Bob
Don Lapre Is Cool
bob@brooklynresponds.com

I don’t know how to respond to that. There is a lot of truth in what you say….

but like I mentioned earlier, I don’t aim to decide for anyone what they do, I just don’t want the issue to slide by the sidelines until it’s too late and we are all standing around wonder wtf just happened….when big media has taken over the online video world as well as radio and television….and we’ve lost our voice.

…and I apologize to Casey for taking over the thread of this post I’m done.

Dictating taste
Censorship

Dictating taste has failed most dramaticaly in totalitarian regimes. From Nazi Germany burning books and art designated as degenerate to Communist Russia restricting art to only Realist forms. Stating what art, entertainment, etc. that someone should create for the good of mankind has created the opposite result. If someone enjoys trashy Romance novels, it may not be my cup of tea. But, it’s not for me to decide what they enjoy.

Censorship has gone hand in hand with dictating taste as exampled above. Stating that certain programs are “bad” and “degenerate” for people is often the first step to censorship. That is why I find the Media Nipple site problematic. It’s making essentially the same argument as the Right on censoring media.

I’ll try to remember that next time (shouldn’t be too long, lol)

I can see how you might think I’m contadicting myself by saying that videoblogging is not my chosen method for getting my voice out and then making this video, but the only reason I made this video was due to pressure from videobloggers saying people should “reply by video”. I was afraid that if I commented on other people’s vlogs in writing, they wouldn’t bother listening.

In real life, however, I don’t feel a need to sit in front of a camera and spill my thoughts. Instead I create a TV-like show where I can express my personality (not necessarily my political beliefs or my life experiences). If the Internet TV shows that I’m creating are considered my “voice” then why is stuff like this (format/topic shows) being attacked as being mainstream media influenced. I’m doing everything I ever dreamed of and wouldn’t trade what I’ve done for the world.

As I commented on Verdi’s site… I made mock radio shows as a child and later became a radio DJ. I truly hope that someday, our RSS feeds will all be transmitted directly to our wallscreens in the living room so we can watch our Internet TV sitting on a nice comfy couch. I believe this to be a very realistic future… which I would be more than happy to partake in.

The only thing I care about is having a borderless playing field where anyone can be a star… this is what I care about. If that means people start to get paid for it, that’s fine with me.

i think casey means that thus far, she has not used this medium explicetely to express herself and have her voice be heard. obviously she knows that she can. she just did. but that has not been her primary interest. and she is saying that she has a right to want to make entertainment as she has…. and not nec make content that you make. its a perogative that we all have and thats what i got out of her point.

you also talk about how her shows are a form of her self expression. true and…. exxxxaaaactlyyy. maybe you like her shows? maybe you dont. but they are shows and they could be on TV (albeit late late night on sci-fi channel or something .
So, i get the feeling that you are in the middle on this issue, maybe?

maybe we need to dish out what everyone means when they say “TV”.

sull

i know it is frustrating to think of the day when the vast magority becomes the same od same old. but you know…. gotta pick your battles i guess.
because if a medium works, and the internet is proving to work quite well for content creators, then its just inevitable that crap content will pour in.
we can talk about how this sucks, i’m game. but to me, we should put our energies towards how to make sure that OUR ATTENTION stays on what WE WANT TO EXPERIENCE on the net. If we can filter people in our physical worlds, we should be able to filter people online. A mix of technology and good will should eventually do the trick. And by good will I mean…. every new project that tries to help become a filtered network of content that intentionally tries to avoid “Bad TV”. We will rely on such projects… we will trust such projects. We will create such projects. We will leverage the signal to noise ratio as much as we can. And we will do it using the same technologies and we’ll call it the same buzzy words and we’ll play in the same space. WE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!
Let them come. Let them use this space. Hell, Maybe it will help avoid the fucked up laws being proposed. maybe not. We just gotta keep fighting our fight.

And…. I like plenty of “shows” that people are making. Shows that could be seen as a TVesque style. If I complain about tv shows online, then how do i defend the ones i enjoy? Like Casey’s

sull

Thanks for the balanced reminder. You make very good points….democracy right? I agree.

I certainly don’t mean to try to force people to do what I think is right with this media, but I can’t help but say something when I see it turning into the same thing as television. I need to temper my message I guess.

Will we even have a chance to ignore the bad/rest once it’s totally taken hold? Will our individual voices get drowned out once big media sees that the television model will in fact work online (since the content creators let it)? Time will tell I guess.