YouTube: From Buffy to Tessa

I am thinking about YouTube, which has been around for a bit more than decade.

I wrote my latest Corridor Business Journal column about a local news show, “Ethical Perspectives on the News.” It’s a show recorded by and aired on KCRG-Channel 9 in Cedar Rapids, but because the show was recently moved to 5:30 a.m. on Sundays, I find it easier to catch the show on YouTube.

The show, sponsored by the Inter Religious Council of Linn County, is posted after its first airing. As I write this, today’s show is already on line.

Anyway, I was a bit proud of my March CBJ column simply because it represented two cool realities: 1) It was a last-minute rush job before I flew out to San Francisco for spring break, and as such, I am glad it came together, and 2) I managed to work in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I’ve seen a lot of YouTube highlights from Buffy lately, tied to the show’s 20th anniversary. There are some good highlights reels out there, but one genre is the fan video where Buffy scenes are used to illustrate some popular song. Like this one.

Crop of screen shot from video linked above--final seconds of final Buffy episode. As she thinks about the end of her life as a slayer, Butty is about to break into a series-ending grin.

It got me thinking of online video as a new medium. Of course, like “Ethical Perspectives,” YouTube can represent simply posting material from some other medium.

Then again, there is original content. I follow a number of channels on YouTube—some associated with programs I like but don’t have time to watch. I see highlights of Steven Colbert’s CBS program, for example.

I also follow the Vlog Brothers, one of whom is also active on the channel SciShow, which I also follow.

Besides those, I’ve been listening to a fair number of frothy pop songs from a young lady named Tessa Violet, who first came to YouTube fame by lip synching other people’s songs and vlogging about her life, and now has moved on to writing and performing her own songs in YouTube music videos.

YouTube thumbnail for Tessa Violet's "Sorry I'm not Sorry" video. I also used "Baby I'm Not Over You" on my bike blog.

I am particularly fond of “Sorry I’m not Sorry,” a song about a woman who refuses to stay in a bad relationship. I kind of like that message, and it’s a catchy song.

So I’m on a bit of a personal mission to make Tessa Violet a star beyond YouTube. We'll see if this blog post gets the ball rolling. That’s a joke, of course. Unlike Tessa’s fan base—she has 1 million YouTube followers—my blog audience is small

Still, I am interested in what the online video medium means.

In particular, who in Iowa or the Cedar Rapids area is creating interesting, original videos that are shared via YouTube or some other online video service?

Readers, do you have any suggestions?

The Value of Video

These days we can see for ourselves. Lets roll the tape.

Except, of course, there is no “tape,” which is one of the reasons video has become so common. When you can store data in temporary digital files in a re-writable medium, well, it's cheap to do. No tape to buy or consume. Let’s click the video.

An obvious impact of this new reality is the “body camera” solution some are pushing to try to reform policing in response to recent shootings. Maybe that would help.

And there is the Fall Faculty Series at Mount Mercy. If you missed a program, the staff at Busse Library has been recording the programs and is posting the videos on YouTube.

Here are links to the first two programs:

Sept. 7, “We are All Immigrants” by History Professor Allison McNeese.

Sept. 13, “The First Americans” by Criminal Justice Professor Deb Brydon.

At a later series event, I shot some video myself with my Nikon SLR. It was at Tuesday night’s music program in the Chapel of Mercy—not the full program, but I hope to use some audio for a Mercy Week slide show. We’ll see—editing time is at a premium for me right now.

The Fall Faculty Series at Mount Mercy, "Building Walls, Building Bridges: The U.S. as an Immigrant Nation" has been very successful so far. No TV coverage yet, but at least there is the library video. The next event is Sept. 29 when Mohammad Chaichian, a sociology professor, will speak about border walls, based on a book he wrote on that topic.

Please come--the events are free and public. You kind find them all here.

Anyway, while the spread of video and the capacity of almost any cell phone to record it gives us more eyes on the world, it’s important to recall that those eyes only see isolated snippets form one point of view, not necessarily a full picture.

For example, I have students that are required to attend cultural events, and one asked if she could instead just view the video. Well, no. It's not the same experience as being there. You see and hear better with your own senses, you can react and interact. So I am glad the library is recording these events, but YouTube is not yet "being there."

And video can be edited these days, so if you see it online, you still need to do a little investigating to ensure what you think you see is actually what’s there.

Still, video can be an interesting new tool. The other day I was watching a Monticello City Council meeting. I’m interested in monarch butterflies, and, promoted by a story in The Gazette about Monticello’s efforts to get a resident to remove milkweed, I’m hoping to spark some milkweed planting at Mount Mercy University, where I teach.

It was both odd and strange to be at my home office, sitting in front of a computer, on Vimeo, seeing a city council meeting in a nearby Iowa town. This will never be a high-rated show. One city council member in particular quickly got on my nerves. “So you’re not serious?” he asked the milkweed-planting resident when the council members plan to have the city plant milkweed instead of the resident wasn’t immediately accepted.

Blah. Sometimes video shows you irritating jerks you would rather not see nor hear. But maybe that is part of the value of video. I not only read about the meeting, I saw it myself.

And, for the record, a resident who has planted so much milkweed that his property is a recognized monarch migratory way stop is clearly “serious.” Sure, it would be good for the city of Monticello to plant milkweed, but why that has to be a quid pro quo to destroy a private  monarch way station is a bit beyond me.

Well. I reacted a bit emotionally to that meeting—because I saw it.

One more impact of video.