What Youtube did this week is like when television went to color, or like when you bought Sierra Nevada instead of Coors Light.
Youtube.com upgraded and went live.
For years it was known as a site to upload and watch old videos, but on Nov. 22 they did something that the rest of the Internet has done over and over again – they put on a production that was unedited.
In case you haven’t been on there in a month or so they have been promoting the holy hell out of this event. They brought in the biggest Youtube stars and put together a good amount of mediocre crap.
Seriously, it was like the MTV Music Awards, but for poor people and Youtube-obsessed teenagers.
That’s not to say that their channel, www.youtube.com/live, isn’t put together well; or that there were no bright spots at all, but after watching all the highlights you get a feeling that unless you live on Youtube and watch every stars video then this was an event you should stay away from.
But if you love “hip” and “cool” new music like Soulja Boy and Katy Perry, then my God you should have gone.
This Youtube meeting thing isn’t new, however, the San Francisco-based event is a variation of what they did last year.
In 2007, they rented out a wharf and invited everyone from Youtube to come and film each other. So essentially you had people filming other people filming other people.
So maybe this is an upgrade?
Even Bo Burnham, who is an intelligent and talented comedy performer, barely got a few chuckles out of me with his song.
Seriously, look at the people who are part of the “headliner” list: “Juan Mann”, “Willl.I.Am”, there are so many plays on words that even Groucho didn’t show up because he was embarrassed.
Sure, Youtube probably spent a lot of money putting this together, but if you’re a casual fan that just wants to catch some clips then watch carefully, because if you don’t know who the “star” is the jokes will make no sense.
However, many of the critics and those who attended have given the show positive feedback and there are already talks of Youtube 2009, I’m shaking with excitement.
But a glitch that helped me realize why the show was so bland popped into my head a few hours after it was over.
Youtubers and the stars on Youtube take the time to write out skits and then perform them using several takes per scene.
So if you try and get all of these people together and attempt to pull off an amazing live show, well, the results are obvious. The Youtubers there really do have good channels and most of them are entertaining but the comedy just wasn’t there, the bits were average at best and Katie Perry was the main star – go ahead and grade it for yourself but Youtube Live 2008 gets a “C-“
Honestly, I’m just bitter that I wasn’t invited.
2 comments:
I dunno, man ... if I had known Joe Satriani and the Mythbusters would be on, I might have watched it.
Actually, that's a lie. Thank God for the "highlights."
Wait... Mike Relm was on?? I actually really like him. Haha.
But what annoys me about all this is how they're treating "vloggers" and viral video sensations like they're real celebrities or real actors... Like the one YouTube sitcom with KevJumba and sxePhil and all those guys in it... it's awful. Instead of hyping up their Internet sensations, they should go find people who actually have the talent to pull this kinda stuff off without a hundred takes and creative editing.
Yeah, Satriani and Mythbusters were the few highlights I was talking about, that would be pretty awesome to see live.
But yeah, I think they may have taken things a little too far with the publicity of the vloggers.
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