3 ms·

I have the feeling the author is elevating presentation over content. His definition of terrible is different than mine. I mean, I think "Transformers 3: Pixe

by IvyMike 13y ago

I have the feeling the author is elevating presentation over content. His definition of terrible is different than mine. I mean, I think "Transformers 3: Pixels Making Grinding Noises" has insanely great production value, and made a bajillion dollars, but honestly I'd rather watch two hours of Jenna Marbles videos, and I don't even like Jenna Marbles all that much.

qiqing 13y ago
Totally agree. The author, Ryan Holiday[0], here is conflating production value with something else entirely. Then again, he's also the media strategist behind Tucker Max[1] and the Director of Marketing for American Apparel, so it doesn't exactly surprise me that his cultural taste is not in line with the Youtube viewer population, or anything outside of mainstream Hollywood-esque production style and content, with a pinch of misogyny. I would similar expect that he would also not like sxephil or pantlessknights, but they are not in the title of his article. And I think it's ok if someone like him just doesn't "get" Youtube, user-generated content, or cats on the Internet. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Holiday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Holiday 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Max http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Max
ImprovedSilence 13y ago
I agree by like, a million. What is he calling "good" anyway? Are you looking for day long Game of Thrones marathon, or an entertaining 3-5 minute comedy spiel from a reasonably attractive girl? It's really two completely different mediums. I bet the author of this blog post loves overly auto-tuned pop music... and yellow Camaros...
VLM 13y ago
I think she's kinda cute. If I uploaded kittens playing with string people would feel safe admitting they're watching solely because they're cute, but we must pretend that young men watching a cute young woman must solely be watching for her amazing pair of literary values and production quality. There is an obvious blind spot relating to narrowcasting in both your examples. Both hollywood action sequels and youtube videos have the hidden assumption that they're the dominant form of media, they are our culture, everyone participates, they're what makes us, us. The national pastime, or whatever. Insinuating that they're not would get a extremely harsh reaction from those socialized to respond that they are. Kinda like religion but I'm tryin to keep on topic. In both examples, 99% of the population won't watch either for free. You can be rejected by 99.75% of the US population yet get a youtube gold plaque for 1 million views. Given those real world facts, its no great surprise that the Venn diagram of a microscopic fraction of the US population who are Jenna fans does not have much coincidental overlap with the small and shrinking fraction of the US population who watch hollywood movies. If your advertising message is you're the best individual example of the self described dominant form of modern media, admitting the truth that no one in the general population watches, even for free or near free, would really screw up the message. Its a fun self awareness hack to evaluate someones worldview by asking them what percentage of the US population watches "Survivor" for example. Strongly bimodal, with the wrong answer being "almost everyone because it defines modern pop culture" and the right answer being "almost no one". Another peculiar observation is I can walk down the street and notice that plenty of young men admire the young ladies with no hollywood production values at all
- philh 13y ago
  > In both examples, 99% of the population won't watch either for free. FWIW, Transformers 3 took about $350m in north America, which at $10/ticket (is that reasonable?) is 35 million viewers. Not all of those are in the US (but I think "north America" in context might just mean "US and canada", which is like 90% US), and some of them would be repeat viewers, but probably 5-15% of the US population paid to see that film.
  - VLM 13y ago
    That's what I mean. "fifth-highest-grossing film of all time" means ignored by over 90% of the population. What we are told defines our culture, does not. Whatever the heck over 90% of the population did instead of watching Transformers 3 for two hours, defines our culture.

by IvyMike 13y ago

qiqing 13y ago

Totally agree. The author, Ryan Holiday[0], here is conflating production value with something else entirely. Then again, he's also the media strategist behind Tucker Max[1] and the Director of Marketing for American Apparel, so it doesn't exactly surprise me that his cultural taste is not in line with the Youtube viewer population, or anything outside of mainstream Hollywood-esque production style and content, with a pinch of misogyny. I would similar expect that he would also not like sxephil or pantlessknights, but they are not in the title of his article. And I think it's ok if someone like him just doesn't "get" Youtube, user-generated content, or cats on the Internet. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Holiday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Holiday 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Max http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Max

ImprovedSilence 13y ago

I agree by like, a million. What is he calling "good" anyway? Are you looking for day long Game of Thrones marathon, or an entertaining 3-5 minute comedy spiel from a reasonably attractive girl? It's really two completely different mediums. I bet the author of this blog post loves overly auto-tuned pop music... and yellow Camaros...

VLM 13y ago

I think she's kinda cute. If I uploaded kittens playing with string people would feel safe admitting they're watching solely because they're cute, but we must pretend that young men watching a cute young woman must solely be watching for her amazing pair of literary values and production quality. There is an obvious blind spot relating to narrowcasting in both your examples. Both hollywood action sequels and youtube videos have the hidden assumption that they're the dominant form of media, they are our culture, everyone participates, they're what makes us, us. The national pastime, or whatever. Insinuating that they're not would get a extremely harsh reaction from those socialized to respond that they are. Kinda like religion but I'm tryin to keep on topic. In both examples, 99% of the population won't watch either for free. You can be rejected by 99.75% of the US population yet get a youtube gold plaque for 1 million views. Given those real world facts, its no great surprise that the Venn diagram of a microscopic fraction of the US population who are Jenna fans does not have much coincidental overlap with the small and shrinking fraction of the US population who watch hollywood movies. If your advertising message is you're the best individual example of the self described dominant form of modern media, admitting the truth that no one in the general population watches, even for free or near free, would really screw up the message. Its a fun self awareness hack to evaluate someones worldview by asking them what percentage of the US population watches "Survivor" for example. Strongly bimodal, with the wrong answer being "almost everyone because it defines modern pop culture" and the right answer being "almost no one". Another peculiar observation is I can walk down the street and notice that plenty of young men admire the young ladies with no hollywood production values at all

philh 13y ago
> In both examples, 99% of the population won't watch either for free. FWIW, Transformers 3 took about $350m in north America, which at $10/ticket (is that reasonable?) is 35 million viewers. Not all of those are in the US (but I think "north America" in context might just mean "US and canada", which is like 90% US), and some of them would be repeat viewers, but probably 5-15% of the US population paid to see that film.
- VLM 13y ago
  That's what I mean. "fifth-highest-grossing film of all time" means ignored by over 90% of the population. What we are told defines our culture, does not. Whatever the heck over 90% of the population did instead of watching Transformers 3 for two hours, defines our culture.