my only vlog- starring the very intelligent squash

(This is the text of my only vlog)

I am a student of the art and science of communication.

Not in the formal sense. I am a student of communication in the way that every human being is. We all live trapped inside our skulls, seeking ways to alleviate our loneliness and fear, looking for someone to understand us even as we strive to understand ourselves. Ultimately, we all spend our lives studying various means of self-expression.

I’ve spent this summer studying the art and science of communication on youtube. My original intent was to answer some questions about communication formats, especially with regard to art vs. entertainment. I ended up learning about a lot of other stuff.

Since April, when I first immersed myself in youtube culture, some channels, like theheyway, tulae101, ausernameisuseless, and most recently honestovlog, have spoken on-line or in emails about the art and science of communication on youtube, although they may not have used those terms exactly. I am genuinely grateful to the creators of these channels for putting out interesting ideas, even when I disagree with them, and for opening the doors to real discourse in a landscape that appears to be increasingly about fluff instead of stuff.

After an almost 4 month immersion in youtube culture, I worry that we have become so shallow that we can only listen to an important message if it’s packaged in an entertaining or aesthetically pleasing package. I hope I’m wrong.

A real life friend of mine who passed away 3 years ago this August was what I consider a genuine vlogger. My definition of a genuine vlogger is someone who is focused on sharing something of importance with us through a series of short videos. You can still go to his channel, Joelsa, and see that joel was an incredible person. Brilliant, funny, compassionate. He didn’t worry about camera angles and lighting. He was more concerned with being honest and making genuine connections with people. He talked about music and books and ideas. And he touched people’s lives. I always thought that was what youtube was really going to be about.

It seems that in the 3 years since Joel died, the ”you” has been eroding out of youtube. Sure you have a lot more choices of what to watch and you can make your own content, but I think many of us get sucked into the part of youtube that is simply a microcosm of every other media form there is. Youtube is becoming theytube. They being the celebrities that we create and the advertisers who help to create a feedback loop that celebrates view counts regardless of the message. Because we want to fit in, hang with the cool kids, be popular, make money, whatever, we make choices about the content we create AND the channels we choose to support. How many videos per day are we watching that are actually filler? Entertaining, but no real message, no meat, nothing to learn or take away from it. We might as well watch television.

It is absolutely true that I have been deeply touched by some of the people who have taken time to communicate with me. But as youtube gets bigger and bigger, by and large the predominant youtube culture does not seem to be about communication of genuine messages about who we are and how we fit in the universe. Instead it seems to be about getting views, getting subscribers, self-promotion, and selling t-shirts (or shoes in the case of Rhett and Link) to the largest demographic which seems to 13-17 year-olds. Some days, I get more messages in my inbox about sites that will sell me the secret of getting more subs than actual correspondence. And twitter seems to be largely about increasing the presence of the celebrities in our minds. It’s about celebrities reminding followers to watch the videos, watch their friends’ videos, and buy the t-shirts.

The thing that worries me is how quickly even I was swept up by that culture. I ventured into this as an objective observer collecting data and yet there were definitely times when I forgot to be objective and felt the drive to get more comments and more views. I believe my midbrain translated the comments and views as acceptance by the tribe and a rise in status. It was definitely addictive.

Now, I’m not saying that an entertaining video is bad. Elmify is a genuine vlogger, sharing her real life experiences. And she happens to be very entertaining. But let’s focus on the message. Elmify very gently gets us to look at ourselves, at all the facets of what makes us who we are in the world. When we laugh during her videos, we’re really laughing at our own foibles. She teaches us to be light hearted and compassionate with ourselves as we try to find the balance between passion and reason, our inner child and the adult we hope to become.

Not everyone can be an Elmify. By the same token not everyone can be theheyway or sistersalad. Do we need to be? Isn’t it likely that many people have something of value to share that is not wrapped up in a pretty package of entertainment value?

I guess I’m just suggesting that we listen more carefully to the people who don’t have thousands or even 100s of subscribers. I’m suggesting that people may have something of value to say, even if we don’t necessarily see that value at the outset.

For example, several people have spoken about make-up tutorials as though the channel owners of such shows, other than jpmetz, hallowed be her name, are somehow lowering themselves or doing the only thing they can to garner views. Have any of us actually asked a random sample of these folks what is actually going on in their minds. Isn’t it possible that make-up is an art form even if I don’t understand or practice it? I know a lot of people who consider their physical presence to be of tremendous importance, that it is a statement of who they are in the world. Should I judge them when they are willing to share that value system with me and the rest of the world?

And how about people who just talk to the camera sharing the events of their days? Should I really expect jojo20to1 to be entertaining as he talks about the death of his good friend or the joy of being with his nieces? He is sharing himself. His life is his message. Is it fair to judge the delivery system of that kind of message? How about Esther? Do we expect her to worry about lighting, or do we listen to the message and remember that we should be grateful for each moment of our lives? Because that is her message.


Oy. You can see why I don’t vlog. I go on forever. So let me wrap this up. If you belong to Way’s forum, then you know that an experiment in text form is about to begin where we will really try to get to know each other. I’m suggesting that we do the same for people outside the forum. I’m suggesting that we occasionally look beyond the lack of entertainment value or aesthetic and hear the voices of those who have not yet been heard; that we practice the art and science of communication but focus on presenting and hearing the underlying messages; that we really listen carefully to each other and to those outside our normal youtube cliques, no matter how crumby the lighting is and even if there are no talking fruits involved.

elmification nation

it's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. the most important events revolve around a vlogger whose username is elmify.

i discovered this young woman through twitter as hank and john green and meekakitty were all raving about her. i ended up watching all 28 (at that time) of her videos and quite frankly, i was smitten. a song was written. so here's a new part of the question- this song was legitimately written because i was very touched by elmify's vlogs. her ability to make us examine our own psyches while making us laugh is pure genius. the song literally just flowed out as if i were the vessel. that makes it art, right? but it's about a (now) popular youtuber so it's entertainment? this is the grey area, where i don't know how to define my terms.

anyway, i sent the song to elmify and she genuinely liked it and promoted it in her next video. it went from approximately 200 something views to over 2000 views in just 3 or 4 days. my subscribership climbed from 50 to 71 in 3 days. this is just fascinating to me. elmify had about 2000 subscribers until the tweets (and also a plug from mitchelldavis) and is now up over 7000 in less than a week. what does this say about the power we give to "celebrities" to guide us? true, no one says "you have to subscribe" or "you have to listen". but we trust our celebrities as though they are leaders, and are more likely to test something out if they give it a thumbs up.

and so the twittersphere and facebook are filled with video promotions and twitpic plugs that cause the celebrities to be ever present in our minds. and because this new media allows so much apparent interaction (more on apparent in another post), it is truly as though we have a personal relationship with the celebrity. i believe this makes us even more likely to buy the t-shirts and mugs and shoes (rhett and link are now selling shoes- i guess t-shirts have been done to death).

i am really struggling with the whole monetization thing here. and maybe i'll post more about it later. but for now let me just say that i have extremely conflicted feelings about an industry that is based on selling things to 13-17 year-olds. that is the primary demographic. i realize television has been doing this forever and targeting younger kids. i was never happy about that, but i could mute the commercials or get a dvd and skip them all together. in this medium, we are bombarded by commercial content almost nonstop. it ain't very buddhist...

a few new thoughts- very few

i was corresponding with a musician youtuber with over 20,000 subscribers. i asked her my art vs. entertainment question. she had some really interesting things to say, but the one that really sticks with me is that art lies in the performance. that's really interesting to me because my thoughts have focused on the creation and intent. it's been so long since i have been able to do live performance music that it didn't even occur to me that it should be part of the formula. so that adds a new dimension to the mix.

i wrote a song for a wonderful vlogger named "elmify". if you are reading this and you haven't seen her videos, stop reading this and go watch her videos.

ok, now that you've seen how smart and funny and endearing and satirical she is, you can see why i had to write a song, yes? so should that song be considered entertainment or art? it came from the heart but it's really just a bunch of clever lines based on someone else's talent. i don't know.

anyway, elmify herself really enjoyed the song and i'm watching myself sort of gush as i read and reread her comments and email. and i think to myself,"wtf?" this is almost worse than when lizz from sistersalad subbed my channel. i mean, what is this need to be appreciated by people i admire. and then i realized, this is totally a midbrain thing. it is in part about achieving status by being associated with those higher up in the heirarchy. or at least i think that's the biological roots of it.

still don't have my computer back. still don't know if all my music from the last 3 years will be lost. i'm surprisingly calm all things considered. i think it's because i have an mp3 copy of many of them on a little mp3 player. while it won't be the quality of the original, i can still use it to make videos.

i will be sad when work really gets cranking again in a couple of weeks. i didn't get to do nearly as much music as i wanted to this summer. well, i suppose i'll just have to pull some all nighters like those that inspired "shuffle".