by Austin Washington
I just saw some of the YouTube live event, and it bothered me.
Because, it's ruining something nice.
That is - although YouTube sucks in many ways (you can't deny the stupidity, small-mindedness, and basic nastiness of humanity when you read the comments!), the good things about it are those (relatively rare) times when people do something personal and heartfelt. (Or funny as all hell.) But, it's when, ultimately, they are doing something to do it - for its own sake - not because they want to be part of the shmorgasbord of inanity that makes up the mainstream media.
So, the problem with the YouTube live event, in my opinion, is not so much that it took all these people who were doing it for the love of it - like, the street dancers, or the parkour people - and gave them what might be an intoxicating dose of demi-ephemeral celebrity.
It's that it puts that idea into everyone's head. Like, you shouldn't do it just cuz it's cool - you should do it so you have the chance of immersing yourself in a Lindsey Lohan world.
Like, one of my favourite things on YouTube is this video.
I've written something else about it elsewhere - (not yet posted) - but, in essence, it's not that it's somewhat funny that makes it so compelling. It's that there's some innate camaraderie between twins (they're twins!), that is compelling in the way The Beatles were compelling - there was a kind of camaraderie that you feel, even if you didn't realise it. It's why The Beatles were more loved (and are!) than bands and musicians that are arguably better musicians. That is, better in so many ways but the "X Factor". But, I think the X factor is, in The Beatles and that video of those twins, the sense of camaraderie, which has this very important result - those twins, and The Beatles, both a) make you feel you know them, and b) are doing it at least as much for themselves, as for anyone else. They're doing it to amuse each other, and/or impress each other....
Which enables you to like them, y'know? Or else, even if they're talented, part of you can't help but think - you prick. Get a life - why do you care if I like you?
See, people view "entertainers" and "artists" - well, artistes (performing artists) - as a kind of commodity, not people. Everyone would be repulsed by the tabloids if they really thought of its victims as people. But, they don't.
Even thoughtful people don't view artistes as people. Like, I just saw this in a review on Amazon, about someone I really like - it said
This band is going to have a short life, where Patrick Wolf will be peaking in about two or three years.
It's like he's talking about the f***ing stock market, or something. They're people, for chrissake.
So, the Youtube Live Event, and the ethos it represesents, takes people who have talent, and, encourages them to become - well, check out this video - it's from the kid from whom the twins (in the video above) got the beat for their rap - this guy is, by any supposedly objective standard, better. And in this video, he is making the same point I'm making - obviously, much better than me! ;) But you don't like him nearly as much as the twins, you can just sense, he wants you to like him. I mean, that's the point of the (comedy) rap. "Please like me! I deserve it, even though I don't have big tits!" Which makes you not. (You don't like him as much both because he wants you to like him and, let's be honest, because he doesn't have big tits! Hey, we're all human...)
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