I have just read Paula's recent Blog about 'The Antoine Phenomenon' and it made me think about how sites like YouTube have made 'viral videos' spiral out of control. Has anyone seen Tosh.O? It’s an American TV show hosted by Daniel Tosh where he takes online video clips and makes hilarious comments about them as well as every episode doing his own take on a clip and inviting someone from it on. Without the creation of sites such as YouTube shows like this wouldn’t even exist!
Video sharing sites have the power to turn normal people into overnight celebrities.
An example of this is David’s Visit to the Dentist. This clip about a kid’s trip to the dentist became an overnight hit! In the original clip you see David all spaced out from the drugs he had and his dad (finding this very funny) filmed it and decided to share it with the world on YouTube. Little did they know it would have so many hits and David made it onto Tosh.O. However despite the popularity David’s father has been critisized with the story published in The Wall Street Journal. We see evidence of 'remixing' with this story from the Remix version now available on I-tunes and even a Talking cat version! It is crazy how something parent just thought was just a funny video became an instant hit. Good or bad press this kid became so popular he is now advertising The Firefly Toothbrush!
So what can we learn from stories like this? We can see that viral videos have the potential to become a massive phenomenon! Posting videos that may seem 'harmless' can infact have a HUGE effect. Imagine how David's dad must have felt for being so badly crticized about something he presumed was just harmless fun. Now if his Dad was already a very well know public man this could have looked even worse against his name and his reputation. There is also a positive here though. Tosh.0 has brought David and his Dad onto TV giving David now advertising chances and they have made around $150,000 since they posted it.
Great post, I had no idea about that story and found it really interesting. The potential to become an overnight celebrity definately brings disadvantages as well as advantages. Anyone can come across the video and they may have the wrong intentions. It can also be dangerous for children who are browsing the internet to come across things they shouldn't be seeing. However, obviously in the case you talked about it was beneficial in making them money and it is crazy to think that they could earn that much money in advertising just from posting a video.
ReplyDeleteA really interesting post.
I must agree with Natalie, this post was very thought provoking. It is interesting that an innocent video of a boy going to the dentist would become such a global phenomenon with all the good and bad attention it got.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that worries me is that you have no control over a video once you post it. I have no doubt that the dad didn't have any cruel intentions when posting his son and I don't think he acted wrongly. However, once he posted the video it was no longer under his control and neither was the image of his son. It was out there for anyone to do whatever they wanted with. I'm not saying that people shouldn't post videos, in fact I'm very grateful that people do because I love them, but I think you have to do it with an awareness that once you have you no longer have any power to stop people using it for their own advantage. I think it's really important to think about your own intentions and those of others.
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