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Happy ME Awareness day!
… if you happen to be watching this on Thursday the 12th May, 2011.
And now I’ve really dated this video...
I have rather helpfully been pointed towards a site for downloading YouTube videos… simply add ‘kick’ to the beginning of any YouTube video link.
For example ‘kickyoutube.com/watch…’ and then those letters that appear up there.
And I can live on your desktop!
For ever and always.
Won’t that be fun (!)
Unfortunately, attempting to load the site made my computer cry and then reject me...
so I had to give her a little breathing space for a few hours.
Consequently; my clips are still recorded directly from my screen.
And this is a really rubbish advert for the site...
If it works for anyone please let me know.
Today is going to be a little different in content as well as I’m going to look at a single ‘vidder’;
the highly accomplished 'rebelliouspixels' otherwise known as Jonathan McIntosh.
McIntosh describes himself as a ‘pop culture hacker, video remix artist, new media teacher and fair use advocate.’
‘Fair Use’ is the exception to copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material...
for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, educational purposes, archiving and...
-scholarship!- Without the need to acquire permission from the rights holders.
I first discovered McIntosh from his video ‘Buffy vs Edward’ a visual critique on the attitudes towards women in both the ‘Twilight’ and ‘Buffy; the Vampire Slayer’ franchises.
The video contrasts the feminist slant of Buffy- a strong willed, teenage protagonist...
who over the course of the show becomes an empowered young woman, battling vampires and whatever else life throws at her...
-with Twilight’s sexist assertion of gender roles.
Twilight’s Edward Cullen is a vampire who becomes obsessed with and stalks a young human girl named Bella.
Confused as to whether he wishes to protect or hurt her he openly blames her for his own aggression and desire to cause her pain...
which Bella- unlike Buffy!- finds very attractive.
[Buffy] You know, being stalked isn't really a big turn-on for girls.
Seen through Buffy’s eyes Edward’s creepy behaviour is just that. This is a woman who doesn’t bow to patriarchal norms.
Side note- did you notice the little pop-up on that video?
Clicking on it will take you to the original page.
Those links are called ‘annotations’ and can be found below the ‘search’ box on your video’s page, next to the ‘edit captions/subtitles’ button.
You can add commentary or links to your videos!
The rebelliouspixels channel features McIntosh’s commentary on modern society
through imaginative retellings of adverts, such as... the human price of oil and the American Military’s use of torture...
television programmes; reinventing the 2008 Presidential Candidate Debates as a game show.
and classic cartoons.
In a Donald Duck/Glenn Beck cartoon remix he uses 50 classic Walt Disney animated shorts
to relate the duck’s tale of unemployment in the Great Depression to the current economic crisis.
By overlaying soundbites from right-wing pundit Glenn Beck’s radio programme he draws parallels between, what he calls;
“the unfortunate racist stereotyping in the old Disney material that almost perfectly mirrors some of Beck’s own xenophobic language and scapegoating of people of colour.”
After loosing his job and falling behind on house payments the duck turns to his radio and Beck’s “increasingly paranoid and divisive rhetoric.”
Glenn Beck is one of the right wing, news analysts that Steven Colbert- who I showed you a clip of a few days ago- is satirising in his television show.
McIntosh started the project after hearing several of Glenn Beck’s rants and being reminded “of a paranoid cartoon caricature something right out of an old Disney animated short.”
There has been a rise of right-wing media figures in the past few years.
In McIntosh’s eyes their rhetoric is reminiscent of 1950s McCarthyism-
putting heavy blame for the current economic crisis on communists, unionists and various ethnic groups.
Clips of Donald Duck used come from the 1930s-
when he was originally created by Disney, during the great depression, to represent a frustrated down-on-their-luck “anybody” character
- right up to the end of the 1950s.
In the remix, Donald’s frustration turns into despair and, later, anger
as he realises the voice is not actually on his side after all.
‘Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck in Right Wing Radio Duck’ was posted on the 2nd of October 2010 and went ‘viral’ within the first few months with more than a million viewers.
I feel the very concept of a ‘viral’ video is a key part of YouTube.
The phrase describes any video that becomes popular through being electronically passed from person to person,
typically via email or social networking sites such as Facebook.
Many sites have obviously done some kind of deal with YouTube to make it easier for users to ‘embed’ videos.
The popularity of the Donald Duck video was aided by a Twitter recommendation from the film critic Roger Ebert,
who hinted at its subversive nature with ‘wise to watch it NOW while it’s still online.’
Absurdly, the video also rapidly gained in views after Glenn Beck himself attacked both the video and McIntosh on his radio show;
Whatever Beck’s intentions, his words were then taken by a fan of Jonathan McIntosh, a YouTube user with the screen-name ‘ikat381’,
and turned into another remix, combining Beck’s audio and another Disney cartoon, this time Mickey Mouse;
[Beck over radio] Tom, there is story on, uh, 'Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck'.
It is some of the best propaganda against me...
like you've never seen! Using...
Disney! And Disney cartoons!
But I just wanna- I just- If I'm not mistaken...
Some of these remix... uh... 'videos'...
I believe... get federal funding!
This situation highlights YouTube’s capacity as a sounding board.
All three videos have fierce arguments in their ‘comments’ section, as supporters of Beck and the right-wing movement-
(or else people who disagree with Beck but disagree more with McIntosh and ikat381) have their say.
As McIntosh writes in a piece for Al Jazeera online (the English version);
“As citizens of this new media world, we must also be able to speak in that audio-visual language.
... The fair use doctrine offers one way for creators to used fragments of mass media and popular culture to make their own transformed statements ...
... (without the fear of legal reprisal) ...
... [The] remix video is one of many ways new media tools can allow people without access to large corporate television stations and radio networks to have some voice. ...
... To challenge powerful interests, people and institutions and speak back.”
Whether you agree with his politics or not his words are certainly apt.
As ‘somename99’ highlighted, YouTube does not offer us anything new in terms of content but it does offer us the ability to express ourselves.
Which is why tomorrow we will be focusing on ‘user generated’ viral videos.
Those clips that started out as just one person, or a group of friends, messing around and became so much more…
Post a video or leave me a comment to let me know your favourite viral video.