WebbAlert: It’s like Rocketboom, except…
The future seems to be littered with videoblogs with attractive women as hosts.
While I understand the need to get viewers as much as any producer, getting an attractive girl to do it can sometimes seem like the cheap way out. With Rocketboom, JetSetShow, and Geek Brief, I feel like they’re still part of the community– Zadi, Cali, etc., are more than just hosts. But the more of these I see, the more cynical I become. In some cases (iTunes link), we use women in the iconography, even if there are no women in the show!
These tactics are cheap and base. Our community is better than this– we began with principles of subversion and being different than old media, so why are we emulating it? Are we the hippies of our generation, ending up in top-floor penthouses, wondering what happened to what we believed in?
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Filed by Julien at 12:11 pm under podcasting
Um…sex sells. Nearly naked video blogging. With infinite zoom allowing for fractal pasties on each breast carrying a video blog of a nearly naked girl announcing video blogging news on a related issue.
“For updates on cultural suicide, zoom in on my LeftNippleCam®, for instructions on how to purchase the Julien is a Sellout Manifesto (JIS-M), click on my RightNippleCam®…”
It was inevitable that a) our ‘community’ would eventually adopt certain aspects of the so-called MSM that many of us find base, degrading, and/or insulting; and, b) the so-called MSM would come in to our world and bring with it certain distasteful elements.
However, our Community IS better than this, and while I do miss some of the most raw and creative shows (Vox Monitor and the Kick Ass Podcast spring to mind), I’m finding a plethora of other shows that do represent what this medium started out as.
It’s up to us, both individually and as a group, to continue to uphold the values we once - and hopefully still do - believed in.
For my part, Creepy Sleepy may change, but it’ll continue to be a jankey, ghetto-ass podcast for the foreseeable future.
what, being a cute girl means you’re a sellout and have nothing worthwhile to say? come on….
We do what works. And in the reach to grow greater audience, we adopt the same lowest common denominator tactics because they work.
I think that Chris is on to somehting. It’s funny how “Sex Sells” is just a synonym for “Boobies Sell.” I think that it says a lot about our culture’s standard of beauty, human nature, and the demographics of the average vlog viewer…
Boobies!
I had a similar reaction — but I believe Webb writes/produces her own content.