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YouTube has, since it's formation, been a social site where anyone can post videos of whatever they desire. From cats jumping around, to seeing your friend dive headfirst into a pile of bananas, YouTube has become the hot-spot for people to become noticed. However, with any forms of creative expression, some people will take their "creativity" to the extremes.
YouTube "poops", as they've come to be known, are basically created by taking any video that can be found, and either spoofing it, or applying every single effect and distortion possible. Usually, these videos make little to no sense. The video above, however, is a twisted spoof of this random piece, which still makes...almost no sense. More common 'poops' are mashups of footage from, basically, anything. More common, though, are the spoofs of other, seemingly useless videos. A spoof of Vince's ShamWow! commercial has quickly become one of the most popular videos that have spread around the internet.
This brings up an interesting topic, though. With the whole idea of "cultural remixing", when is too much, too much? Is the remixed video property of the person who mashed together the footage, or is it still the original author's work?
YouTube "poops", as they've come to be known, are basically created by taking any video that can be found, and either spoofing it, or applying every single effect and distortion possible. Usually, these videos make little to no sense. The video above, however, is a twisted spoof of this random piece, which still makes...almost no sense. More common 'poops' are mashups of footage from, basically, anything. More common, though, are the spoofs of other, seemingly useless videos. A spoof of Vince's ShamWow! commercial has quickly become one of the most popular videos that have spread around the internet.
This brings up an interesting topic, though. With the whole idea of "cultural remixing", when is too much, too much? Is the remixed video property of the person who mashed together the footage, or is it still the original author's work?
Youtube poop. The finest poop on this side of the interwebs. I can’t believe some videos have upwards of 41 million views while we have difficulty trying to get people to vote during elections. It is amazing what the word of mouth can do when information can be passed along in seconds. I guess silly and stupid things like Youtube poop appeals to people more often because it is a distraction from life. People can turn off their brains and simply enjoy sometime silly while on a short lunch break during their stressful workday.
ReplyDeleteYou did bring up some interesting points about collaboration and cultural remixing. I feel that when an artist uses a preexisting work to create a new piece, the new piece is a new piece of work. However, I feel that credit should still be given to the pieces used to make the new piece of work. It is fair, but if someone did not want his or her videos getting reused for someone else’s poop, do not put it online in the first place.
Ah, the pop culture poop shoot of the web. Like you said, user created videos that appear on youtube can be striking and humorous, but when does this unique way of filming become not so innovative? This is, in my opinion, similar to what 70% of comedy films in America are doing; spoofs. Ripping on another person's idea or movie is funny, but when this becomes too dramatic, it becomes pop culture humor. Ode to the horrors of american film-making; Superhero movie, Date movie, Meet the Spartan, etc. These movies rip on other movies. They are a blasphemy to film makers and are just heaps of junk made popular by pop culture news and stories. Youtube poops can be generalized as the same. Someone spoofs someones movie, or compiles other movies, and you have a feeble attempt at comedy brought foreward by filters and low attempt rates.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dan that the new mash-up videos belong to the creators, and that the owners of the original work should be cited. Also, I personally fully embrace these videos. They may be just 'poop' but they also are guaranteed to make you laugh. Even if it is just a cheap form of pop culture humor, there is no denying the videos are funny. I find it fascinating to watch the sense and quality of a video slowly deteriorate into mindless, stupid humor as the content is remixed and mashed up over and over, like a digital-age version of whisper down the lane.
ReplyDeleteYoutube does indeed appear to be the core center of entertainment for our generation. Even the video producers have begun to notice that, making parodies off of how quickly information can be spread. For example, a quote from Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged by Lanipitor, “I died less than an hour ago, how did they plan my wake so fast?” “They posted your death on YouTube” “yeah, that’d do it”.
ReplyDeleteIt’s difficult to decide whether such remixing is for the better or worse however because of how the focus of culture revolves around the expansion and manipulation of what exists to form something new. Although from experience, the frustration of having an idea from stolen without credit and remade into something that turned out to be more popular while your own work is overshadowed hurts more than anything.
In class, my teacher showed us a video of this kid who through the whole video was just him timing himself with how long he could hold a video camera perpendicular to his body. It was like almost 5 minutes of him doing nothing the first few minutes, then grunting and distorting his face because his arm was getting tired and he was struggling to keep it up. I couldn't believe how many hits an comments a video like that got... but it was popular for it's moment.
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