Now that we can put video in a blog, what are we going to do with it? Adrian Miles said that video in a blog must be more than video in a blog. He makes some really good points but I still don’t think that “more” is primarily about granularity. I think it has more to do with intention and purpose (or context). As I’ve been experimenting with that, I keep bumping up against what I think is the ever more pervasive TVishness, not of the physical format of people’s videos, but of the content – the intention and purpose of it. And what I’m left with is, “why?” Why try to recreate TV on the web? If we recreate the old system of TV networks on the Internet will they be any better? Will anything have changed? Will there still be a space for alternative voices and ideas?
BTW, yes, that was my rendition of the last scene of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Also, if you have some 3D glasses you can check out my cheap bit of 3D at the end.
Although I started working on this a week ago, it’s also a response (though more general) to this email.
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Where can I watch your TV show?
You paused that extra little bit on Coyote Ugly!
Hey Michael, can I put this on my TV show?
Irony is a beautiful thing.
And did you edit that so there were no commericals while you were flipping channels?
omg YOU have a TV show?
can i KNOW you?
p.s. you have a web tv show on a tv that was videotaped and is now on the web.
whats for dinner?
pot brownies.
I know how you feel about TV on the Internet, but some of us grew up dreaming about having our own shows and this is a dream come true. I have old tape recordings of me and my friend Kristian making our own radio show when we were eight and I’ve always been a performer. Although making a show exhausts me and brings me no money, this is something that pays me in happiness… knowing that people are appreciating my creativity.
I have a dream… a dream that someday my regular television will be set up to play video from my RSS feed… whether it be video downloads of Battlestar Galactica, or of your own vlog… this is the future of television and the Internet. To me, this is a beautiful synchronicity.
Forget about format wars… Vive la créativité!!!
Be careful with the 3D stuff. It’s a powerful drug. I did it “just once”… and now… I… I can’t be happy without it!
Roger, I was thinking of you when I put that in there. It’s so lame compared to your stuff though.
ooooooooooooh! see, that I can be thankful for, that videoblogging, in it’s purest form, is not very fancy like tv. i dont want to have to live up to being a refined film maker just to do videoblogging. ;-/
Coincidentally, your stuff was much more interesting than anything you flipped past. Perhaps you’re in the wrong field?
I read somewhere that you can order a pair of 3d glasses for free, and this inspired me to look it up.
http://www.rainbowsymphony.com/freestuff.html
What kind of glasses would we need to view this in 3d?
The glasses you want are the anaglyph red/cyan glasses.
As for my stuff being more interesting… part of the point is that what’s interesting is so subjective. TV is a medium where the costs force the content into something that, I personally, find for the most part to be completely uninteresting. What I like about the freedom of videoblogging is that people are free to do anything really, which I believe can lead to some really interesting things like this or this.
There is no reason to force the confines of TV on ourselves in both the areas of content or business models (if you even want or need a business model). So why do that? If you want to do TV then go do TV, don’t make a videoblog. It’s like trying to be a novelist by writing instruction manuals (or vice versa).
” If you want to do TV then go do TV, don’t make a videoblog. ”
Careful, sonnyboy, a sentence like that could re-start the whole “what’s the definition of a videoblog” argument again! I’m all for that argument because I think its fascinating, but I’ve been mentally and emotionally exhausted by the last few days of the yahoo list–interesting though it all was.
Back when I had a tv, I always changed the channel when that damn horney bee-with-a-french-accent came on. He weirds me out.
Me? I like to keep my tv as seperate from my videoblogs as humanly possible. So seperate in fact that I no longer watch tv.
Blogging emerged without being necessarily “newspaper” and so did podcasting without necessarily being “radio”. In a many to many system without barrier to entry, different forms will naturally emerge. There is no danger to just one form existing. And the only method to enforce one form is through governmental agencies like the telecoms working to restrict usgage in the US Congress and proposals at the EU and UN.
People will naturally produce and view the forms they want.
Nice one.
I love Smokey & the Bandit!
And a bazillion Verdis exploding in starbursts.
And pot brownies.
MN Stories isn’t really a show, but I want to do a show-like thing. Really fucked up though, and funny.
Good content is good content, regardless of the format or distribution. (Realizing “good” is different for everybody.) I think we can agree: If you’re making a vlog, to duplicate mainstream TV is potentially lame and disappointing. “Golf show w/hottie” being a shining example of such lameness.
Kitka – I love shows too, and used to do that when I was a kid. Vlogs are a dream for people like us. Now we can have our own weird show and have an audience outside our bedroom. I think this is quite different from “Golf show with hottie.” It has more to do with the independent creative spirit than whether it’s a show, or even whether it’s on a vlog or TV.
Oops, more to say!
I also think you’re right that the entertainment industry generally produces schlock because of the business model. A lot of stuff is lowest-common-denominator, though it’s increasingly niche-based.
That said, there’s a lot of stuff I love. Daily Show, obviously. But the best example may be Wondershowzen. It’s perhaps the most hilariously fucked-up and subversive thing I’ve ever seen, and it’s on MTV2. It’s a huge inspiration for what I’d like to do in vlog form.
So: Exceptions and gray areas abound.
I completly agree Chuck (especially about Wondershowzen!). There are always gray areas and my videos haven’t been good about talking about them as my style is usually to go overboard to make a point.
One of the many things that makes MN Stories great is that it doesn’t try to be TV like. Imagine if was just a MN version of “Texas Country Reporter” with the Dairy Queen TV commercial guy (doubt they ran that up there but you get the idea)?
It’s just distressing to see people trying to be like TV and coming off as amateur TV when they could just be themselves and be way fucking better than TV! Here’s a couple of “shows” off the top of my head (or at least videoblogs that aren’t considered diaries) that aren’t like TV and kick ass because of it:
MN Stories
Human-Dog
Carp Caviar
The Singing Woodchuck Variety Minute
Chasing Windmills
Drinking With Bob
It’s Jerry Time
Lo-Fi Saint Louis
The PAN
Greetings Monsiuer Verdi,
I was half amused, half annoyed by your inclusion of tiny tube with rocketboom et al in your recent diatribe against the encroachment of tv into videblog territory.
For me the great thing about videoblogging is the ability to communicate and create, free of corporate influence; the only restrictions being time and your own creativity. The best part of the videoblogging movement for me is
the unfettered creativity that it allows.
But creativity can manifest itself in different genres, some more tv-like than others. I enjoy personal blogs
and show blogs, I don’t place a value judgement on one genre being superior to the other. It’s like asserting an auto-biography is better than a novel because one is “real.” But I believe they can be equally compelling and likewise a show videoblog can be equally as compelling to me as a personal videoblog.
tiny tube is certainly not trying to replicate tv. In fact one of the things it does strive to do is satirize tv as well as some of the other videoblogs you’ve mentioned. If your perception is that we’re trying to “be tv” then clearly we’re failing on some level.
If you’ve watched most of the tiny tube episodes you’ll see we’re trying to experiment with form and content, although some elements are derivative of tv. We try to take risks and evolve. We often fail but we don’t have to worry about a suit pulling the plug.
The freedom of expression is the wonderful thing about videoblogs and if a show is a way some people choose to express themselves they should be given the same consideration. There is plently of room for all types to flourish and I think it’s a disservice to diminish the efforts of those you don’t like. I don’t mind being criticized I just take offense to being marginalized.
Anyway, I do appreciate your voice in the debate and look forward to seeing where this all goes!
Best Regards,
Will
What I love about this technology is that it will eventually replace the technology of television.
We are beginning to see that with TiVo and Akimbo. I don’t see “TeeVee” as a threat, I see corporate addoption of this technology as the tipping point that will change the world for the better.
Now I am tired of the “Walmartization” of the planet, and when this medium becomes ubiquitous for the transport of video into the home what will be the difference between you and NBC ? NOTHING with the exeption of the quality of your message, the quality of your content, and most of all the genuine nature of your voice.
I have faith in humanity that they will enjoy having a voice and will be able to see quality, honesty, and truth. Especially when they have true access and everyone has a voice of equal “volume”
This “debate” is so interesting in a number of ways, to me there is a difference between video on the web and video blogging, vlogging to me is telling stories, my stories, or my friends storeies through a visual medium. But isn’t telling stories what TV does? Or at least did? I don’t know, I tell stories, some are better than others but they are my stories……
Ahh. I feel peace and harmony in the videoblogging community. Unbridled creativy abounds. The future is bright.
Now, who wants to step into the ring with me about copyright? huh? huh?
You probably don’t want to hear about
http://www.t-vlog.net
It’s a project that merges online video with public access tv. (ever heard of that one!?)
Making the viewer the transmitter basically. We will just transmit the rss feed directly.
I don’t mind hearing about that at all. It’s not physically being on TV that I have a problem with, it’s copying the style and business models of TV that have evolved and tend to marginalize most people and appeal to the lowest common denominator. There’s no need for that in videoblogging or public access. For example, public access usually requires you to have at least a 30 minute show. That’s a lot of content to produce, especially when you’re doing it in your spare time. So, many people resort to talk shows or sermons. There’s no reason for this 30 or 60 minute time block except that it’s a holdover from TV. If instead you could have your show be 30 seconds or 8 minutes, suddenly the possibilities open up. The hard part is mostly we only have TV and film as models so it’s difficult to think outside of that. But that’s the kind of think I’d like to see – that’s what I’m pushing for.
Thanks for a thoughtful reply. I totally agree with you on all that.
Maybe one should not think about a “show” at all then, but instead treat videoblogging as a stream of mediatized consciousness that you just tap into at will. But I’m trying to figure out what actually happens when you connect this stream to TV. I know that there are similar projects going on.(I think Jay is doing something like this in NY)
The net is fragmented and personal – TV is (relatively) unified and impersonal. Why should one be aestehtically better than the other?(leaving political and commercial aspects aside) What happens when you let the different systems feedback on each other?
In 1978 Jerry Mander published Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. I’ve just started re-reading it (i read it back in ‘79) & he asserts that television is irreformable & dangerous. While i doubt nothing has changed about television, web video may be different in that it may be more democratic, i.e. uncontrollable, still there are a lot of similarities, & as you see those similarities already emerging, there may be little difference in the long run. I gave up on t.v. years ago. I like to think the web, while having many similar drawbacks to television, can possibly emerge as a positive power in society. Clearly the internet/computer age is having a sweeping effect on society, the way we shop, interact & spend our time have already changed to a large degree. With the emergence of video on the web, i do hope it can destroy television without becoming the new television. I think i need to look closely at Mander’s arguments & how i see them reflected in web-tech. I hope to find some fundamental differences.