As I was reading Amusing Ourselves to Death, I began to see the world, media mostly in Postman’s point of view. When I was on the Internet today, Youtube mostly, I saw a video which was basically advertising a song on Itunes. The song was from a Youtube video, which was remixed from another Youtube video called “Woman wakes up to find intruder in her bed”. The video was a clip from the news that was about a woman whose home was broken into by a strange man and was almost raped, but her brother helped her and the stranger got away, but left evidence behind. When the brother was interviewed by the news about what happened, his story, was, well…funny. So funny, in fact, that it was made into a rap. Now the rap is being sold on Itunes. This bothers me because what had happened is a serious crime, but it is now being forgotten because the people are entertained and now this horrifying incident is being used to make money and amusement.
Here are the links to the videos I mentioned:
Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzKtPezPsqE
Remix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw
Itunes Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKsVSBhSwJg&annotation_id=annotation_651006&feature=iv
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ReplyDeleteI saw that video and I automatically noticed how funny the rap was. Sadly, that was the only thing I noticed until I read your blog post... Apparently, the man who was in the video lived in the projects. When a Youtube user autotuned the song and made it a viral hit, the family member of the sexual harassment victim used the opportunity to make money. He made t-shirts, started his own Youtube account, and even gained revenue from Youtube and iTunes. He even started a Paypal account to receive donations to help his family "get out of the projects". In the video that got especially famous, he was screaming about how concerned he was about finding his sister's attacker. In one of his more recent videos, it showed him in "bling" and an ugly Ed Hardy t-shirt. Now that he's probably outside of the projects and is making all of this money in the most ridiculous way possible, how LEGITIMATELY concerned is he about finding his sister's attacker?
ReplyDeleteThis video struck a major chord with me, Alex. it is frightening how funny that video, and others like it (marching band version), was. Luckily i read your blog first.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Neil Postman may have just randomly walked into my room, chucked his book at my head, and said "I told you so." Don't get me wrong, it is hilarious how crafty people can be, but that's not the problem. The problem is that this is just like Postman's chapter on the news. We as a culture DO NOT take the news seriously, and this video is a shining example of that.
Before, when i had read the chapter, i was like, 'okay, so the news isn't to be taken seriously.' But now i think i finally connect all the pieces, with the help of your blog and this video. This was a serious accident! And yet, America is so conditioned to treat matters lightly, what do we go and do? Make a music video out of it; more over, a marching band arrangement. Why? Because the media encourages us to participate in creating more entertainment, thus making us the co-creaters of our doomed future described by Postman and Huxley.