Imagine your favorite dramatic TV series, say, Game of Thrones or Mad Men, but performed live in front of a rowdy focus group that shows their disdain for bad scenes by chanting the names of their favorite former cast members when the current ones starts boring them. Maybe they have some fun and add—and sing—their own lyrics to the show’s theme song. Maybe they lose their minds when some bit character gets a cameo, because she’s their favorite character. Maybe they remember that, oh yeah, they’re on TV, too and just start chanting about how awesome they are. At times, you see, they’re trying to make themselves the stars of the show.
This is Twitter replying as a TV show. This is Facebook snark and YouTube comments as part of a TV show.
This is the Red Wedding with the ability to hear the audience gasp. This is Brian Williams’ televised apology with a studio audience chanting “We want Brokaw” in the background.
I always think of The Traveling Wilburys as a bit of a hidden gem that people don’t really know. So I was pretty surprised to hear this song, which pre-dates most Internet-era music, still has nearly 10 million views on YouTube…
This TED talk has been making the rounds since being posted a week ago and is approaching one million views on YouTube.
It’s very interesting for Lewinsky’s observations on being at the epi-centre of our now common social media world where everyone can voice opinions on the news of the day, often reaching huge audiences, possibly expressing those opinions anonymously or without repercussions, even when they involve death threats and and so on.
As a long-time pro wrestling fan, I can’t decide if this clip is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen (those inside jokes!) or the worst (such a strange way to try to explain the appeal of wrestling.)
But if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, it’s worth watching the last three minutes as that’s where the point of the whole thing is made in very convincing fashion.
Or you can also watch this earlier defence of pro wrestling by Max Landis, son of John and the director of “Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling” which seems like it may have inspired his longer form video and makes many of the same points in a more concise fashion…
