The Online Team, including me, has done 2 meeting so far concerning the promotion of our viral video, still in post production. On last monday, we raised ideas to help the buzz. First of all, we listed the influencing websites, free of use, with lot of suscribers such as 9gag, imgur, enreddit, and this websites are directly linked with facebook wich allows votes and share very quickly. Secondly, we found creative ideas to promote our videos within DKIT, and the major one is posters of face close-up, highly contrasted and satured( to have a catchy effect for the colored powder), which include a QR code on the mouth or one of the eye. This code is of course directly linked to our video on youtube.
The tags we are going to put on the description paragraph on youtube, the photographs we are going to use etc, were also issues that has been covered on the second meeting last wednesday.
In our consumer society, sex has become a massive industry, and, the most popular and extremely available products are porn. As Internet allows really easily to reach anything, watching porn online has become something common.
First of all, the omnipresence of more or less agressive erotic/porn images on some websites allows to think children aren’t safe from these images that could shock him or give him a complete wrong idea about sex and women.
Because one of the fact we all observe, is that we are surrounded by ‘sexual’ images used in advertising: a naked woman to sell a man’s deodorant, a naked woman to sell yoghurt for women. This phenomenon isn’t directly linked with the porn influence, but altogether, shows that we are going through an era where sex and the notion of ‘pleasure’ used constantly in the slightest ad, are finally completely acceptable, and sadly used for everything.
But if this post sexual freedom revolution is quite a good thing, the porn industry, with the raise of the almighty new technology of the Internet, has become too available, too easy of reach.
My concern target the children of course, but also the teenagers, to which images offered in porn may pressure them on their sex life, and offers a wrong vision of women : their body, their blind submission…etc.
Internet as a gigantic universal platform is an amazing tool, and shouldn’t face, generally speaking, censorship. Still, it is obvious that the porn websites should protect the access of their websites more than just a : “Are you over 18? Yes -No”
With more and more examples, we can affirm already that the use of social media is changing and surely encouraging social organization. Social media appears to be a strength on the side of the social masses, as the Arab Spring showed to the world. Strength for people, thread for the forces and governments that try in some countries to block these social websites.
It seems harder and harder for these kind of governments to keep their countries shut from the rest of the world the way it has always been. Civil journalism has raised and the news are not longer under censorship, leaks from iranian web users showing the world constantly bits of real freedom state of the country. The world is going through the paradox of more and more individualism and meanwhile, a global sharing era raise, adding to the communications society most of us live in.
If tabloids often look at the minority of dangerous opportunities these social group may offer to some, we certainly cannot deny the strength and the amazing possibilities of the idea of a civil solidarity, and civil organization against oppression, and also for the defense of an idea. If communities may suffer of the increasing individualism, virtual communities however are empowered, and linked either by passions or mutual issues, and not by geographical distance anymore.
I cannot think other way than optimistically regarding the social media used recently in protests. But, yes this modern tool will certainly be misused, as it has the most powerful coverage potential nowadays. Mass manipulation, or events that will takes tremendous proportion compared to their actual impact, etc…
A moral panic is a public panic over an issue deemed to be a threat to, or shocking to, the sensibilities of “proper” society. This is often fanned by sensationalist selective reporting in the media and exaggerated accounts offered by “moral entrepreneur,” a category that includes politicians on the make and activists in search of a cause. Moral panics can result in what is a real phenomenon being blown way out of proportion, or in what is not a real phenomenon in the first place being widely believed to be real. Moral panics often feature a caricatured or stereotypical “folk devil” on which the anxieties of the community are focused.
Rationalwiki.org
► New medias brings with their popularization moral panics.”When the Medium stops being New, it stops being Evil.” (tvtropes.org), so does new teen trend, or phenomenon, and video games that used to be something nobody was paying attention of, became THE explanation of young adults violences, after the sadly famous Columbine incident. So strictly speaking, video games existed for 20 years, but the spread of home computers that made them more available than the arcad game, their graphic improvment that led to more realistic environement, and especially when the user was playing for the first time with Wolfenstein 3D the first person perspective, this began to attract medias and people attentions and fear. This “great evil” that turns teens into antisocial-serial-killer-zombies countless used, every time a dreadful slaughter happens. I won’t explain here why I think this systematic accusation is a nonsense, my poor opinion does’nt matter, and qualified people talks about it in these 2 good articles anyway: thedailycaller.com and psychologytoday.com . Check also “The School Shooting / Violent Video Game Link: Causal Relationship or Moral Panic?” by Christopher Ferguson. His article has become a reference.
► A very good post has already been done by Adam Thierer on techliberation.com, and I will borrow some of his stuff.
Here we have C. Ferguson’s “moral panic wheel”. No one is directly responsible for the rise of a moral panic, but still, this is a whole combined and spread most of the time by a certain type of media.
►According to Gini Dietrich on SpinSucks.com , “You can’t MAKE anything go viral. It’s not about how many shares you can get from your friends and family. It’s about great creative, great content, and some fairy magic dust…”
Still, I have the impression that only stupids things really go viral at a large scale.
►Anyway, to understand what makes something viral, let’s have a first look to this, as it is for me, a great example of what G.Dietrich was talking about:
This music band has build its fame since the beginning by homemade videos, which meant A LOT of repetitions. I have no ideas of how many attempts this one asked them…
Their performance (and their good music) are always rich of ideas.
Here follows more “cheap” videos which went viral:
►I don’t want to post the marmot’s dramatic look, and the trololol guy video, but these videos shows that people likes funny things which include cute animals, unexpected association or ending, all that with a good background music. Hard work isn’t necessary, but still, I think there is some part of creativity in the idea, the editing if there is one, etc…I think people wants to be surprised, more than anything else : Harlem Shake
Over 25 000 000 views in 10 days…◄
► What becomes viral, is also the “serial” effect, videos linked to another video, responding to each other, like a chain. For exemple, people loved to watch those compilation of people reacting to people reaction, surprise again, and unexpected laugh / facial expression, something that seems disconnected to reality for a few seconds.
► What also becomes viral is videos with a lot of chutzpah(brand new word for me!), I am not talking necessary of provocative contents, but everyday life turned somehow into extraordinary, possible. For me this gather all goofing videos with hidden cameras for exemple.
Here’s THE famous video of Remi Gaillard, (everytime I watch his videos shot in my hometown Montpellier,, it makes me a little bit homesick).
Simple additionnal sound, a cheeky -a bit suicidal- guy, but foremost : THE IDEA.◄
I ran out of ideas about the subject, but, I think a lot of “fairy magic dust” indeed is required to have something viral, or be an expert of what the next trend will be. But I doubt somebody like this actually could proclaim himself “expert”, as online trends changes very very fast. But, still, videos with good/beautiful/smart/incredibly funny content are still watched…
For this topic I want to pick a subculture I find very interesting, but sadly which still has a racist reputation which is not true.
Born within proletariat social class like many of subcultures, the Skinhead movement is issued at the beginning from “the Hard Mods”.
►For a short but quite exhaustive history of this social movement from the 60′ / 70′ ► ☺◄
►Great article on Skinhead Girl’s style ►☻◄
A well made and beautiful movie about this separation beween the fascist / racist skinhead from the original movement :
(Music Lovers, the Soundtrack is worth it)
DEFINITION>
► “Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.”
source : ☻www.tamu.edu☺
► “Culture is communication, communication is culture.”
Manifestation of Culture at Different Levels of Depth (source: ☻www.tamu.edu☺)
►This schemas is great but if we consider again this definition : ‘Culture is communication, communication is culture.‘ , I think we have to consider more importantly the language as a major role in this notion of culture .
UNESCO try to protect languages as this is really fundamental in the ‘culture rescue operation’.
I am thinking at the minor tribes which tends sadly to disapear because of the increasing industry need and therefore their occupation on the tribes’s ancestor’s land, cities expansion over nature, etc…
The work of most NGO specialized in these issues like for instance Native Planet or Cultural Survival give languages course, in addition to preserve the lands and keep trace of traditions.
►New cognitive researches have shown that language tend to influence our way of thinking and living, and therefore it is for me a proof language is a central element to the definition of culture.
Here’s a link to a great great article on this: ☻
► “An element of design or structure that serves little or no purpose in the artifact fashioned from the new material but was essential to the object made from the original material”
► “Many computer programs have a skeuomorphic graphical user interface that emulates objects in the physical world.”
(cf wikipedia)
►Today, a lot of designed applications or signs are based on old fashioned object because now a phone, a tablet, a television, a computer, a camera, a video camera… All these objects now are so minimal that they are very similar, so one possibility was to use old objects with their old fashioned design that is no longer existing. But the new generation has nothing to do with music tape for example… Beyond this trend, there is something funny to discover older generation iconic object, but this has to stop, as in matter of usability, this isn’t great.
►Here is a short movie that explains a lot better than I do this dying phenomenon: ☻
►Funny to see how people invent something new, with a truly new beautiful aesthaetic and then the same people decide to step back in the design of the user interface.
► Learn More: ☺ (this website is in french, but all the visual contents in there are enough to get the point!)
(Please clink on the link, for safety reasons, wordpress does not allow the direct inclusion of flash content.)
Here’s my characters sample design, 2 examples of indoor scenes, one example of a street scene.
►After yesterday’s presentation, we had to discuss about a better narrative, more unique, and maybe let down the Sherlock Holmes’s idea. It was a very good starting point, we will keep the design and style of the victorian era period, also keep the idea of course of the murder mystery.
For the programming part, I have seen like many of you I suppose this commercial on TV, and one of our teacher told us to maybe have this kind of webcam/QR CODE technology in mind, instead of the motion sensors idea. Of course I am not talking about augmented reality but just passing the signal.
the book of spell demo/ps3◄
►I have been researching to the kind of simple animation we could use, there is a lot of good ideas here in this Metal Gear Solid compilation, everything is in 2D and works like an animated comic (don’t pay attention to the story or the graphic style just the animated pictures):
louisecreativemedia 