Fagstein » viral-videos http://blog.fagstein.com Can you think of a better name? Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:54:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Death to the lip dub http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/09/13/death-to-the-lip-dub/ http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/09/13/death-to-the-lip-dub/#comments Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:53:43 +0000 Fagstein http://blog.fagstein.com/?p=6918 I got a short email today pointing to "a pretty cool video on YouTube": students from UQAM doing a lip dub to the Black Eyed Peas' I Gotta Feeling (a song also responsible for the wiping of all meaning from the term "flash mob").

My response: sigh.

For those of you unaware of this concept, it all began (or, at least, it grew online fame) with an iconic video by the staff at Connected Ventures (they're the people behind College Humor, BustedTees and other young, hip online properties). It starts off with a young woman (Amanda Ferri) pressing play on her iPod, and then follows as a bunch of people, one after the other, lip sync to Harvey Danger's Flagpole Sitta:

The music cuts out at the end to reveal the staff singing the end of the song a capella. The video is well done, well choreographed (you notice it's done entirely in one take) and creative, but despite all the planning that went into it you get the sense that everyone had lots of fun making it.

Ferri uploaded the video to Vimeo on April 20, 2007, and it has since been seen about 2 million times, not including all the views on the College Humor site and elsewhere. (There's even a making-of.) That's far more than is needed to be branded viral (and certainly a lot for a 2007 video on a non-YouTube site).

For some reason, rather than simply admiring the video for its creativity and entertainment value, some people decided they wanted to create their own versions. The first such video I saw was done by Hochschule Furtwangen University last year. It was more professional, and clearly involved a lot more planning than some drunk college kids bored after work. But despite picking a different song, it was still the same concept.

Earlier this year saw the first such video produced in Quebec, by students at HEC (at least according to Dominic Arpin, who tracks these kinds of things). I thought it was cute, but the fact that it basically copied the same routine (albeit with a different song and a different cast) kind of bothered me. HEC followed with another one. There was one by Buzz Image Group (jazzed up with some special effects), and another by Sacré Coeur Hospital. Hipsters around the world have copied the concept.

It's not even that many copied the original idea, they copied the original script. Many copied it exactly, from the single person with headphones to the crowd singing at the end with no music (all in one take). It's as if they were prohibited from making any changes to that formula.

The result is something that, while no doubt incredibly fun to produce, lacks any originality. And without that spark of wow-this-is-cool, the videos become little more than a bunch of kids mouthing the words to a pop song one at a time. And lip syncing by itself is not fun to watch.

So please, to those people considering doing something like this: Put some of that energy and talent into coming up with something new.

Don't expect me to be impressed by a bad copy of something someone else has already done, any more than I should be impressed with Wipeout Québec or the new Melrose Place.

UPDATE: Dominic Arpin, Patrick Lagacé and others seem to love them still, so maybe I'm out on a limb here. So be it. I'm not preventing anyone else from enjoying these videos.

UPDATE (Sept. 22): Global National, which apparently has run out of real news to cover, also sent a reporter to cover this.

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]]> http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/09/13/death-to-the-lip-dub/feed/ 30 Auto-Tune the News http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/04/25/auto-tune-the-news/ http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/04/25/auto-tune-the-news/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:01:20 +0000 Fagstein http://blog.fagstein.com/?p=5205

Here's one that's been making its way around the viral Internet (especially since a mention on Boing-Boing): Auto-Tune the News. It's pretty much that: taking stuff from TV and applying Auto-Tune to it to make it sing. Add a bit of remixing and editing and you got yourself some music videos.

Other speeches that sound better with Auto-Tune:

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]]> http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/04/25/auto-tune-the-news/feed/ 0 Oh Snap! Epic pwnage http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/04/17/we-didnt-start-the-flamewar/ http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/04/17/we-didnt-start-the-flamewar/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:52:26 +0000 Fagstein http://blog.fagstein.com/?p=5102

I laughed at least three or four times watching this. It is most excellent.

You know, the parts that aren't gay.

(via Chaos Theory)

See also: The Internet Stars are Viral, another Billy Joel parody.

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]]> http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/04/17/we-didnt-start-the-flamewar/feed/ 4 Baby time-lapse goes viral http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/01/30/baby-time-lapse-goes-viral/ http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/01/30/baby-time-lapse-goes-viral/#comments Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:15:12 +0000 Fagstein http://blog.fagstein.com/?p=3918

Francis Vachon, a Quebec City-based freelance photographer who has shot photos for various news agencies (and The Gazette), created a four-hour time-lapse video of his infant son playing with toys, and posted it on YouTube so he could embed it on his blog.

I thought it was cute.

Then I noticed it was getting attention from the local blogger-vedettes like Dominic Arpin and Patrick Lagacé.

And then ... Boing Boing. Kottke. Neatorama. Urlesque. Urlesque again. Le Post in France. The Guardian viral video chart. BuzzFeed.

And Boing Boing wannabe websites that copy them without mentioning their source.

And lots of mommy/baby blogs. And personal blogs. And foreign-language blogs. And Andrew Sullivan. It's even being used as a throw-away reference in online video media analysis.

Less than a week after it was posted, the video has been watched 172,793 357,655 times, favourited 935 1,677 times, and has received 32 most-viewed and most-discussed honours.

It's even been Benny-Hillified.

Will his Rue Petit-Champlain time-lapse get as much attention? Is this a YouTube star in the making? Will Weezer have to feature him in their next video?

UPDATE: Le Journal de Québec has a story about Vachon and his kid. He estimates the clip, which has 4,071 images, has been linked to from 4,000 websites. Vachon has his reaction to the craziness on his blog, and notes that it will be on ABC's Good Morning America, where the virality will only get worse.

UPDATE (Feb. 13): The Globe and Mail looks at how this video has affected the career of the artist whose music Vachon used. (Feb. 20): Coeur de Pirate has released their video of the song used by Vachon (via).

UPDATE (Feb. 23): 10,000 Words makes mention of the video comparing it to other interesting forms of online photojournalism, including this messy kitchen cleaning time-lapse.

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]]> http://blog.fagstein.com/2009/01/30/baby-time-lapse-goes-viral/feed/ 4 We didn’t start the blogging http://blog.fagstein.com/2007/10/27/we-didnt-start-the-blogging/ http://blog.fagstein.com/2007/10/27/we-didnt-start-the-blogging/#comments Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:02:08 +0000 Fagstein http://blog.fagstein.com/2007/10/27/we-didnt-start-the-blogging/ It's so deliciously meta: viral videos about viral videos. First there was Internet People, and now The Internet Stars are Viral:

Not quite as original as Internet People, but good for a laugh for anyone who's seen enough videos to get the references.

(via utopsie)

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