Lots of blogs have been posting the video below of a young Japanese girl going absolutely insane when she meets Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliff on the set of the last film.
What I thought was most fascinating about the video was a tiny detail: at around the 4:00 mark, the girl gives Daniel a present that turns out to be a rubber stamp embossed with the Japanese character for her name.
Considering the Japanese love for all things techie, it was surprising to me to see that this decidedly old-world object would be the special gift to an apparent idol.
I also think it is one of many signs that points to a wonderful duality in many of today’s youth – a desire for the ephemeral joys of text messaging and for the more permanent marks that they can leave on the world and on each other.
I was just reading about Ripe Digital, one of a slew of original digital content creators founded in recent years, filing for bankruptcy. They follow in the footsteps of 60Frames and ManiaTV.
While I am sure their founders are blaming the economy I think the answer is far less obtuse. According to NewTeeVee, Ripe Digital raised over $45 million in financing.
Ripe Digital was focused on creating entertainment for dudes with the online networks RipeTV, OctaneTV and FlowTV, featuring such shows as Sexy Road Test, Funk Flex TV and Pauly Shore’s America. LINK
And there it is – one cannot hope to recoup $45 million on a slate where the biggest draw is Paul Shore. It’s not that there isn’t money to be made in this space, it’s just that it is wildly unrealistic to think in terms of tens of millions of dollars. Those who succeed in original online video will do so by radically reducing overhead, staffing and all the other acoutremonts of the old media world.
Axe, the male grooming product of choice for frat boys and and boys that dream of being frat boys and boys that wish they still were frat boys, has launched a new site called Axe 100 Girls.
Upon arriving at the site your browser window is quickly filled with the following site – 100 very attractive young women seemingly locked up together in a large airplane hanger. Here they are forced to judge the haircuts of random men by moving to one side of the hanger or the other each time a new picture comes up. Meanwhile, a perky blonde sits in a corner window letting us know what Axe product can fix your hair right!
The overall experience is actually a bit compelling for a minute or two but that quickly fades and is replaced with a whole slew of questions as to just how these women were lured into this bizarre form of servitude.
If there’s one thing that news outlets and bloggers love, it’s any sort of news that let’s them post something about teens and sex. It’s the ultimate link-bait. We all like to act all horrified and shake our collective heads over any sort of teen sex news even though nobody can seem to get enough of it.
The past week or so hase seen the widespread use of the term “sexting” – the act of sending a naked or suggestive picture to someone else via text message – and it seems that, according to some study I don’t feel like hunting down at the moment, that teens are “sexting” each other at “an alarming rate!”
Seems that as many as 20% of teens have sexted someone else. Oh, the horror! Even worse, some of these teens are being tried as sexual deviants and face up to twenty years being listed as a sexual offender for their society-destroying crime.
Of course, nobody is writing about the fact that 80% of teens are NOT sexting anyone. Yeah, that’s right, the vast majority of teens get that doing something like that could easily get out of hand and result in their naked picture showing up on a website their teacher can visit late at night.
The truth is that nobody is interested in this story except for the fact that they can read it and think about all the naked teen pictures floating around out there – nobody wants to have a frank discussion about teen sexuality, or safe-sex or even confront their own conflicting desires around the topic.
Instead, we are going to condemn a small number of teens doing exactly the sort of things teens have always done, and we will absolutely succeed in destroying a few of their lives for no good reason whatsoever.
Conde Nast has always struck me as being pretty far behind the curve when it comes to leveraging their print presence in the online world. While their magazine sites have improved somewhat over the past year they are certainly not breaking any new ground.
Now comes word that one of the few large-scale efforts to come out of the Conde Nast tower, Flip.com, is being shut down.
No surprise there. The site, a social networking site aimed at teen girls, was based around the concept of a flipbook. Um, a flipbook? Seriously? That’s your big hook to catch teen girls? What teen girl has ever even seen a flipbook?
It never fails to shock me just how out of touch and out of sync major publishers can be when it comes to connecting with youth online. Still, a flipbook? Why not base the site on Zoetropes or View-Finders?
There is a once-in-a-millenium kind of thing going on. Due to the rapid pace of technological advancements we are at a moment in time when many kids are simply more adept at using the key technological system of our age – the internet (and the computer itself).
“An overwhelming majority (89%) of all kids age 6-11 in the US spend at least some time doing online activities and – though many of their basic social activities haven’t changed much over the years – they have vastly different communication styles and preferences than older age groups, according to a study from Experian Consumer Research.” (via)
When else in human history have parents had to consistently turn to their own children for help with what is now a basic household device?
This won’t last long. As these kids grow up tech-saavy they will have a leg up on their own kids but for the generation in the middle, born too late for native understanding but too soon to ignore it altogether, it’s going to mean trusting that 10-year-old can reset your mail server. Don’t worry. She can.
There is a send-off piece over on NTV about the end of LonelyGirl15, a true pioneer of the webseries and one of the few honest success stories out there.
The question is, will we ever see anything like it again?
“There was an innocence and an excitement to the shows of this era that can never be replicated. It’s like the first season of The Real World: It was genuinely interesting because no one knew what was going to happen. The participants of every subsequent season (and every reality show that followed) knew they could get famous from it, so it became fake. Everyone knows that there is money, or a Hollywood deal, to be made on the web now, so there’s no sense of danger. The thrill is gone, replaced by a careful eye on playcounts, CPMs and creating a brand.”
I’m not quite as pessimistic as NTV. I think there will always be kids out there excited by the chance to just get their vision out there, to be thrilled by the sheer fact that they are being seen and heard. Will some of them be dreaming of Hollywood contracts? Sure. But plenty of others will just be dreaming up the next insane scene they can shoot and post with their buddies.
There is a sort of provocative, if not especially deep, post over on AdAge about the state of storytelling on the internet.
The author believes the web has failed as a storytelling platform, although he doesn’t do much to back it up. He does, however have some thoughts on the future:
“So where are we now? We’re at a fascinating point in history where a bold group of content creators, advertisers and digital artists are seeking the Holy Grail of online content: the ability to fund and create large-scale stories that attract and engage large audiences.
Alternate Reality Games: Otherwise known as ARGs, these have become very popular within the past few years. An ARG is a story that draws the audience in through mystery and intrigue and invites them to participate in unearthing clues to solve the puzzle. These ARGs have been sponsored by brands ranging from Audi to McDonald’s, along with major movie studios and TV networks. The results have been impressive, but to date the genre has struggled to reach true mainstream appeal because much of the viewing experience requires investing dozens of hours of time.
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games: Often abbreviated as MMORPGs, these include games like “World of Warcraft.” Like ARGs, these games tell stories in a user-driven, first-person manner and are incredibly compelling.
Transmedia Content: This is perhaps the most exciting of all. Transmedia storytelling refers to stories that are told across a broad array of media. A great example is the hit TV show “Heroes,” which in addition to its TV broadcast has created as many as 200 websites, most of which allow heavy fan participation and collectively reveal and advance storylines that may not appear in broadcast. The results have been staggering. The web experiences have delivered viewership figures rivaling or in some cases exceeding those on television.”
That’s a good summary of the some of the ways that creative people are using the unique nature of the web to tell a more involved kind of story. I think there will be room for these and more traditional episodic stories on the web.
While these interactive concepts are enticing and shiny they will only be attractive to that portion of the population looking for more involved experiences. A lot of times we just want to sit and watch – as long as the story is a good one, there’s nothing wrong with that.
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July 21, 2009 12:40 pm | 
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