Sunday 3 April 2011

Matthew Know: vlogging with a good, fast spiel

Video blogging or vlogging is blogging using video. The word is pronounced like "vlogging" as opposed to "v-logging". Hmmm, sounds like "flogging". Really? Let me stop for a moment and think about that one. I think of blogging as the written word. This is the spoken word? I run across "vlog" in Urban Dictionary:

A video log. A journalistic video documentation on the web of a person's life, thoughts, opinions, and interests. A vlog can be topical and timeless, instructional and entertaining. The main thread is trying to communicate on a personal level with your audience.

Then they offer a second definition a little less flattering:

The next in the evolution of narcissism. Taking the idea of a blog to the next level, the techno-elite have spawned another fad of the Internet. A video web log, or what was once referred to as an Internet television channel that consisted of programming created by an individual and posted online much like TV, is shortened as vlog. Vlogs continue the copy and paste culture that became prevalent with blogging.

Hmmm, like blogging this seems to foreshadow a magnum opus of dubious quality. Here's an example. Please do NOT watch the whole thing. I am worried you may slit your wrists before you get to the end. This is a perfect example of what I qualify as being more fun to do than fun to watch.

The Random Vlog (a really bad attempt) - GreenFox59 - Dec 27/2010


Moving on. What I do find surprising is that there are a lot, and I mean a lot of people, amateurs, not paid professionals, doing this as a lark, as a hobby and delivering what amounts to be some very interesting work. I am very much reminded of all the times over the years when I have visited some country fair, or some town sponsored sidewalk event and run across all the local artists out to hock their wares only to discover there is a huge pool of unknown talent out there who are anything but rank amateurs. Some of these people are really damn good.

The same seems to hold true in just about any field of endeavour including vlogging. Yes, there is the camera work, the editing, the quality of the titles, sub-titles, pictures, animation, and just about anything else which sets apart just turning on the camera then arriving at a top notch quality product. However, some of these people actually have something worthwhile to say. Some are glib, funny, intelligent, and excellent public speakers. Some combine that terrific spoken content with excellent filming skills to end up putting together some terrific videos which are truly entertaining and well worth the time to watch. Hey, sometimes they're worth watching more than once.

Kutiman
This Israeli musician has created a couple of "video collages" (my term) where he has sampled various YouTube videos and put them together as something which sounds, well, like an original piece of music. Quite extraordinary. (see my blog YouTube mashup by Kutiman: My Favorite Color)


Time Magazine called Kutiman's first music collage (my term, not theirs) called "Thru You" one of "The 50 Best Inventions of 2009". That video is also worth a listen. Or a peak. Okay, you know what I mean.

The Man Show by Matthew Know
The gospel according to Matthew is an irreverent look at current events or whatever strikes Matthew's fancy spiced with the occasional F bomb. Hey, tell it like it is. The intro to each clip states, "I'm just a guy with an opinion. I like beer, boobs, and bacon. I'm Matthew Know and this is my world." With an intro like that, what's not to like? Okay, with an intro like that, you know that this is "man-centric" and a tad crass, but Matthew has a fast delivery assisted by some good editing and a sarcastic analysis of whatever he takes on.

Jessica Alba Topless pictures surface!!! - Nov 5/2010


My HOT Asian Girlfriend LOVES PETER! - Mar 23/2010
Heads up: Matthew, at the beginning, says, "A type of show for the type of guy who loves the motor boat and I don't mean on a lake." What? According to Urban Dictionary, a "motor boat" is defined as "When you blow a raspberry in between a girls tits, making a motor boat sound." Now that I've done my spit take, is this where I exclaim, "Oh... my... gawd... "?


SnookTV
Snooki or Nicole Polizzi is one of the "stars" of MTV's reality TV series Jersey Shore. Do I need to anything more? I would rate this as more fun to do than fun to watch. (My advice: do not watch the whole thing.)


I couldn't resist covering this newsworthy gem where Rutgers University paid more money to have Snooki visit the campus than Toni Morrison. What's the joke? Snooki has written a book. I haven't had the pleasure but the pundits are saying it's just about as dumb as a bag of hammers. Toni Morrison on the other hand writes books but has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, plus on and on and on, but you get my point. Check out my blog Reality Show Jersey Shore beats the Nobel Prize

On that note, I will return to Mr. Matthew Know and his book review of Snooki's magnum opus entitled "A Shore Thing". Get it? A "shore" thing. Man, what a funny pun, eh?


Final Word
There are zillions of blogs out there. As the pundits point out, a few of them may not be worth reading. Maybe including this one. There are zillions of vlogs out there and as the pundits point out, a few of them may not be worth watching. I'm "shore" of it. Hey! I want two minutes of my life back!

Nevertheless, just as intermittent reinforcement has proven so effective in every casino, the occasional gem goads me into surfing around the Net in the never-ending quest for the funny, wild, and wacky. And as Rebecca Black proved, although inadvertently (see my blog Internet song "Friday" goes viral), you can be so bad that you can garner a lot of attention. (more than 80 million, yes 80 million views as of this writing)


References

YouTube channel: onlyiknow1
The Man Show by Matthew Know
[Matthew has some good takes on various events like Charlie Sheen, Miley Cyrus, Harry Potter, and Lindsey Lohan. Oh how we love to laugh at the (supposed) mighty.]

Wikipedia: Video blogging
On January 2, 2000, Adam Kontras posted a video alongside a blog entry aimed at informing his friends and family of his cross-country move to Los Angeles in pursuit of show business, marking the first post on what would later become the longest-running video blog in history. In November of that year, Adrian Miles posted a video of changing text on a still image, coining the term vog to refer to his video blog. In 2004, Steve Garfield launched his own video blog and declared that year "the year of the video blog". In an effort to fulfill this prediction, Miles and Garfield soon joined their online colleagues Jay Dedman, Peter Van Dijck, Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen, and Christophe Bouten in creating a group on Yahoo! Groups devoted to video blogging.

Vlogging saw a strong increase in popularity beginning in 2005. The Yahoo! Videoblogging Group saw its membership increase dramatically in 2005. The most popular video sharing site to date, YouTube, was founded in February 2005. Many open source content management systems enable posting of video content allowing bloggers to host and administer their own video blogging sites. Moreover, convergence of mobile phones with digital cameras allow publishing of video content to the Web almost as it is recorded.

Radio Stations and television stations are now using video blogging as a way to help interact more with listeners and viewers.

2011-04-03

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