to go on, to continue to struggle to make a difference’ (Grossberg  – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place – p.85) In this present world of pessimism our affective empowerment has come in the form of an affective investment in one person, President Barack Obama. His theme of ‘Yes we can’ and ‘The change we need’ are just a few things that have allowed not only him but an entire nation to be powered by their passion. Just going onto YouTube you can see the dramatic following behind this man. His ‘Yes We Can’ speech, which artists independently set to music, was viewed by 10 million people in the first month alone and even won an Emmy Award. (Barack Obama. Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#Cultural_and_political_image>)

Therefore in this present world of pessimism, Barack Obamahas created affective empowerment in not only a nation but throughout the entire world. The hope and passion that follows this man is astounding, and one can only hope that this will be enough to create the change that is needed in this world.