Spend five minutes on YouTube and you'll spot thumbnail descriptions of numerous videos that have been inspired or remixed from its original content. For today's generation of video producers and consumers, taking original video material, recreating it at home, and sharing it with a worldwide audience is the new normal.For instance, take this original video called David After Dentist. Within a couple weeks of its posting on YouTube last year, it had been seen by millions, having gone, as they say, "viral."
The video has drawn a number of responses, mostly laughter, some critical for recording the child in a moment of vulnerability. But it has also inspired that so-called highest form of praise-- copying.
The Chad Vader video is an example of how one form of expression can motivate and inspire others to create in the manner in which they've been influenced. In other words, Chad, meet David. Or to rephrase, "art begets art."
Now some readers might feel I'm taking creative license in calling both videos art. Ok, sure, so they're not exactly cut from the cloth of Fellini or Scorcese. But art is an opportunity to express feelings and perspectives of our world. No matter its form, art, when produced skillfully, can be provocative, inspiring, exhausting, exhilarating, illuminating, and entertaining.
Which brings me to the Backyardigans. One night I ran an online search for Backyardigan videos. My daughter loves this TV show. Me too. Cute animated animals singing songs about childhood fantasies: racing cross country, sailing the high seas, and becoming pirates and mermaids. After striking out on the Nick Jr. site, I turned to the Internet's one stop (window) shopping for video-- YouTube. I was unable to find a particular song that was kicking around in my head, but I was astounded at what I had discovered.
Apparently, there is a community of Backyardigans 'remixers.' They take original Backyardigans video, cleverly cut and splice scenes within or among episodes and add a soundtrack. Here's how the Backyardigans usually sound.
And here's a remix.
One can find a number of video clips on YouTube that were "borrowed" from cable TV broadcasts, web sites, or copyright protected Backyardigans DVDs and then digitally manipulated and reinterpreted. There is no shortage of inexpensive video editing equipment and software to crack DVD encryption codes that are designed to prevent copying. Video artists are in their hey day and in regards to many popular children's shows, as one YouTube contributor says, "The moment we've all been waiting for... Colorful dancing 3-D rendered animals and rock music. Don't hurt me. it's one in the morning."
Now there are a ton of legal issues here that I'll save for another posting, but for the moment I'll sidestep them in order to get to a point. Our economy has become the casualty of a new China Syndrome. The old syndrome was the metaphor for a catastrophic nuclear meltdown in which a super heated reactor would melt straight down to the earth's core, then on to China.
Today's meltdown involves our economy, our manufacturing base, and ultimately our jobs, with China being but one of many overseas destinations. That said, shouldn't we be working on ways to rethink and restructure our economy, to find sources of income and employment that currently do not exist. (See Thomas Friedman's column on The New Untouchables) Where might these innovative and creative ideas come from?
Interestingly enough, they just might be coming from people like David's dad, Chad Vader, and other YouTube posters who are burning the midnight oil to find new ways to make people stop and think.
