Tag Archives: webseries

True Friends Let You Use their Netflix Account

Leave a reply

With the internet’s explosive use of media outlets like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, watching shows on the web has become more and more popular seemingly leaving television in the dust. It seems like TV is quickly becoming a thing of the past creating space for the come up of more web series. Along with the rapid progression of web series, it is becoming easier for users to get hooked due to the easy access the internet provides.  I am usually the type of person who has 2 to 3 shows I watch on television, during the summer you can often find me glued to the couch watching them during their air premier time because I usually have more time on my hands.htyt      When I go back to school I often miss a season due to the lack of availability I have with television. This past semester I found out one of my friends has a Hulu Plus account he never uses.  Being the good friend I am, I offered to watch the missing seasons of my favorite show, not even needing to turn on my TV in my dorm room.  I also have a friend who graciously pays for her Netflix account while letting me and a few others mooch off of her.  Thanks to my great friends, I really have no need to sit and watch television, because I can watch my favorite shows on my computer screen for free.  It is interesting to see the shift from television to web in my life because of its convenience and low cost.

When thinking about web series I did not really know much about them, let alone watch any.  Class time was probably one of the first times I sat down and saw a web series displayed, and I have to admit they were pretty entertaining. I found myself laughing at the jokes, and the production and format of the web series were so approachable, and the dialogue not overdone. The people on screen could have been my friends. I started to get a sense as to why they are becoming so popular; another thing brought up in class and readings was the emergence of black themed webisodes. This was allowing a meeting space for the black community to engage in topics and jokes, while also giving black actors to chance to display their talent and add diversity to this online world.  I appreciated this because I was able to see people more close to what I deal with in life, and it is always refreshing to feel like you can connect to what you’re watching, which is what I think we aim for when we watch programs.  I will definitely be looking out for webisodes and thanks to my friends, the access I have to online programming is expanding.

 

grg

 

Youtube Playlist – Laughs, Scares and Grooves

Leave a reply

I have been using Youtube regularly since I was 15, a freshmen in high school. I think it all started when I was trying to find new music to download, via a YouTube to MP3 site. I was particularly into an artist that goes by the stage name “Flying Lotus”. He has dozens of tracks that are not on albums or eps that you obtain through iTunes, if not hundreds. But, for some reason, they get uploaded to YouTube. I always enjoyed that about this website. Not only is it primarily user driven, it also allows for artists (or “leakers”) to release music in a different area than the regulated sites of iTunes and record label websites. It also is a great way to discover how an audience of dedicated fans will respond to your new material.

Flying-Lotus

 

Most casual listeners will not go beyond the standard methods of obtaining music. I think that, generally speaking, the die-hard fans are the ones who are ready to scour the depths of vinyl stacks and bootleg websites so that they might find that unknown gem of the artist’s library. It is a great method for artists to either test out new tracks on the fans that really matter, or to release old tracks that they enjoyed making and listening to, the ones that didn’t make it on to the ep or album due to the professional process. They can check the number of views and read the comments to gauge its popularity or lack thereof, and if it’s a hit, suddenly they have a new popular track that could go viral and increase their renown. Basically, YouTube is the new “B-Sides” album of every modern artist that is willing to provide their music for free. I say this because it extends far beyond Flying Lotus. I have found countless tracks from many artists that aren’t on iTunes, BitTorrent, or vinyl. It seems to be most popular amongst electronic musicians to use this internet based release form, but it also extends to other genres, especially if someone has a recording of a song that the said band only plays live, or something of the like. Digging through YouTube has yielded many treasures in my time exploring.

My other favorite aspect of YouTube are the “Web Series”. These are usually short, episodic videos that are uploaded by either individuals or corporations, whether they are previously popular or not. The first web series I really got into was “MarbleHornets”, when I was a sophomore in college. For those of you who don’t know, MarbleHornets was originally created by a couple of film school students with a 500$ budget, which they used to shoot the first 26 episodes. I thought I knew what it was like to be scared watching a movie from my experience with “The Shining” and “The Grudge”, to give some perspective. But I have realized that I, in fact, did not know shit. Marble Hornets would release, each week, a video simply titled “Entry #..” with the appropriate number following it. These videos, usually no more than nine minutes, would scare the living hell out of me, especially alone in my dorm room with a bowl of far too hot ramen ready to spill on my lap. They essentially did the same thing as “The Blair Witch Project”, with their “recovered footage” sort of premise, which makes it feel all too real. But they also use methods of both sound and film manipulation to accentuate the horror. Every time “The Operator” (notoriously known as Slenderman from the Something Awful forums), we see a brief image of the horrifying figure, followed by the camera going haywire and emitting awful high pitched frequencies, only to snap back to normal footage once the being had left the frame. Scary stuff, let me tell you.

slenderman-11

So I guess what YouTube means to me is that it can provide for a very intimate experience, almost person to person, or perhaps even more importantly, stranger to stranger. When I download that hidden track, I feel closer to the artist. When I share it, I feel like I’m letting someone in on a wonderful secret. When I watch a webseries episode, especially one made from a KickerStarter fund or with a very small budget, I feel like I’m seeing a truly personal and artistic creation that hasn’t yet been contaminated by media. Yes, there are ads, but these support the uploaders. I’m a huge fan of YouTube, and I think it allows for a new and excellent means of connecting people across the globe, who otherwise would never know that the other existed.

Here are my top 15 (beware, the first five are Marble Hornets!):

My Digital Reflection

Leave a reply

In the reflection I wrote on my experience of YouTube at the beginning of the semester, I described it as ‘a platform whose very purpose is to democratize the exchange of ideas and give voice to the otherwise average citizen.’  In light of what I have learned during the course, I can identify aspects of this evaluation which can be problematised.  While earlier I viewed YouTube as an example of the power of new media to redistribute power more fairly than traditional media, I am now more aware of ways in which race and gender permeate this seemingly new and neutral institution called “New Media.”

I have learned through the readings, our class discussions, and through my own research in my group’s project on web series that YouTube’s “democracy” does not always equal meritocracy; that the government of YouTube by the consent of the governed is results in many of the same problems found in traditional media.  YouTube is like the company of which it is now a part, Google, in that promoted the most popular content, which is consequently viewed far more often than most unusual or transgressive content.  It gives people what they want (or what they think they want).  I learned that this type of popular consumerism is a major concern for the creators of webseries (not just on YouTube but on all platforms), whose content often deals with persons of colour, women and LGBT people.  The need to hold the attention of the masses means that those who want to create challenging material are taking a risk, and may ultimately fall prey to homogenising effect of mainstream culture which tends to either remove nonconformity by natural selection or simply absorb and compromise it.

This was a growing and sobering realisation for me over the course of the semester.  I, who had always thought of myself as critical of consumer culture, began to point my attention more towards new media, which I had thought of as the haven and weapon of the kinds of people who would not reduce racial minorities to offensive stereotypes, who would not reduce women to mere sexual objects and who wish for a more fair and inclusive system for distributing opportunities and protections.  Over the course of the semester I was forced to think about how technology has affected my life and influenced my decisions.  I confronted the fact that I have allowed Google to wield so much power over me since I was old enough to consider myself “computer literate” that I now picture the face of George Orwell’s Big Brother whenever I think about this seemingly harmless, benevolent organisation.  This Sunday when I sit down to watch my favourite network television show, Game Of Thrones, I will be more troubled than ever by the fact that all of the major characters seem to be white, heterosexual and conventionally attractive.  I wonder what it would take for the stories being told in web series about the less visible people in our society so reach such a large and rabid audience.  Ultimately, I understand that as a society and as individuals we can choose to use and interact with new media in ways that dismantle the power of homogeny in our society, or we can allow the resistance to be crushed by the heavy hand of consumer culture.

Developing My Digital Literacy

Leave a reply

When I signed up for this class I had no idea what to expect. I decided to enroll because I wanted to take an English class that was not literature-based. Although I did think that the class would require us to interact more with technology, I enjoyed learning about new media and the impacts of technology from an academic standpoint.

In the beginning of the semester we discussed our broad opinions about new media. I remember referring to new media, specifically the internet, as a faceless equal playing field where race and gender do not matter. Throughout the course of the semester, I realized that I was misguided in my original interpretation of new media.

Contrary to my initial view, we learned that often new media perpetuates racism and the objectification and degradation of women. In class we discussed racist memes which, due to the ease with which they can be copied, rapidly spread and thus widely and quickly promote their racist message.

-1

We also discussed how video games degrade women through hypersexualization while also over-representing white men by almost exclusively portraying white males as heroes. While in these two instances new media popularizes negative stereotypes and creates new negative stereotypes about women and about different races, new media also offers a place for misrepresented and underrepresented groups to express themselves. We learned about how web series offer a place for these misrepresented and underrepresented groups to create shows that focus on the specific problems that their groups face unrestrained by the tenants of traditional network television.

In addition to learning about race and gender in new media, we also discussed how Google and Youtube dictate our searches and thus dictate both our knowledge and who grows popular on the internet. I used to view YouTube and Google as places where anyone could have their blog discovered or could post a video and grow famous. Now I realize that YouTube and Google are, at their core, businesses, and, that advertisers rather than users exist as YouTube’s and Google’s customers. Because advertisers are Google’s and YouTube’s customers – YouTube promotes videos and Google promotes websites based on which websites or videos receive the most views, or based on who pays for promotion. While I appreciate the existence of Google and Youtube as free services, I recognize that the validity of information or the quality of content is not Youtube’s or Google’s first concern when yielding search results.

Overall, this course taught me to recognize the importance of digital literacy and to develop my own digital literacy. While the internet does offer a place for anyone to have a voice, the business-minded nature of websites that control our searches, namely Google and YouTube, makes some content difficult to discover. In addition, I learned that it is important to recognize that while the internet gives misrepresented and underrepresented groups a place to express themselves, it also promotes racism and degradation and objectification of women by idolizing white men and by perpetuating negative race and gender stereotypes.

*      *      *

Here’s a trailer for the film “Miss Representation” which outlines many of the themes we discussed this semester:

 

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UZZV3xU6Q[/youtube]