Tag Archives: university

Online Video

WheezyWaiter on YouTube Work Ethic

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It hasn’t been long since Craig Benzine was waiting tables in a Chicago restaurant. And as his YouTube handle implies (WheezyWaiter) the asthmatic didn’t let sickness stop him from filling a shift. Before he stopped waiting tables, he’d awaken at 6 to spend several hours (or more) to create a daily video before work. And he’d somehow sneak in an extra few hours to interact with fans (something he’s decreased to focus on making videos).

Now fetching an impressively consistent 150-200,000 views on each of his near-daily videos, the YouTube creator (and member of a rock band) takes his same work ethic to YouTube.

Benzine was one of dozens of YouTube partners who assembled in downtown Chicago’s Columbian College yesterday for an education session sponsored by Google.

YouTube has been quietly roaming the country — from NYC and California to the southeast and now Midwest– to help independent video creators, facilitate their interaction with other video makers, and provide them tips on growing and sustaining an audience.

I spoke, obviously, on “how to pimp your YouTube channel,” a mock title for what was really designed to:
1) Remind other YouTubers not to expect fame, subscribers or money to “fill the empty bowl they call life,”
2) Provide them with tips on how to make content advertisers seek
3) Give them practical advice on seeking sponsors directly or through intermediaries (and importantly what to avoid and say “no” to)
4) Keep them aware that the audience should always come first…

Even if you’ve got a pretty badass shoe sponsor like WheezyWaiter:
http://lalawag.com/2011/06/30/how-social-are-your-shoes-tweak-footwear-makes-sneakers-go-viral/

And those shoes are special. Benzine explained, when I interviewed him briefly for the attendees, his well-worn pair are the only shores he owns.

Is that a brilliant marketing move, or simply the signs of a humble guy who doesn’t need an Imelda-Marcos-shoe collection to keep his feet on the ground?

Online Video

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Funny Conference

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So I’m sitting at Starbucks at 3, and I’ll be on stage in about 33 minutes. My presentation looks perhaps like a hotdog long before it takes that edible, if somewhat phallic, shape. Despite my morning’s panic attack, missing a flight and driving the 7 hours to Boston, I manage to catch YouTube Hall-of-Famer Michael Buckley as I pass his town. Sadly he has “a doctor’s appointment” that precludes a quick spanking or whatever YouTubers do when they meet.

It’s 3:03 as I reorder slides, fundamentally changing my entire presentation (shown below on Slideshare) I can’t help but get distracted by two nervous looking band members who appear to be meeting a new digital marketer consultant. “Our last guy, um, got really busy with school,” says Shaggy (his real name is being withheld because I don’t know it). The consultant begins to LAY IT ON THICK. Total bullshit, coated with a thick creamy topping of arrogance and a faux-pedantic snobbery crowning it all like an overly marinated cherry on top.

The topic of viral video comes up, and my face begins to literally contort as I hear the crap this guy’s advising. I couldn’t control my face. I could see some gal looking at me, and then over at them… making the connection. But I can’t help myself. When Shaggy says “I’m not willing to lose my integrity to get 3 million views on YouTube,” I think seriously about coming to his rescue. But something about this consultant strikes me as odd and dangerous. He’s far too assertive, simplistic, narcissistic, simplistic and repetitive (seems we loathe that in others that we resent in ourselves).

As I’ve finally shifted back to my presentation, literally changing the entire thesis at this point with minutes to spare, the consultant BARGES out the door of Starbucks leaving Shaggy and Scooby stunned. Again I decide to go to their rescue, hold their hand, and tell them that one need not compromise their virtues to go viral… I’ll even volunteer. But just like a dream ending abruptly, they vanish. Come to think of it, maybe it was a dream. No… I’m pretty sure it was real.

Then I gave this presentation below. To show that humor is hard to categorize because of its subjectivity, I did a live vlog (seen at the end of this video) where I followed the 102nd rule of “winning over an audience.” I secretly maligned them using a stage whisper. I was actually kinda bummed out they laughed, which is not what I expected after reading this Joel Warner Wired article that put this on my rader (and created an obsession for me).

Now for the preliminary findings, and a BIG thanks to Alexis, Kiddsock and Will Reese, as well as other contributors!

YouTube & Comedy: International Society for Humor Studies

View more presentations from Kevin Nalty.

 

Online Video

“Bed Intruder” Song Performed by Liberty University Choir

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Hide your kids. Hide your wife. News clip > autotune > choir > news

Liberty University’s Vision Ministries’ parodied the Gregory Brothers (shmoyoho) auto-tune spoof, “Bed Intruder,” last week (source: Liberty.edu). The performance were soon posted to YouTube by students, but after comments about poor audio, Liberty officials decided to post the university-filmed version of the song to Liberty’s YouTube channel.

The “Bed Intruder” was inspired by an interview with Antoine Dodson (see interview here) and the auto-tuned musical parody followed soon after (see here). Vision’s version is below and here.)

At 2:17 (two minutes and 17 seconds) in, the tempo picks up and the snapping and cheering commences.

Care to sing along? Lyrics below:

He’s climbin in your windows
He’s snatchin your people up
Tryna rape em so y’all need to
Hide your kids, Hide your wife
Hide your kids, Hide your wife
Hide your kids, Hide your wife
and hide your husband
Cuz they’re rapin errbody out here
You don’t have to come and confess
We’re lookin for you
We gon find you
We gon find you
So you can run and tell that,
Run and tell that
Run and tell that, homeboy
Home, home, homeboy
We got your t-shirt
You done left fingerprints and all
You are so dumb
Rou are really dumb–for real
The man got away leaving behind evidence
I was attacked by some idiot in the projects
So dumb, So dumb, So dumb, So
He’s climbin in your windows
He’s snatchin your people up
Tryna rape em so y’all need to
Hide your kids, Hide your wife
Hide your kids, Hide your wife
Hide your kids, Hide your wife
and hide your husband
Cuz they’re rapin errbody out here
You don’t have to come and confess
We’re lookin for you
We gon find you
We gon find you
So you can run and tell that,
Run and tell that
Run and tell that, homeboy
Home, home, homeboy

Online Video

Jewish A Cappella Parody of Dynamite (Candlelight)

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Hannukah may be over, but you can still groove to this hip hop a cappella parody, with lyrics about playing dradel by the candlelight, and the great menorah.

It’s the Jewish version of Dynamite (by Taio Cruz). No it’s not the Dalton Academy Choir performing, but the Maccabeats, an a cappella group from Yashiva University.

book, Online Video

Statistics and Ethnography of YouTube

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Have you discovered Mediated Cultures (Digital Ethnography by Kansas State University)? Professor Michael Wesch spoke at the Library of Congress, and posted his video of the presentation here. I haven’t been through the whole thing because I didn’t see Nalts in the index. Hah. It’s funny because it’s true. But I did see that Bnessel does appear.

I ran into the blog while trying to research some recent stats about YouTube. While on the crapper this morning, I read in Streaming Media that YouTube streamed 3.8 billion videos and was trying to compute the “market share” my ~1.6 monthly million views. The math confused me and my calculator, so I decided instead to take solace that I represent more than 1% of what Hulu got that month.

Welsch also writes about something called Aethetic Arrest, which is a tricky concept that I won’t even try to summarize. But you know I arrest you with my aesthetics, don’t you? Especially when I find out my daughter just got ear rings yesterday without my having a say in it (video below).

I really like it when people use literary or philosophical terms to describe YouTube videos. It’s such a weird mix. I had someone approach me after my presentation at a Yahoo conference in Toronto and characterize my videos, and now I can’t even remember the words she used (something about bringing absurdity to the benine, but benine isn’t even a word… Maryland, what did she mean?). It reminded me of when we used to study literature in school and I was pretty convinced we were thinking way deeper about the work than the author ever did.

Then she explained to me that the art and the analysis of the art are two different things. And that made sense to me at the time. Except for the fact that she referred to my crap as art. Sorry I’m still in shock about the ear rings.