VidCon

John and Hank Green sure are busy – but they’re professional bloggers, so this is what they do.

This year, they are creating a brand new conference for people who are big on YouTube. It’s called VidCon. It will be held in Los Angeles in January 2010. The conference costs $40 per night and runs for three nights. Lots of the top YouTubers are already confirmed on attendance.

New Media is about new things in the world that are influenced by new technology. Five years ago, a conference based on YouTube would have sounded crazy. But now that YouTube is as huge as it is, and since it has had huge effects on some peoples’ lives, a conference about it seems like a great idea. This is what frequently happens in New Media – things change so quickly that within just a few years, an idea can sound completely stupid and then completely brilliant. A conference about YouTube is one of those things.

Julia Nunes / Ben Folds

People tend to separate the internet from the outside world. Cyberspace is seen as a bit of life that is not an actual part of life. But sometimes the internet affects the real world in huge ways.

YouTube musician Julia Nunes was a sensation in herself, but when she posted a cover to the Ben Folds song Gone, a big thing happened. The song was a big hit, and Ben Folds was so impressed by it – the cover and her music – that he invited her to go on tour with him. Ben Folds is Julia Nunes’ favorite musician.

There was no contest or competition. YouTube was the only thing in play. Julia Nunes received this awesome opportunity because YouTube made the connection possible.

Julia Nunes' videosong cover of Gone by Ben Folds.

 Julia Nunes performing Gone with Ben Folds

Kids - MGMT

In January of 2008, a music video for the song Kids by MGMT was posted to YouTube by user jsalmon. It involved a boy and a girl, faces painted, dancing to the song, and clips from old shows of people dancing.

 

A few months later, in April, jsalmon was contacted by Ray Tintori, who has directed several official videos for MGMT. Tintori invited him and his two actors to be in the official video for MGMT's song Electric Feel.



Jsalmon's video has received more views so far than MGMT's own official video for Kids (which was released in 2009), and it is the first to show up in searches for the song. It's crazy how huge this video has become, and even more crazy what came out of it. The Internet is the best place to become well known for doing something awesome, because it is the fastest. We truly have the setup for Andy Warhol's "fifteen minutes of fame."

Truth or Fail

YouTube has a gameshow. It's called Truth or Fail.

The way Truth or Fail works:
Each week, a famous YouTuber posts a video to the truthorfail account, which is run by none other than John and Hank Green.
The video contains two "facts", one of which is the truth, one of which is not the truth. You click on the one that you think is true, and it links you to another YouTube video.
If you picked the Truth, you are congratulated and told more about the trivia you picked.
If you Fail, then you are booed and again told more about the trivia option you picked.
Then the show continues, and you must pick the fact you think is True again.
This goes on for five rounds.


Beard Trivia with the Wheezy Waiter.

Truth or Fail is an interesting way to make a game on the internet, and more specifically, YouTube. It uses the hyperlink capabilities that the YouTube has (through annotations) to link you through a sequence of videos specific to your choosing. It is much like the choose-your-path books of the 1990's in this way. But this makes you to think about a question being asked, rather than asking you to choose a path. Something like this could, of course, be made in book-form. But having it in an online version is just a later evolution of this choose-your-path idea.

Truth or Fail also has a website that has links to all the videos.

Is This Tom?

John Green has created a new type of storytelling. He takes a conventionally written story and masks it behind riddles, which can be found at the isthistom YouTube channel.


The first video. I've only gotten halfway through the riddle.

The channel is run by Alexander Basalyga, the same man who created the riddle site thisisnottom.com. On YouTube, he posts a video-riddle every week. The video, like Thisisnottom.com, leads you through a series of riddles, and it finally ends with a book chapter by John Green. The YouTube riddle is an even further way to develop the riddle, because it opens up the ability to play with moving images and sounds.

John writes about a girl called YFN, or Your Faithful Narrator, since she has no idea of her identity. She is quite a messed up girl, as it seems. And her story, if it were real – which it may or may not be – is a strange one. The book is non-text-searchable, so don’t bother even trying. But there are hints and spoilers on the book forum. John gives the story behind the story.

Sufjan Stevens: The BQE

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about how Flickr user Ettubrute was using his still camera as a way of making interesting films. This post is about what Sufjan Stevens did in his film The BQE.

Using a very old film video camera, Sufjan made a partially documentary-style film about the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, but he did it in a very interesting way. Instead of showing just one screen of footage, he showed three, back to back. Sometimes the images connected, sometimes they didn't. According to Sufjan, the intent of the film is to give an interesting point of view of a part of Brooklyn that he loves, and to develop his photographic eye.

He did exactly that. The film transitions from being mostly photograph-like into a raging geometric maze. He used his video camera to create time-lapsed scenes. But instead of showing them simply as what they were, he mirrored them in the three-across format to turn them into something else.

Unfortunately, the clip with the mirrored videos is no longer available. This is a clip from a different part of the film that uses the three-across format to play on a theme.

ⓒ Asthmatic Kitty Records and Sufjan Stevens. I do not own this.

This is a very interesting presentation, because it is technically and literally a film. But it is set up as photography. In a way, this is a backwards approach to what Ettubrute did. But both accomplish similar things: merging photography and film interestingly.

One thing that Sufjan has over Ettubrute is his incorporation of sound. Sufjan designed the score of the film himself, so it is intended to go with it perfectly. And it does. It goes up and down in intensity and changes at all the right points, making his film even more rhythmic than the patterns of traffic already were. It sounds curious in parts and strong in others.

I've Got Nothing

During the past three months, four YouTubers got together and did something awesome. Jimmy0010, JohnnyDurham19, nerimon, and charlieissocoollike produced a song called "I've Got Nothing" under the name Chartjackers. All of the money made from the singles goes to the UK charity Children In Need. The song was released on November 9, and is only available on iTunes. Their goal is to make it to number 1 in the UK iTunes charts in 10 weeks.

music video, with introduction by charlieissocoollike:


The song was produced by the four YouTubers already mentioned, but it was written and performed by other YouTubers. People submitted lyrical suggestions, then the best was picked. Then the Chartjackers asked for audition submissions, also by YouTube. The best were chosen, and finals were held to determine the two who would sing.

BBC Switch did five minute documentaries each week on Chartjackers' progress and a thirty minute special at the end, which can all be viewed here. The song is currently number 36 in the UK iTunes charts.

This is an incredible example of the power of the internet as a collaborative space. There is no way this song could have been made if it weren't for the very many YouTubers who contributed, and it is because of the amount of contributions that the song is so good, albeit cheesy. Further, it is because of the massive following of these four YouTubers that the song is actually accomplishing its goal. This really just speaks of the power in numbers, and how that power is being applied through the global community of the internet.

vlogbrothers/vlogging

"Are you from YouTube?" asks a boy.

"Are you wearing a disguise?" says the boy's little brother.

John Green is the author of three bestselling young adult novels: Looking For Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. He lives in Indiana.

Hank Green is the founder of EcoGeek, a website about environmental technology; he is also a musician and the founder of DFTBA Records, which works with famous YouTube musicians. He lives in Montana.

John and Hank Green are brothers who needed some way to stay in contact with each other. So two years ago, they began a YouTube account and called it vlogbrothers. They created a challenge called Brotherhood 2.0: their challenge was to create a vlog every day for a year in response to each other and to keep it under four minutes. During that year, they were forbidden to communicate with each other textually. If one failed to post a vlog, then the other would choose a punishment for him. This is still the basic format they use, although they don't post every day anymore, and they have added a few extra elements. John does Question Tuesdays, and Hank does song Wednesdays.

first Brotherhood 2.0 vlog, in which Hank explains the rules:

last Brotherhood 2.0 vlog, in which John discusses siblinghood and nerdfighteria:

most recent vlog, in which Hank discusses what he is thankful for:

I think that vlogging is a great way to stay in contact with people. Now that we have the technology to communicate via video, and now that it is convenient, we should use it. Video, as a medium, goes so much farther than photography as a means of portraying information and memories. Vlogging back and forth is a great way to share those memories with someone you love.

VideoSongs

YouTube is full of musicians, just waiting to be heard, promoted, and made infamous.
But as Marshall McLuhan says, "the medium is the message."
Tons of YouTube musicians record covers and original songs, but there's a new format that seems to be taking hold: VideoSongs.

A VideoSong is "a new medium with 2 rules:
1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds)."
- according to YouTube musician Jack Conte, who presumably created the medium.



The VideoSong is a great medium because it allows the viewer feel participatory with the musician. They get to see everything that goes into a song. This is also a great way for musicians to learn from each other. Jack Conte's style, like that of many others, is heavily based on found objects and playing conventional instruments unconventionally.

But Jack Conte's VideoSongs don't just sound great, they also look great. He clearly puts a great amount of effort into making them visually stunning, which they are. He uses professional software and equipment, and he is trained in video production. His videos show just as much creativity as his songs do, and the VideoSong is a great way to display both.