My initial intentions for this project were to explore one of the most interactive venues today: the internet. I am fascinated by this environment that has become so ubiquitous; I don’t think that many people realize their freedom in presenting their ideas or commenting on other people’s ideas in various forums or sites on the web. I am particularly interested in the characters, images and videos that become popular on the internet. Many times, figures and media do not become well-known by promotion from an existing source or force, but they become well known for their own appeal—often without even their own intention to become famous. The phenomenon of a “viral video,” for example, is particularly mysterious. Something about them draws the attention of a large number of people, who pass it along to more and more people; often they gain and maintain their popularity through their intentional or their unintentional humorous value. It seems to me that viewers expect a certain relationship with the videos they view, especially on the popular video site Youtube—if a video is not short, snappy and clever, then viewers tend to attack them and ridicule them, feeling separated from the original creator and fully at liberty to express their rejection of the work.
I wanted to better understand how the mass audience of Youtube videos responds to videos by making a set of videos with a new personality. I did not expect to create a video that went viral, but I did want to create visible videos that viewers would want to engage with. It was challenging to decide upon a personality or a type of video to present that would draw attention, particularly because I could choose to create videos that viewers could laugh with or laugh at. Because there is such a great variation in themes and brands of humor in videos that gain popularity, it is difficult to pinpoint what sort of video would be able to draw attention or even gain notoriety. I wanted my videos to be interesting without seeming too desperate for attention—to make myself visible, perhaps seem ridiculous and laughable, but without trying too hard. I decided early on that I wasn’t comfortable with filming myself or other people, although most popular videos are live action. The pressure to come up with an appropriately appealing video was even higher because I knew I only had a small amount of time to become visible and to accrue comments and draw interest. In general, I would be measuring the success of my videos based upon the interaction they had with strangers on the internet, including views, comments, and “likes” or “dislikes.”
Eventually, I decided that I wanted to develop a series of videos that would subvert the viewer’s typical interaction with videos they come across on the internet. I wanted to make a rather elusive personality on the internet, presenting myself in videos where viewers would not expect me. If I connected my videos by tags to videos that gain a very large number of views, then my videos would be connected to these popular videos in searches and suggested videos. This would give my videos a greater chance to be seen. By inserting animated drawings into existing, popular videos, I wanted to take my viewers by surprise. They would click on the links to my videos and expect to see the unmodified video; I would present the actual footage, but I would also place my work on top of it, reacting to it and changing our interpretation of it. I presented these videos under the moniker of “Earwig,” or “earwigwashere” on Youtube; I chose this name to symbolize the act of inserting myself in unexpected places, often to the dismay of someone entering the space I occupy. I wanted to provoke a reaction from my viewers, either through humor they could appreciate, or through nonsense that they might react against with anger or confusion. I didn’t necessarily start out with the intentions of making a direct comment on the videos I appropriated, but rather to develop a set of videos with connected characteristics, inserting unexpected, humorous, or nonsensical animations. Eventually, as I worked, I realized that I wanted to inject a sense of criticism, by inserting imagery that will ridicule or question videos that get really popular.
To create my animations, I worked with Flash to make simple animations. These animations were either frame-by-frame animations, but a few of them involved shape and motion tweens. I decided to develop brightly colored figures and characters to insert, concentrating on playful cartoon creatures or people. I designed them to interact with the video in the most tangible and interesting way, emphasizing the surface quality of the image. For example, I developed snails that crawled on the image and left their slime trails behind, a snake that burrowed into and out of the video, and a man who crushed a cigarette onto the screen and left a burn mark. After I developed my animations, I learned how to overlay them onto video I got off of the internet so the viewer could simultaneously see the video and my animations on top of them. In developing these videos, I ran into several problems. I had to find a better online video converter than the one from the initial project, because the former converter often produced videos of lower quality than I would have wanted to present on Youtube. It was also time consuming to produce several different animations, and then select the ones I thought would be effective, interesting, or humorous. One of the biggest problems I ran into was the ability to post certain material, even after I had inserted my personal material over top of the existing material. Youtube tended to recognize material that I imported from copyrighted sources, like music videos (Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga). Because of this restriction, my options were limited to using non-copyrighted material; this eliminated several of the videos I was already developing.
My work habits were generally effective, because I believe I was able to make several videos that included interesting, often humorous videos. I learned as I worked what would be more effective, and how I could use the screen itself and the content within it to make a comment. However, I believe I wasted too much time agonizing over the initial stages of its development. I might have spent too much time figuring out an effective topic for my videos. I weighed the options of different personalities do develop and present on the internet, and how they would interact with the viewers. I spent a considerable amount of time attempting to assess the psychology of the Youtube users who would be seeing my animations. I should have chosen something earlier and stuck with it, letting it grow and posting continually on the internet, instead of waiting as long as I did after developing other ideas and bouncing them off of others to make sure they would make sense. I could have used my short time more effectively to put up videos sooner, so they would have a longer opportunity to accrue views and comments. I also might have put more time into interacting with others on Youtube, reaching out to them through comments and subscriptions so they could have a direct link to my videos. I did make an effort to comment on almost all of the videos that were listed as the most viewed videos on Youtube, but I imagine my comments passing by in the midst of all of the other comments that were made upon it.
As of the morning of my project, I did not have any comments on my videos that were not from friends, although I did have up to thirty views on some of my videos. If I stepped back from this project and considered Earwig’s videos as if from any other user’s perspective, I believe I unfortunately might perceive something that is not something strange, funny, subversive, or accidentally entertaining to be as interesting as most other internet viewers. Perhaps it didn’t have the right content, which is why the videos didn’t accumulate many comments. The content in the videos was strange, but some of them didn’t make a clear enough message to be interesting—they were simply strange, which did not offer much to comment upon. In general, I believe my work shouldn’t have been quite so passive.
The videos were interesting, but perhaps not compelling enough for the internet—or perhaps it hasn’t been given enough time to get views or generate any interest. I could have put in more effort to make myself a presence on the internet—I could have made more comments, more subscriptions, perhaps promoting myself more on sites. This might have afforded me more responses in such a short amount of time. I may also have picked the wrong videos to place my animations on. Although some of them were highly contemporary, such as footage from the royal wedding, but the others were from older videos that had gained immense popularity long ago. They might be famous, but they might not be commonly viewed on a daily basis; thus, my linking my videos to these videos might not have been effective. Regardless, I believe I developed a series of videos with the potential to make a stir given more time—I certainly had the opportunity to begin thinking deeply about what garners interaction on the internet, regardless of the often random quality of what gains recognition.
Link to Earwigwashere's site: http://www.youtube.com/user/earwigwashere?feature=mhum