could this been seen as mocking vloggers out there? hmm...
The phenomenon is partly driven by technology – Lonelygirl15 wouldn't exist
without the explosion of broadband and the advent of YouTube – and partly by the
appeal of a hybrid form of storytelling. Lonelygirl15 is a mashup of homemade
video diary, soap opera, and mysterious, hint-laden narrative like
Lost. It's all the more engrossing because viewers can correspond
with the characters and even affect the plot. For Flinders, it's a thrillingly
uncharted creative landscape, and he has no interest in abandoning it for the
tired conventions of film or television. Rather, he wants to be the JJ Abrams of
the Internet.
I'm floored by this whole concept. I think this is one of the best new uses of technology as a writing space, acting environment and interactive literacy playground.
Welcome to the set of Lonelygirl15, the breakout Web hit that, in September, was unmasked by fans as a work of fiction.
But there was an important difference: A Hollywood movie is understood to be fictional. Vlogging on YouTube is not. Plus, to fully harness the medium, they intended to carry on email correspondences with YouTubers while posing as Bree.
This seems kind of deceptive, in my opinion, especially when they realized what might be against them. On the one hand, it's wrong to make people think you are what you aren't when there is no way to note the fact it is ficiton, yet on the other hand, I don't know if they ever would've gotten the start they did without taking the steps they took.
Almost everything in the room was bought from Target on the same day, and the
price tags are still hanging from some of her stuff. The closet is filled with
men's clothing, and in the corner two guys huddle around a laptop and stare at
the webcam feed.
I like this whole idea of making your own TV show on the Web. It makes me wonder if TV will be renamed and some acronym for computer show will replace it. Podcasts? Is that what they are? If some one can tell me, let me know!
this sounds like half of the people on youtube, talking into the camera and wishing someone would listen....similar to bloggers.
When he got to college, Flinders dreamed up an alter ego – an awkward, geeky
homeschooled girl. As a camp counselor, he told fireside tales about her
experiences. He wrote short stories about her, and when he tried to make it as a
writer in Hollywood, he put her in his screenplays.
Being that he was beat as a kid you would think that he would have made his character cool and not awkward a geeky. This would be a way he could escape what happen to him.
But nobody bought his scripts: Agents and producers didn't think much of the
character he had created. After working a few years as an assistant to an
independent director and struggling to stay out of debt, he left town and moved
in with his grandmother in Merced. He supported himself by writing a draft of a
film for an aspiring producer in Maryland; it was about a serial killer.
This just goes to show that you need to be aware of who your audience is in order to get your message (or in this case, your creation) out for the public to view.
Together, with next to no budget, they have created a show that illuminates the
future of television.
I wonder if that was tax-free money.
I don't think $500 would be enough for me to run around hiding from everyone. This girl seems to be so trusting and naive.
But the fans – raised on the unreality of reality TV and with the role-playing
ethos of the Web – seemed to take the revelation in stride.
Seems like viewers treated like a regular show. I know if I was a viewer I wouldn't of cared. If something entertains you then just because it isn't real doesn't mean it will stop entertaining you.
True the whole point of entertainment is to captivate you, but it still has to be something tht you can identify with and that speaks to you. She obviously spoke to a lot of people so the fact of whether it was real or not didn't matter in the message.
several people noted that everything in Bree's room seemed to come from Target
It hadn't taken them long to figure out, by trial and error, what worked in this new genre. Viewers wanted family and relationship drama mixed with a rich, mysterious backstory that could be explored and debated.
The more I read the more interesting it sound, it is to bad they could not have just admitted from the beginning that they are just trying to get a web tv type show. People would still watch if it was interesting enough.
By not telling the audience whether this character was real or not, everyone automatically assumed that she was real. Maybe it was just realistic casting. This is like an online mockumentary but instead of being viewed by a small group of followers gained an enormous following almost instaneously.
In return, she had to stay home as much as possible and wear sunglasses and a hat when she went out. For Rose, it was a dream come true – she was a working actress. She just couldn't tell anyone.
Yes making 500 dollars a week is okay for a 27 year old, but I would personally hate the fact that I'd have to keep my identity hidden all the time, and couldn't tell anyone what was really going on, that has to get stressful.
This is so old hollywood. During the filming of Gone With The Wind, the studio forced Vivien Leigh to live separate from her husband to continue the illusion of her being a single eligible southern belle. Also, many of the studios knew then and still use the practice now of setting up known gay actors with romances to throw the public off. I think the studios care more about this than the public does now, but the practice still goes on to this day.
The YouTube community was sucked into the plot and speculated endlessly about
Bree's faith. Some thought she was Mormon; others insisted she was a Satanist.
Another group tried to figure out where she lived: The leading guess was
somewhere in the Midwest. Viewers spent hours Googling the possibilities and
posting their results on YouTube.
Brillant! Getting the community sucked into the plot is big, but getting the community to start speculating about the plot is even bigger. When people start speculating, a dialogue occurs and from that dialogue the speculation spreads like a virus, which in turn promotes more interest in Bree and more viewers to follow the story.
Fair enough," the fan wrote back, and then went on to tell Bree the latest news
in his life. To many, it didn't seem to matter whether she was real or not. A
number of posts appeared on YouTube denouncing the series, but many more
responded with variations of this simple statement: If you don't like it, don't
watch.
it is interesting that people would get to the point that they would correspond with her. I can understand why if they thought she was real, but after that, I'd think to continue would be strange
I think when people find a connection with someone, real or imagined, it gets in touch with something inside of them that reaches out. This maybe is the whole point of cyberspace, to reach outside of who we are and try to connect on a difference level
ithin 48 hours, the video had half a million views.
That couldn't have happened on television. A conventional TV episode airs once at a certain time; even if it's great, it can only serve to attract viewers to future episodes. On YouTube, a video can be streamed at any time.
Yes many of the YouTube videos show what work and what doesnt work according to how good the video is.
The good ones are watched again and again, sending a clear message about what works and what doesn't.
When "My Parents Suck …" broke 500,000 views, Beckett and Flinders realized this wasn't just an experiment or a setup for a film.
It's amazing how addicting things like this are. Even though people have already viewed the "episode," they return to it. Maybe they're hoping to find out more about her? Perhaps it became part of the investigation into who she is. To me, it's a little reminiscent of releasing DVD versions of television shows.
Meanwhile, the online celebrity started spilling over into the real world.
Rose was browsing for a book in Santa Monica after "My Parents Suck …" was
posted and noticed two girls watching her closely. That night, Amanda received
an email from a fan: "Hi Bree. My friend and I thought we saw you at the Barnes
& Noble in Santa Monica, but it couldn't be you, right?"
This was the only aspect that threw me off from thinking it was real.
IN EARLY SEPTEMBER, MATTHEW FOREMSKI, the 18-year-old son of a Silicon Valley tech reporter, dug up an old version of Rose's MySpace page. She'd deleted it when she became Bree, but Google cached a copy, and Foremski posted the link to his father's blog. Within 48 hours, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and a slew of TV stations ran the story. The jig was up.
This just goes to show how the idea of privacy has changed in a technology-oriented society. As Vaidhyanathan talks about in his article, we can always be tracked somehow given the technologies we use daily.
This idea of always being tracked just makes me nervous. I am such a private person when it comes to certain things. I will tell you 90% of my life story, but that last 10% is mine. I think about that about that alot in relation to all of the sites that I belong to and subscribe too. They probably have more information on me than my own mother knows and there really is no way to exist without it.
people like the idea that they are watching reality, hence the fascination with dating shows and reality tv. they feel closer to the characters and the experience. we feel a need for shared experiences.
hadn't taken them long to figure out, by trial and error, what worked in this new genre. Viewers wanted family and relationship drama mixed with a rich, mysterious backstory that could be explored and debated.
>
The YouTube community was sucked into the plot and speculated endlessly about
>
Bree's faith. Some thought she was Mormon; others insisted she was a Satanist.
>
Another group tried to figure out where she lived: The leading guess was
>
somewhere in the Midwest. Viewers spent hours Googling the possibilities and
>
posting their results on YouTube.
>
people like the idea that they are experiencing reality. we liked the shared experiences with others...it makes us feel more human to witness them occurring in someone else's life.
explored
(One viewer annotated each item with its SKU number.) Could it be, one fan wondered, that the whole thing was an elaborate ad
it is amazing that people get so involved and look so far into this. when i go on youtube, i am looking up a music video, i don't latch onto a series.....are there more like this on youtube?
Reading up until this point, I kept thinking how creepy the creators were. Now I'm thinking they played into their target audience very well. They were able to create online videos that attracted such a faithful audience (possibly crazy with too much time on their hands as well, but nonetheless) willing to go over every detail.
Just goes to show you what you can accomplish with a well dressed set. Iam still so fascinated by the public's love for stuff like this. I guess it brings out the voyeurism in all of us in what many consider a safe outlet.
lucrative career as a surgeon before he started making little videos and posting them online.
Although, I am not really for what these men did, I do give them credit. They took a risk, and it proved to be revolutionary for both the Internet and You Tube. It changed the way that many people view, You Tube. They created a story which captured the lives of many audience members. This must have been a great feeling when they realized that their story was changing the world.
This is so war of the worlds. People assuming that what they are seeing and hearing is real because they are seeing is depicted as real. If this was on ast teeno'clock on a Thursday night we would not assume the same thing.
When viewers suggested that he had a crush on Bree, they changed the story line
to include a romance.
This is interesting, because the Internet does allow the audience to interact with the content presented. In the Lonelygirl's story, viewers were able to present all types of ideas and feelings. This, in turn, allowed them to feel connected emotionally, much more than if they watched a reality television show. This is what they believed to be a "real" person who cared about their imput and feedback.
#4
The
YouTube community was sucked into the plot and speculated endlessly
about
Bree's
faith. Some thought she was Mormon; others insisted she was a
Satanist.
Another
group tried to figure out where she lived: The leading guess was
somewhere
in the Midwest. Viewers spent hours Googling the possibilities
and
posting
their results on YouTube.
This is a great way to keep people comming back alway make them wonder what is going to happen next.
"I don't want you to ever set foot in another TGI Fridays," he said,
explaining that he'd pay her #14
$500
a week to play Bree full time
. #13
In
return, she had to stay home as much as possible and wear sunglasses and a hat
when she went out. For Rose, it was a dream come true – she was a working
actress. She just couldn't tell anyone.
Now this is ridiculous. Did she not see she is losing her life to this? Come on, she's a young adult and if she plays this character on a Youtube video she has to stay home in the dark and not have a life? This is totally ridiculous! Where are her parents in all of this? Her friends? What's going on here?
so his father, a marketing executive at an IT company, agreed to invest in the
newly formed Lonelygirl15 production company. Beckett immediately called Rose
It is a good thing that his father gave him the money because if not she would have started to work at Fridays and they could not have used her in the series.
This shows that you can never really escape from things there is always a trail.
#17
"I
don't want you to ever set foot in another TGI Fridays," he said,
explaining that he'd pay her #16
$500
a
week to play Bree full time
. #15
In
return,
she had to stay home as much as possible and wear sunglasses and a hat
when
she went out. For Rose, it was a dream come true – she was a working
actress.
She just couldn't tell anyone.
That's about the most unusual proposition available for an actress, isn't it? It's kind of hard to believe she even agreed to it at first, especially since she wasn't even paid! And even once she was, she couldn't tell? Her career changed her lifestyle, though not in the way it usually tends to for celebrities.
Again, demonstrating how convenient Youtube it. As Americans, we want instant gratification.
It
hadn't
taken them long to figure out, by trial and error, what worked in this new
genre. Viewers wanted family and relationship drama mixed with a rich,
mysterious backstory that could be
explored
and debated.
Sure it worked, it plays out like a soap opera. Look how many years Erica Kane from "All My Children" survived on TV. People love the suspense and drama that unfolds in the world of others
IN EARLY SEPTEMBER, MATTHEW
FOREMSKI,
the
18-year-old son of a Silicon Valley tech reporter, dug up an old version of
Rose's MySpace page. She'd deleted it when she became Bree,
but Google cached a copy
, and Foremski
posted the link to his father's blog. Within 48 hours, The New York
Times, the Los Angeles Times, and a slew of TV stations ran
the story. The jig was up.
This should make the Internet users more cognicient that nothing is ever ireally private. You need to be aware, if it is out there, anyone can gain acess to your infomation.
I believe that one day Youtube might take over the TV. I personally have heard my mom saying she wishes she could just watch Youtube on TV. This would also allow companies to put commercials inbetween videos.
Wait. You haven't seen it? Ohhhhmygosh! I'll email you the link."
I have experienced this exact scenario, and felt pressured to spend more time browsing videos on youtube rather than flipping through channels on television. It is simply more entertaining. And if you are not up to date on the latest videos you are often lost in conversation with peers.
youtube is great b/c it does have the short clips which you can send to people....they can watch it then or save the link for another time....it is simply more convenient
I have to admit, I am right there with everyone watching these and if someone sends me a link, I will watch and pass it on everytime. But what are we saying about quality and art with all of this? Has the world so changed that we can only find ourselves within the little eye on the top of our computers?
I definetly agree with the fact that You Tube will survive, so many people watch You Tube, it's unbelievable. My boyfriend for one gets on my computer and watches a few You Tube videos everytime he comes over. I've even seen my brother and friends put You Tube videos on their My Space and another is I've put You Tube on my blog site.
YouTube is basically going under the assumption that there's this community in
place to blindly create content on YouTube's behalf without much in the way of
compensation."
This is what worries me about all of this "free say" and "free expression" online. These websites are making it very easy for others to copy or steal ideas, sometimes without the true creator's knowledge. Currently, there really aren't any copyright laws about this, because no one really knows what to do about these problems.
What Uncle Miltie and the Super Bowl and Survivor have always
offered is something to talk about at the water cooler, at the nail salon, or on
IM.
This is quite true. We love to talk about what's going on in Hollywood, on reality shows, and the Internet. It gives us something to talk about, something to relate to with each other. With the Internet, we are able to actually show others what we are talking about.
For instance, if you are, say, Meow Mix, and you bought ads adjacent to
cat-related videos, how surprised and disappointed you might be to learn you
have sponsored a YouTube video uploaded by someone named mrwheatley and titled
"exploding cat." Or the one from qu1rk89 titled "exploding cat." Or this one:
"ma907h eats dead cat," which shows a guy … oh, never mind.
This is interesting to think about. These "themed" and tagged sites do offer problems for advertising companies. Because thousands of new videos are being posted on You Tube, it is often hard to control and monitor what is posted.
Will advertisers risk associating themselves with violence, pornography, hate
speech, or God knows what lurks out there one click away?
True. Entertainment on the web is vastly different than what is found on television, especially when specific channels can boast specific content. Advertisers might not be aware of what it is they are working with when using YouTube. They like to syncronize ads with content of similarity; if you don't know the content, you don't know if the ad is appropriate for the respective viewer.
#2
Will
advertisers risk associating themselves with violence, pornography, hate
speech,
or God knows what lurks out there one click away?
As much I would hope that advertisers would not associate with these types of things, I am not so sure they would shy away. Look at what airs now on reality TV shows. Eventually, if the general public doesn't act in an uproar over something, I think the advertisers will latch on.
I know there is a lot of risk when advertisers associate themselves with violence, porn, etc... but the truth is, is that is what sells and gets the most attention. People don't wanna hear boring, everyday issues. They want drama, and lots of it. So, if that means incorporating violence, hate, or God, then I bet they will.
While this is true, I also think a lot of people want others to see them. The notion of people wanting to have their 15 minutes of fame should probably not be overlooked when talking about why YouTube is here to stay.
I think this is really true. But I also think that in some ways it is beginning to delute certain genres. Everyone thinks they can make a movie now and the fact that you can make a digital movie doesn't mean it was worth making. Director's like Scorsese spend years honing their crafts and this instantaneous everyone is a star atttitude dimishes artists like this. And i must admit, i will watch the stuff on Youtube for hours at a time, but i never see these clips as anywhere near the quality of a seasoned film maker.
Advertisers and brands are enormously risk averse,
These videos could produce very specialized advertising. Those that would pose these types of videos can be targeted by morally ambigious advertisers for very specific products or services. That is scary.
I know there is a lot of risk when advertisers associate themselves with violence, porn, etc... but the truth is, is that is what sells and gets the most attention. People don't wanna hear boring, everyday issues. They want drama, and lots of it. So, if that means incorporating violence, hate, or God, then I bet they will.
Supan insists that YouTubers have done an excellent job of policing their own space
Is this really true though? A few paragraphs before, the article talks about the futile attempts to remove copyrighted material from YouTube. If the users are okay with posting videos that result in copyright infringement, are we really to be believe that there is not a good number of people trying (and probably succeeding, at least on some level) to post violent, pornographic, obscene, etc videos on the site. If I were an advertiser, I'd be very hesitant to post my product where the users are "policing their own space".
Will
advertisers risk associating themselves with
violence, pornography, hate
speech,
or God
knows what lurks out there one click away?
Will
advertisers risk associating themselves with
violence, pornography, hate
speech,
or God
knows what lurks out there one click away?
"
Advertisers and brands are enormously risk
averse,
"
I'm not sure what advertisers will do about this. However, I do believe that someone will be able to find a way to reasolve this issue. There is no way that a cat food company would let their product be associated with animal cruelty.
And with a $177 billion total domestic ad budget at stake, nobody wants to be
monkeying around.
Everything has to be about money. No wonder it will take them so long to figure something out, even if it is really important, because one mess up could cost them billions. I hate that our world revolves around money!!
And prosper, despite everything, for one overriding reason: 100 million streams a day.
Youtube isn't going anywhere, it really has only JUST begun. It will advnce just as technology keeps advancing and could someday replace television altogether. Or maybe something better than Youtube could come along?
"What it has going for it is its sheer size. In a fragmented world, there is a need for community and a need for massness."
Again, I feel that this comes back to the concept of community. True, we sit at computers by ourselves, and it is a lonely or individual act. However, the need to feel a part of something while we're engaging in this personal act shows how much people enjoy being a part of something.
"There's still a desire to have a shared cultural context. We hunger for things we can discuss."
Which is why Youtube is so convenient; we DO long to discuss things and engage. Youtube is just another way to do that and it makes discussion it easier.
I like it when there are member ratings on items. I do not see any harm in it. It would help other viewers and it would help the advertisers. It would be the viewer's choice to participate.
but also to make much of it available to amateur video makers in exchange for a
split of ad revenue.
This sounds like an interesting compromise. It still allows for creativity and no legal toes are stepped on. The only thing I would worry about is the details on the "split of ad revenue".
What Uncle Miltie and the Super Bowl and
Survivor have always
offered
is something to talk about at the water cooler, at the nail salon, or on
IM.
It is what all mass media banks on. Our human nature and our desire to laugh at someone or to question or speculate about something, like who is going to be the next on "Survivor" to win a million dollars.
I think until customrs object, advertisers will associate themselves with whatever is going to sales. We have seen over and over in other media such as TV and radio that an advertiser will pull something when there is a public outcry. Where is there barometer before that? I think it''s in their pockets and their bank accounts.
Humans love ANYTHING that gives us something to talk about. Youtube sparks conversations. What is cool about it is if someone hasn't seen a certain video, it is so easy to look up. The viewer can go back and view it whenever.
I can't believe that those annoying applications that I am constantly ignoring have people begging Facebook users to create so that they can pay them for it. That's outrageous! I wish I was a bit creative to where I can create an application that everyone will want to be apart of. Only one can dream