Coming to terms with YouTube as a construction site.

I'm one of those people who came of age when the "home movie" look was due to the fact they were made at home, with few editing skills or tools. Also, out of privacy concerns, I confess I have been hesitant to put my contact information out there to a potential virtual community. I definitely need some friends who can show me around. Even though I'm very interested in YouTube and the Internet, I'm still pretty naive about the level of background construction that goes into material that appears there. I'm easily surprised.

Here is a video I found over the Christmas break on YouTube when I searched using the keywords "old" "people" and "technology", and that led me straight to the above 2 1/2 minute comedy video, entitled "Old People vs Technology". It gets the message across about the frustration that many people feel in the face of having to adapt to technological change. The bored young man dressed as a computer, coldly holding the older man at a distance, is a witty representation of access issues.

I wondered "Who initiated this video?", and fantasized that perhaps that young man onscreen is the grandchild of one of those frustrated seniors. The production values: editing, titles, a musical track and good lighting, led me to visualize that the people making the video are perhaps film students -- maybe this was a project for class. The spirit of playful empathy appealed to me. YouTube is supposed to be as much about the makers of the videos as it is about the videos themselves, so I decided to send the makers an email, to bond a bit and to explore what I see as common thematic ground. I wanted to ask how they came to choose that topic, and to ask if those elders who are so eloquently flailing around are in one of their families.

This cozy reading of the video was reframed when I used the contact information to go to a website. Turns out that it was created by a professional sketch comedy troupe in California, consisting of three young men who met while doing improv at university. Justin Michael (the young man in the cardboard box) actually is a film student, although his "comedic short videos" are already getting exposure. The camera work is by Dave Crabtree, a graduate who is now a professional. His bio says he is "a digital media preditor (yes, producer / editor) at FOX Reality. Yes, he works in reality TV."

The amateur look of the video is actually carefully constructed. Does that make "Old People vs Technology" a rip-off which ridicules seniors? No, I don't think so. All filmmaking is an effort to create an illusion. Much of the work on YouTube which looks shallow, awkward, low-tech and cheesy simply does not achieve illusion. The sense of being on the receiving end of a "gotcha" arises upon discovering a successful illusion -- a carefully constructed work being presented as a spontaneous one. Looking for these practical jokes has become a sophisticated game, and part of the sense of discovery that draws people into spending evenings poking around.

The makers "Old People vs Technology" are not out to dupe the viewer. They transparently give us a straight trail via the contact link back to their website Tremendousaur.

Contrast this approach with the 2006 YouTube hoax, Lonely Girl 15 (also known as LG15). Ostensibly, this was a series of off-the-cuff Vlogs (diary-style video blogs) made with a webcam by Bree, a sixteen-year old girl in her bedroom. A real, cheap, webcam was used, but the rest of the context was faked.


From the outset, a group of filmmakers and other professionals set out to mimic the vlogger look, and to deliberately hide their tracks. This "making of" photo, published in the New York Times after LG15 was "outed" by sleuthing fans, shows the crew working with the actors. Near the end, the site gained in popularity as the story line was superseded by a "search for Bree" which had the character of an online mystery game. The number of visits to the site skyrocketed as fans searched for elements in discord with the claim that this was a solo amateur project by a teenager. Finally a sting by some fans revealed that emails from "Bree" were originating in a Hollywood talent agency (which later signed up the "Creators" after they "came out" on the Jay Leno TV talk show). LG15 was instantly rebranded, and the story is proudly told on "LGpedia", a website that still plays with Internet cliches.


The Tremendousaurs also give us a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Old People vs Technology" in the video "Old People Poses" which shows the auditions. So I guess those aren't Justin's grandparents. I'll ask him anyway, when I email them to let them know about this posting. Increasingly I'm getting it now that the construction of informality and a cheesy look is just part of swimming in the YouTube current -- part of the playfulness and art.

As the man behind the camera describes himself: "His days now lie in the hands of FOX, his nights with Eyestorm Productions, his bathroom breaks with OgMog, and his weekends with Tremendosaur. And when he sleeps, Dave dreams of the days when Jacob, Justin, and he used to regale hoards of cheery fans every Friday Night with Second Nature Improv. " Sure sounds to me like your basic, playful, arty nice guy ... somebody's grandson.

Historic computer commercials with John Cleese

These two Monty Python-esque ad were made in the early eighties for the emerging British market for home computers. One of the themes of this series of ads was to position Compaq against IBM, the market leader at that time. I find these interesting because they seem to express the initial ambivalence that was common when personal computers were introduced. It seems to me that it has become politically incorrect to express this sort of resistance today.

This shows John Cleese comparing the new "Compaq 2 Desktop" with a dead fish.



This one describes what were then leading-edge features. As well as being funny, it struck me as an interesting historical snapshot.

Ready

What's in that heavy-looking daypack? Lots of digital and electronic stuff that has accumulated over time, and which now seems indispensible. I stopped at a park bench one day and looked at what I felt I needed to feel "ready".Here is a one minute video.

Do "Help Lines" bog you down?

Here is a 2 1/2 minute video piece, made with my friend Marlene Franks. A video pioneer, she is now working hard at gaining skills to begin to use her computer and digital camera as production tools. We get together periodically in front of her computer for me to give her support in using her Movie Maker software.

The video is her description of one of those "tripping over the tools" incidents. Yesterday she confessed that she hadn't done much since our last meeting, because she had gotten sidetracked, stuck and frustrated in trying to do what she thought would be a quick and simple bit of computer housekeeping: doing her annual update to her virus protection subscription. She describes how she worked persistently with call centre employees at a live Help Line. Even though she finally got the job done, she emerged feeling like a failure. I noticed that, weeks later, she was still showing a drop in energy, confidence and enthusiasm for working at her computer.





The online article "Customer Call Centres: Who Gets Your Worst Service Vote?" (published on the CityNews site, June 14, 2007) indicates that Marlene is not alone, and that computer support is rated the worst. People who came of age before computers often tell me that they emerge from the maze of a computer support phone call feeling stupid and inadequate. What is the answer? It would certainly have been shortsighted for Marlene to bail out on her effort to get updated virus protection. If it was hard getting support about downloading, that is nothing compared to the kind of help she would have needed had she experienced time-consuming devastation of a computer meltdown.

People who are just getting their feet wet with new technology need to hear that most people using computers feel -- at least on occasion -- like they are in over their heads. And they, too, often feel like they aren't getting what they need when they wave at the lifeguard. One reason that computer courses for seniors are so useful is that they provide a safe space where stories become funny once they are swapped. As I've watched my much younger peers in my media classes, I've noticed that they ask each other questions, and have a high tolerance for what I call "thrashing around". Asking a friend or family member to sit down with you at your own computer is one solution (as long as they promise not to grab the keyboard). But also, from personal experience, I have found that Call Centre employees will define a term or describe the spot where that key should be, once I admit that I'm lost. When all else fails, get out of the pool and, like Marlene, go out for a walk. Being in deep water is not the same as drowning.

Digital Photography for Seniors - by Ed Dunnett

One of the interests I have developed, in the last three years, is to work with digital photography. In particular I am looking to produce different types of outputs particularly for people who are not inclined to use computers and high technology to gain access to photos. Seniors are often included in this group.

What this involves is taking digital photos of special events like weddings, important travel and graduations, doing them up into photomontages using image enhancing software and then selecting a number of output options for displaying these montages. This can include laminating the photomontages into placemats for the dinner table or preparing laminated posters for wall display. More recently I have tried preparing slideshows on dvds. These can be shown on television via a dvd player. To make things easier for the user I always choose the option of “no menu”. This means the dvd will play as soon as it is inserted in the dvd player and will continue until “the door is opened” again.
These seem to be working quite well. Although I still find that receiving a package of snaps by mail is still the most popular for my 90 year old father in law.
Ed Dunnett

It's only funny if it's true - Gmail April Fools Joke - by JoyfulCuriousity

On April 1st when I logged into my Gmail account, I was surprised to see that they were offering a "paper archive" option for email.

The innovators at Gmail had suggested that they could "print all messages instantly and prepare them for delivery. Allow 2-4 business days for a parcel to arrive via post."

As with many pieces of information that pass across my eyes, I wondered briefly, "Who would use that?" and then I thought, "I'm sure they've done their market research."

It was only days later that I saw that Gmail posed the question "Have you seen our April Fools Joke?" The link directed users to the delicious marketing-pitch satire describing "Gmail Paper".

Talking with friends later, I discovered that many, many people print out messages in 14 point font for elderly relatives. They stuff the print outs in envelopes and send the messages through the post.

It's interesting to me that even though the printing of emails keeps the elderly relatives "in the loop", those relatives who cannot respond via email will have lost their voice in the conversation.

iPod ownership indicates more than mere affluence - by JoyfulCuriousity

Nike shoes or Coach bags tell the world that you have money. iPods tell the world that you own technology.

When I gave my spouse an iPod for her birthday last December, we were amazed at the assumptions that had been made about our comfort with technology. The iPod video comes "plug and play" without an instruction manual; Apple assumes that the user already knows how to turn on and off the iPod and to navigate through the menus.

Beyond the knowledge of how to use an iPod, there is an impressive list of what you need to own in order to operate and customize the iPod.

To run an iPod you require a computer on which you have your own identity (either you're the only user or you have login) and you need a good internet connection. iTunes (which is used to download files and upload them on the iPod) is user-specific. If one owns a PC (not a Mac), before using an iPod for the first time, one has to download iTunes onto their computer from the Apple site. This means that one couldn't use the computer at the public library to maintain, or even initialize, their iPod.

The iPod is a lovely and addictive machine The designers created such an intuitive device that after the first little while of using it, the iPod seemingly disappears and the user is left with the joy of listening to music, learning from lectures, or watching home-made lego videos.

But I wonder who is left out from the iRevolution? I can imagine that beyond separating rich from poor, the iPod separates technologically-comfortable (and endowed) from not.



Note: in the sparse iPod literature that comes with the machine, there is no article before "iPod" - not "an" or "the" or even "your". Is this to make iPod friendly, like a pet or a previously-named Cabbage Patch doll? Or did Apple drop their articles to make their documents less wordy and more accessible to non-English speakers?

Shutdown Day site -- the morning after

I'm disappointed at how the Shutdown Day site has devolved into much more static forms. The home page uses typography to show the often crude and macho claims that the day was spent on the computer and/or engaged in exotic sex. I had been very much taken with the energy of the "Shutdown Day" site in the runup to March 24. It was driven by the device of an artificially created deadline, and some interesting graphic representations of statistics about participation levels, which stimulated more participation. It was engagingly "sticky" to use a phrase from the book "Tipping Point". In comparison to that excitement, the commitment, even on the part of the people who put the site up there, seems to have evaporated once the day came and went. Now the site seems to be drifting like a satellite that has run out of fuel.



I was on the verge of deleting the link to the Shutdown Day site in the sidebar on the right, but then I realized that my reaction might be a generation thing, and that I need to take a look at what is triggering me both positively and negatively. The site took a younger, tech-savvy approach which in the end seems shallow to me. Deleting the link seems like going into denial. The site got 50,000 people engaged enough to go online and, not only comment, but also to participate. Does it matter that the interest was so short-lived? I need to come to terms with the short attention spans and ephemerality of work produced for the internet. Can I live with that as an artist? If I can't, can I take my own advice and "take what I want and leave the rest"?

I'm reflecting a lot about how I, as a socially engaged artist, can make a place for myself on the internet which will find its audience, and continue to hold it. My theme of balancing technology with life is very similar to the one being promoted by the Shutdown Day people. I am looking for ways of expressing my message in a way that engages an audience of peers? The lack of comments here shows that I could learn a lot about "stickiness" from Shutdown Day.



There is a "support Shutdown Day" area, suggesting that people who want to get involved could donate to "the National Laptop Foundation" which recycles computers to people who can't afford them, including seniors. When it showed up on the Friday night I thought it was a puzzling detour from the main event. Now I'm still intrigued at what seems to be an effort to go beyond a one-day event. I'll check it out and let you know.