Ah, The Webisode

Storyforming, Storydwelling, and 'engines of engagement' are all of the words that stuck with me after this reading. I think that it is good to analyze the arena that webisodes are entering and asses what they are trying to accomplish. As I understand what Banister is saying, is that producers are using the storydwelling aspect of online communities to engage with the storyforming aspect of the the storytelling medium that producers are using webisodes for. As I mentioned before, in past blogs, I liked the the way that the producers used the webisodes as a way to branch off of the linear narrative that the television show was using.

Recently there was an article on Variety.com addressing the profitability of websites that feature webisodes and different forms of scripted works. As Banister mentions, "traditional media and advertising continues to perpetuate the “content” models of the past on web and wireless". Websites such as funnyordie.com (FOD) are looking to make profit and have been through traditional modes of advertising. However, it will be successful eventually because as Banister says, it is search engines that engage users that have been the key to lasting forms. As FOD is a storydwelling and storytelling opportunity it will need to add the component of user generated material to truly engage the user as a participant and contributor to the storydwelling network that is provided.

Are you a fan when...?

You get chills up and down your body when you recognize that there is an Oceanic billboard advertisement at the 6:20 mark of the pilot episode of Flashforward?

As a fan of Flashforward and Lost...I think I just had a fangasim.

Great Show...Sad to see it Go...but it had to. ; (

As a past fan of Flashforward (FF) I was intrigued by the exact same reason that Lesage wrote about in Pacing and Script. FF used many of the same pacing and script elements that previous television shows did, "such as Lost and Heroes" (Lesage, 2009) and created a more finite time-expiring show. There was an end date to this film and like Lost there were flashbacks that gave the viewer character background and like Heroes there were alternate realities, or flashforwards, that added onto character 'foreground[?]' that gave us more information on the future as well. The show gave us online communities to figure out mosaic and see if our thoughts linked up with other peoples. It was a created show but just how Lesage go tired of Mark Benfords poor acting and sappy dialogue the show got to be drawn out and its slow pacing, minimal action, and drawn out plot lines were not enough to secure it a second season.

Lesage says that, "I am intrigued that the series is training me in proper fan cult behavior" (Lesage, 2009). After being a Lost and Heroes fan I was up for the challenge but seriously the challenge wasn't challenging. Heroes allowed me a leisure participation, I didn't need to go online to figure the backstories but what I could do was watch webisodes of other potential characters that existed, which was awesome...the mailman was the coolest. There were also comments that I could read, that continued the story or gave insights to the characters in the story. It was truly an engaging story on television and online. With Lost I could go online and join communities that provided insights and theories that were pertinent to the themes of the show, because it was so layered with real life 'potential' theories it was cool to see what people that was relevant to the show. However, FF lost steam in this battle I found myself dragging on with the show just because I started watching it and had seen all the episodes. There weren't theories that I wanted to see if they really existed or webisodes that showed other characters in the show. So here's a place where they could have succeeded and failed which could be a potential reason for why FF failed, but it was good show with poor execution.

Gossip Girl and the Millennial Generation

Gossip Girl (GG) is the millennial generation and thus address her fellow generation peers into engaging with the show. Gossip Girl is a website that allows users to post anonymous messages that will be posted by the sites moderator. This new medium represents one of the many technological cultural phenomena’s of the millennial generation. The CW has honed in on this technological feat as a way to transform this form of socially helpful and dangerous way to disseminate and receive news by making the website the center of attention in a world that thrives off of this mode of communication. A key component in the website key ability to quickly update people on the latest gossip is through the cellphone. It is arguably the second best innovation of the millennial generations tech feats after the Internet. The writers show in the pilot episode that with our cellphones we have the ability to disseminate news in a matter of a few clicks. This show is made for the millennial generation audience, which is shown through its key aspects of technological innovations key to the millennial generation.

The technological connection is important, however without sound socially up to date themes, the show would still be dial-up in a world of high-speed wireless access. The CW uses the elite world of the Upper East Side to access the current cultural hot topics of the millennial generation. It knows that this close circle and the people that care about it are those that use the very technology that are following it and will in fact participate in the very culture that is portrayed. The audience then becomes the viewer through texting, bbming, posting, blogging, or building and avatar to be a van der Woodsen of the Upper East Side. Like the characters of GG the audience is participating in the same very acts that allow Gossip Girl to exist because without gossip then there’s just the girl… interesting conundrum that way face. As a part of the millennial generation, us and the GG characters, we are just normal people. This is shown in the second season when the student’s cellphones are taken. Notice everyone is wearing black colors except for the girls throughout the whole days and the GG girls maintain their cellphones and bright colors because if not then they would be bland and grey like the rest of the students at the academy. We don’t follow the rest of the academy students around because we are not like them we are the texting, slandering, tech savvy millennial generationers that need our technology!

Gossip Girl is made for millennial generation by the millennial generation (ripped from FUBU, for you by us). The CW is addressing the millennial generation by creating this television show that is hails us at the same time by acting as a mode of engagement and self-reflection.

Gossip Girl

This article alludes to the power that Gossip Girl (GG) gives back to a gendered audience of females that watch the show. I hope that I am not making a huge generalization, but I would guess that a majority of the viewers of this show are female. Which then leads me to believe that the power in this show lies in females and it was the female that always ruled this world in the first place. As the fashion, consumer, and gossip obsessed teen, the viewer is simply watching a gendered concept of the teen female already and plays into this structured norm when going online. This show was the, "...first to have been conceived, in part, a fashion marketing vehicle" (p.48). The CW and its partners then extended this concept to the world of Second Life in more attempts as a Second Purchase. They want these girls and/or women to consume more fashion and re-affirm what they see on television by participating in the virtual community where they can buy, gain access to the Upper East Side elite, and talk about other virtual groups to gain status.

This article reminds me how the magazines in the '50s, '60's and on advertised movie characters clothing in their magazines. This way people could see what the characters that they just saw on screen were wearing and how they could look just like them. At this point in time the female audience was being constructed because they were the ones with the disposable income and were being focused on as a specific movie fan that prescribed to these notions of caring about fashion and their appearance. However, now we have better technology and all it takes is a few clicks in GGSL and your trendy new outfit will be on the way. I think that it is great that the CW, fashion, and entertainment companies have come up with this great idea that meshes the two worlds, television and gaming, in order to bring in more points of access with characters and clothing in order to broaden the viewers participation in the Upper East Side.

Work Hard and No Pay

This article shows how content ownership changes with the new technologies and how we interact with these platforms affect major companies and their bottom dollar. I couldn't stop thinking about Youtube and its contribution to this corporation participates in robbing people and fans of their money. It seems like such a user friendly medium when in fact it may be the opposite. Russo, shows us that networks like the SciFi Network get fans to come to their website and create their own 'tribute film' to be aired on television. While this is acceptable, because they provided a tool kit that had restrictive parameters to it, it shows how companies give content to people as they see profitably see fit.

Youtube is platform that users are able to upload videos for the world to see and with all businesses money needs to be made. As many people know, Youtube just recently became profitable, but for who, not the users, Google. It's funny that we praise this site for all that they allow for us to do but at the same time they are just using the user’s hard work to make money for them. It's truly crazy to think about it, somewhere in a chair there's a CEO just kicking back smoking a cigar probably watching a Youtube video and profiting from others work, even the guy that came up with it.

As the author mentions fans are starting to wonder about their competition for works that they are creating and companies profiting off of it. It's going to be a hard battle because the more fans push back the more restrictive companies will most likely get and ultimately they do own the rights to the original content. I was thinking about the concept 'if it doesn't spread, it's dead' which was in the other article on television and thought that people could start setting up their own websites and blogs, which some have. Here they could post their own content and potentially it could catch on but also has the potential to fail.

Collective Expression

I like many of the commenter’s did not like the way this guy spoke (condescending tone) and the camera angle that he uses shows that he thinks he knows more than you. By the content of his video and mini lecture, I’m not sure that he does. First off, he most of what he uses are clips of others people’s work, okay fine, but say something that isn’t obvious about what they are doing. Secondly, he doesn’t pose good arguments for what Remix culture actually is and I don’t think that The Breakfast Club that he used were all that convincing. They changed the music and performed it, while yeah this is remixing I can see why many people that commented were not very impressed with his examples and thus thought it was just ‘kids having fun’ on a roof. I agree with him and the social aspect that these videos create, “collective expression”, he calls it. I think that it’s one of the pretty simple Remix examples and while it’s really cute, it’s not very impressive of a Remix. DJ Earworms Remixes and mash-up of United State of Pop 2009, is first a Remix in itself… I wonder if the government is going to come after him for that remix on the United States of America. This video is truly a Remix and new creation of previous content. It is simply copying and pasting however it is creating another message by using the parts in which the ‘sum is greater than its parts’. I think that a view commenter’s expressed said the hipster breakfast club remixes are just kids copying previous work and benefiting from original material. Something that Colbert tries to hammer down in his debate with Lessig. Their remixing process is of their own setting (Brooklyn) which no matter what they did would have represented some place. So, it’s hard to give them a tremendous credit for doing a great remixing job, which I don’t even think they were looking for. I think that the thing that we should focus on here, which may have been what Mr. Normative was going for, is the aspect of collective expression of our culture now and the ability to share common experiences using the same material. Therefore he should change the name of this video to modern collective expression through remixing.