Firstly, I cannot excuse how badly I broke my 'blog once a day' pact, so I will simply carry on from where I left off. I began this entry the day after the last post, so I will enter it as it was written initially:
I was going to write an extension of yesterday's post, detailing the work I'd presented in my crit last week.
But, in all honestly, I'm just not feeling it. I promise that I will (probably tomorrow) discuss that presentation in a bit more depth. Right now, I'd actually like to discuss something else.
Today, I was incredibly unproductive. The pinnacle of my Thursday was probably the bath I had around noon, as I'd pretty much been in bed until then. The other activity I undertook was watching Youtube videos. And that's what got me thinking...
I don't know what your taste in Youtube video is (for some people, it's strictly funny animal videos; others stick with music etc.) or if you spend much time trawling the site at all, but I always find myself watching 'vloggers'. In case you can't picture it, these videos are really all about a person (or people) sat in front of the camera, doing regular people things. Just talking about their lives. Sometimes, this includes political/religious/personal opinion ranting, but mostly it's a little bit uneventful.
'Why do I find this fascinating?', you might wonder. Honestly, I have no idea, but it continues to keep me glued to my laptop/iPad screen.
I've wondered if the intrigue has its roots in voyeurism or people watching, which I unashamedly take great delight in. The difference is, however, that these video-makers aren't going about their business unaware of the viewer's gaze; instead, they are performing. What seems like face to face is actually screen to face; what is in fact you watching a stranger feels like getting to know a character. With film, we understand that the characters and actors are not the same people (even though they are one and the same) and that the actor is merely in character. But this setup doesn't apply in this case, where the people you are watching are not assuming another role. Obvious, but I was just thinking.
This seems a strange rule to manipulate - if these videos were acted (I'm aware that I'm making the assumption that Youtube is made up of reality and nothing else) then what would they become? Short films? Skits? Would they have any appeal?
'Miranda Sings', a particular Youtube channel whose videos I watch fairly regularly, plays with this idea in a hilarious and interesting way: the videos all feature Miranda - a woman with very bad lipstick - primarily singing popular songs and speaking dramatically to camera. It's also hard not to notice that the video's star is completely tone deaf. (If scrolling through the comment box is anything to go by, I'd say a lot of people have noticed)
In fact, the woman in the video has a fantastic singing voice - Miranda is a character created by Colleen Ballinger, a professional in the world of musical theatre. Through creating an almost alter-ego, Ballinger has opened up an interesting critique of online personas and the kind of status that can seemingly be achieved by presenting yourself via this platform.
An artist named Cally Spooner recently gave a lecture at our university - mainly about her work and her thoughts around it. One of the points she made that stuck with me was about the value of 'soft skills' in today's economy: instead of labouring to make a product, labour and work could now simply be presenting yourself - an immaterial form of labour. She showed a video of a piece of performance work she'd scripted (apologies for not remembering its title) where a man was assuming the role of a suitcase salesman, with nothing to sell but himself and the performance he was delivering.
There felt to be some correlation between this idea and the content of what a lot of 'vloggers' present , in that it really is nothing but themselves they are offering.
That still doesn't really explain why I find such videos interesting. Maybe I should start my own channel and see.
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