Groupon founder Andrew Mason takes responsibility for America's lack of a sense of humor and Christopher Guest can go search for a better place to ply his comic genius.
The Chicago Tribune, Groupon's hometown paper, quoted a New Yorker who said he felt like he'd been "punched in the face" when he saw the Tibet ad.
Ah! The power of comedy! How horrible to actually feel punched by a punchline.
AND: Here's the Tibet ad. Watch it before it disappears:
AND: I know I'm being played. Mason's statement is a well-done strategy to make the video viral in a new way. Notice that he doesn't really apologize. There's a sop to the people who were offended, but a cue to people who want to think we have a sense of humor to give it a cult following. We're the special people who get it and who respect Christopher Guest and laugh at the oversensitive twits, etc. etc. I know!
ALSO: At the Althouse Super Bowl party, we got the joke in real time.
The network refuses to comment on claims it has rejected an ad, so all you've got is a company with an immense self-interest in lying about it. You know, I'm not even going to link to the news website I'm talking about, because the answer to the question in the post title is that the news site is whoring for traffic. The private company would like to promote its product without forking out the millions needed to buy air time on the Super Bowl, and the news site would like to be the go-to place for ad, which isn't clever enough to go viral without the boost of the banned-from-the-Super-Bowl claim. Moreover, the product is shoddy and not worth talking about. Don't be a sucker.
Is there a cause of action for the invasion of privacy that takes place these days when someone catches something stupid that you do — in public — and puts it on YouTube? Hey, don't be stupid! The consequences are much higher today with the internet and viral video. It's a big deterrent. If the legal system turns that deterrent into a monetary gain, it will be incentivizing stupidity.
We need to learn how to live in the world as it is. When we're in public, we have a new dimension of visibility because of digital cameras and the internet. I've been thinking about the effect this is having on politics. Politicians have to watch every single thing they say. That's difficult.
Remember how one word uttered by George Allen destroyed him, because he foolishly thought he was speaking only to a small group and did not foresee how it would play on YouTube. Politicians will have to speak clearly, with a consistent message, and not something tailored to the particular group that they are speaking to at the moment. Obama was able to overcome his "bitter clingers" remark, which was specially designed to reach the hearts of wealthy San Franciscans. But it wasn't easy, and it still dogs him.
Heads up, everybody. Don't stare at the one thing that's right in front of your nose — whether it's your Blackberry or your biggest, wealthiest fans. Pay attention. There's a low wall just ahead, you're about to tumble into the fountain, and the internet is waiting to make you the next sensation.
But excluding the man from the task of diapering... Seems to me the female employees are getting the worse end — excuse the expression — of this particular discrimination.
Anyway, read the whole article. It's called "Eek! A Male!" I got interrupted in the middle of writing about it by a prompting to look at the thing everyone on the internet is supposed to look at right now that could be called "Eek! A Rat!"
He stood by the side of Interstate 71 in Columbus, Ohio with a homemade sign about his "God-given gift of a great radio voice." A reporter made a video...
He's been through "alcohol and drugs and a few other things" and now he's facing viral video fame.
Well, what the hell is her game? Is she the victim of horrific TSA intrusion or a fame-seeker seizing the viral video route to celebrity? She's awfully carefully coiffed and made-up for the occasion of her humiliation....
She said that in 1999. I don't know when the dabbling itself took place. It bugs me more that she says "dabbled into" than that she actually did it (or claimed to). It's "dabbled in." Here's the clip, from Bill Maher's show:
1. Maher obviously knows her well and likes her. "She's nice," he says. She was on his show a lot, and he's just exploiting the clips he has, which, he tells us, he's going to keep doing until she comes on his show. He's blackmailing her and giggling about what he's doing to this nice person he likes.
3. Did O'Donnell ever practice witchcraft? I doubt it. Even in the out-of-context clip, I'm seeing a young woman trying to get the hipper kids to believe she isn't really a complete square. In the story she tells, she went out with someone who, she thought, was into Satanism, and they had a picnic. A picnic! Even when she's straining to sound cool, she's square.
4. But she "dabbled into" witchcraft — doesn't that mean she did some witchcraft things? Frankly, I don't think she knows what "dabbled" means. The use of the wrong preposition is a hint. I think she means something more like she stumbled into witchcraft. She knew some people who did such things, and I'll bet the point she was making was that she was able to be friends with them, that she hasn't spent her whole life cocooned in squeaky clean conservative religion and she's able to relate to a wide variety of people.
5. Even if she had participated in some witchcraft, she'd only be like thousands of other young people who dabble in such nonsense. Do you want to string them all up? It's typical pop culture junk these days.
It's not creepy. It's perfect. First, it's bizarre in the way that gets people to do what I'm doing now, making it viral. Second, it gets you to watch what is an entirely mundane but completely convincing demonstration of the product's superior performance. Third... the man does the vacuuming, he's cute, he plays the piano, and he's a doctor. It's an absurd pastiche of what women want. His hating of moisture is perplexing, but ultimately, we agree.
That's what I said, as I overhead this video (which Meade was playing over there). "It's a Hillary for President ad," he said. It doesn't make me feel angry while looking at the video...
... but that was a weird experience. The music is the most heavy-handed kind of movie music, the stuff you hear in trailers for very big-budget sci-fi. Perhaps Hillary is a big-budget sci-fi project. Ever thought of it/her that way?
In any case, it's not Hillary presenting herself as a candidate, of course. Not overtly anyway. But she is a 2012 candidate, isn't she?
Nice — evil? — viral video for getting people to promote the cause of "Do Not Track Me" legislation. Via Wired:
It’s not the first anti-Google antic from the group, which is largely funded by legal fees, the Rose Foundation, Streisand Foundation, Tides Foundation and others. Last month the group announced it had parked outside lawmakers’ Washington-area residences to determine whether they had unsecured Wi-Fi networks that might have been sniffed by Google as part of the internet giant’s Street View and Google Maps program.
Here's your background reading. I just want to say that it's stupid as hell to say that someone working on the terrific musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is "a singer in a transvestite band." What tastes like red meat to some people mostly makes you look small-minded, nasty, and uninformed. And going after Kathleen Gustafson on the ground that she's "not a teacher" when she works in some capacity in a school is like going after "Joe the Plumber" because he wasn't a licensed plumber. What you've got, in both cases, is an ordinary citizen who encountered a politician in a way that yielded some viral video. That revealed whatever it revealed about the politician. Trashing the private citizen is mean-spirited and likely to backfire.
I see Drudge is featuring this clip, just over one minute long, in which you hear Senator Coburn making a memorable, colorful point and — for the clip-viewer — overshadowing Elena Kagan's perfectly conventional profession of dedication to judicial restraint:
The clip is taken out of context, and now it has a vigorous life of its own.
I'm wondering what other clips are gathering strength on YouTube and what sort of political career they will have. Here are clips that went up today.
How can Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC2) think he can lay hands on someone for asking a question like that? Why did that question make him so angry? Look how much he believes in his own capacity and right to intimidate! Quite aside from the manhandling, where does Etheridge get the idea that someone who asks a question is required to divulge his name? Is he completely deranged? Does he not remember what a camera is? Has he never heard of YouTube? I bet he has now.
But without any name or organizational support, just by riling up a member of Congress, the students have created the first conservative meme of the week. They seem to have learned from organizations such as ThinkProgress that any video of a member acting strangely, no matter how grainy, is grist for the Web.
And Weigel is aptly embarrassed by the first comment:
You refer to this dismissively as "video of a member acting strangely." Sorry, this isn't so easily dismissed. It's video of a member acting thuggishly, committing an assault and battery. And it's video of a member who has the arrogance to claim he has a right to know the identity of someone who asked me a question on the street. He doesn't have any such right. What he has is the dangerous notion that he's exempt from the laws of the District of Columbia and from the dictates of a civil society. And by your so cavalierly dismissing his outrageous behavior, you're complicit.
Posted by: Rob_ | June 14, 2010 10:52 AM...
Of course, the big question now — for anyone with a Weigel-y mentality — is: Who's Rob_?
MORE: This came in the email:
I'm Rob_
I know your question at the end of the Etheridge post was facetious, but I figured I'd answer it anyway. I'm Robert Cantor, a retired lawyer and amateur photographer in Rockville, Maryland, unaffiliated with Andrew Breitbart or any other political or journalistic operation but fascinated both by Etheridge's outrageous behavior and the way it was covered in the media. Not only did Weigel mischaracterize it and treat it dismissively, but others like CBS chose to edit down the battery to eliminate Etheridge's very rough grabbing of the young man's neck as well as the repeated requests from the young man that Etheridge let him go. The New York Times, following the pattern of its coverage of Van Jones and Helen Thomas, waited to report anything about the incident until Etheridge had apologized, then made his apology the story and reported little about the incident itself. Thank goodness for Glenn Greenwald, who had the integrity to call for Etheridge to be arrested and the courage to call out the commenters to his post who defended Etheridge.
Time Magazine's Michael Scherer passes on viral video then updates to act as if he's enlightening us about the fascinating phenomenon of viral video — as opposed to — oh, I don't know — apologizing for being an idiot.
He got the part. Actually, I'm a little suspicious. Maybe first he got the part and then this clip was made. A smarter-than-the-average studio effort at viral video... and I'm the carrier.
Sociologist Karen Sjoerup said the ad suggested "you can lure fast, blonde Danish women home without a condom."
Economy Minister Lene Espersen said the video presented "a not very well-thought-out picture of the country." Espersen also holds the government's tourism portfolio.
"I regret that the film has offended so many people," VisitDenmark manager Dorte Kiilerich said, explaining that intent had been to tell "a nice and sweet story about a grown-up woman who lives in a free society and accepts the consequences of her actions."
Or was it very well thought out — and pulling the ad was part of the promotion scheme? It got me to embed it. The controversy itself is part of the virus.
I would have posted this sooner but I ended up locked in a two-hour Twitter battle over it....
Oh. Okay. He was doing important things over in Twitter. Twitter is a great way to get people who write too much to throw much of their time and energy down the rathole. There's no way I'm going to go in there and try to piece together that conversation. Whatever it was, it doesn't matter anymore.
But here's the belated response on the blog:
The RNC does occasionally display suicidal tendencies... but I can’t believe they intended to call Pelosi a “pussy” knowing how offensive it is, how many votes it could cost them, and how outrageously outraged the media would be on her behalf as a way of changing the subject from her lies about waterboarding.
I think they intended to call Democrats pussies. That's why it ends with the on-screen words "Democrats Galore." The idea is: The Democrats are pussies — meaning sissies. But it just doesn't work because that's not the way "pussy" is meant in "Pussy Galore."
