YouTube, MeTube and WeTube
I found it on YouTube -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia
by blogSpotter
Today's blog is a media pastiche -- a little bit YouTube, a little bit TV and a little bit MTV. I'm a relative late-comer to YouTube; it's been a cultural phenomenon for two years now, and I just caught the wave. The idea of videos accessible from websites is nothing new and video blogs are nothing new. But somehow, the creators of YouTube.com were able to make the site a 'cultural happening'. Now, it has become a national repository for movie and video clips, family films and amateur comedy. If you're a film student looking for a break-thru, you can do no better than posting your work on YouTube where the national spotlight is aimed.
I've found several excellent movie and MTV clips. Can't help but worry that YouTube will suffer the same fate as Napster -- lawsuits could force YouTube (recently acquired by Google) to change their business model and start charging download fees. CBS and NBC were contemplating legal action against YouTube, until they saw that the short clips (maximum 10 minutes allowed) were giving a commercial boost to their network schedules. Now, these networks are looking to work with YouTube. Viacom isn't so happy -- any one of their music videos can easily be shown in its entirety, in less than 10 minutes. They've filed a lawsuit for 1 billion dollars and that suit is currently pending. Everyone – keep your fingers crossed. Let's hope they reach a solution that keeps this cultural treasure trove alive and well. Without YouTube, I never would've known that Cass Elliot and Julie Andrews did a medley together on a 70's TV special.
THE MADONNA
Speaking of videos, I availed myself of Madonna's Like a Prayer from 1989. This video is great, although I'm not really sure what it's about. There seems to be some interracial love, cross burnings and stigmata all rolled into one vaguely erotic story. Madonna cavorts with a black man who is alternately wearing street clothes, dressed as a priest and then back to street clothes, in jail. I can see a 'satanic' influence at work here with all the religious symbology. (Yes, I used the word symbology from Da Vinci code because I like that word). Madonna was in top form in this video, chronologically sandwiched somewhere between Who's That Girl and Dick Tracy. Prior to this viewing, I hadn't seen Like a Prayer since it was on television 18 years ago.
NOT THE MADONNA
Speaking of TV, I watched the NBC Today Show this morning. They were promoting the latest Harry Potter book, and looking at a poster mock-up of the book cover. Matt Lauer mistook it for the real book, and said, "It's kind of oversized for a book isn't it?" Meredith Viera replied, "Idiot, it's a poster!" Matt was insulted but remained gentlemanly about it. I've read in tabloids that these two haven't hit it off that well -- that Matt has been 'mean' to Meredith. Have seen no evidence of that on the show however, Matt always is pleasant and mannerly. Now that she's been verbally nasty to him on the air, all I can say is the gloves are off. All’s fair in love and war -- the verbal nasties can go each way.
If Matt had called Meredith an "idiot" women would be storming the studio for Matt's head. To women readers out in PC-land: don't talk smack about a man, if you don't want a man to talk smack about you. Meredith, since you took the first swipe, don't get your feelings hurt if/when Matt calls you a 'ditz' or a 'drama queen' on air. Anyone can occasionally stumble on their words or make a silly mistake; the more gracious thing to do is ignore it or make a wink-wink joke about it. But ...mean lips sink ships -- whether they belong to a man or a woman. And now I'll step down from the soap box. :-)
© 2007 blogSpotter
Labels: Business, Cinema, Technology, Television
posted by blogspotter @ 11:21 AM
5 Comments:
Re: Lauer/Viera.
I've purposefully avoided The Today Show since (I hear now absent) Katie Couric began dominating it decades ago. While very little television these days can be classified as male-positive, The Today Show has often recently stuck out as a hothouse of misandry. For example, it was on that show that during an interview with a bride-to-be "left at the altar" that Couric gleefully asked if the jiltee had "considered castration."
You really have to search to find anything not downright hostile to men or bending over backwards to praise women as a class these days. Any (scripted false) violence against women is horror or unbelievable crime while men slapped, punched, kicked or even attacked in the groin is high adventure, justice or even humor. Wives brandishing frying pans/rolling pins against their husbands is considered high entertainment to this day while the reverse has been considered taboo since Ralph Cramden threatened to send Alice "to the moon."
You can't really blame the media on this one, though. They need to draw the audience who will buy their advertiser's products, and as Scott Adams said:
"If you were from another planet, say Switzerland, and you only knew these two facts-1) Men earn most of the money, and 2) Women spend most of the money-what would you assume about who is holding whom by the whatchamacallits and swinging the person who owns the watchamacallits around in the air while yelling, "I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR!?"
The problem is the audacity of feminists given things like this, all the special set-asides for "woman and minority" owned business (women are the only "minority" making up 51% of the population), woman-only scholarships when women now outnumber men at university, a special Violence Against Women Amendment when men are more often victims of violence than men, etc. etc. etc -- the audacity to still try to sell themselves as an "oppressed group."
I haven't seen every Today show; it's possible that Matt started the insult exchange earlier on.
If that were true, a bigger person would rise above it all and not get caught up in a tit-for-tat (no sexual pun intended :-)) insult contest.
Matt did show restraint on today's show where he could have returned fire. That impresses me -- score one for Matt.
Wouldn't 'symbology' be the study of symbols and/or their meaning? Just checking...
You're right -- it would be the study of symbols and "symbolism" would be the use of the symbols. Maybe they're studying them at the same time they're using them. :-; Am using artistic blog license here.
Figured I can stir something up if I use some Da Vinci words. :-)
Maybe it is the study of the usage of symbols? If we keep going I'm pretty sure we'll get sucked into the self-referential vortex, so I'll step away from the edge and leave it at that.
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