If I don’t finish this post quickly I’m going to miss my flight from Newark to Boston. But I can’t tell you how incredibly excited I am to meet academics who study humor, and I’m perplexed this conference isn’t all over the news. Shame, reporters. Shame, media.
I’m most excited to meet some of the “great minds” of Humor Research (see website), and tickled to find out the friggin’ editor of The New Yorker’s cartoons, Robert Mankoff, will be attending. Check him out in this cool video… he explains humor as a way to understand what we know and don’t.
I hope to make a video while I’m there, and I am curious about whether the crowd will love the idea or despise it. Ideally I’d like to create a video that satires the academic exploration of humor, and shows (willing participants) finding no humor in my sophomoric fart hijinks. That’s called juxtaposition.
What’s clear to me is that it’s time to narrow not broaden the scope of “social media” conferences, and start niching into either industries, medium (blogs/video), function (PR, advertising, marketing, journalism) or specific regions. I can’t envision 500 national cross-industry internet marketing conferences in 2011, can you?
I’m staring at this list and about each event I’m thinking:
“This could be the best place to network, stay current, share my goods.”
And simultaneously thinking, “this is going to be one of those awkward events with a vendor/buyer ratio of 39:1, 11 non-English speakers in each breakout room, and I’ll literally get dumber by the minute listening to some newly self-appointed social media expert.”
Perhaps I’ll just stay in a local hotel and read the Stupidest Article About Social Media ever. Hey maybe it’s time for a rewrite of this year-old piece of poetry. (Checks article). Nope, it’s all still perfectly accurate and useless.
Oh hush. What it lacks in humor it makes up for in timeliness. Let’s see you put an iPhone4G in your butt for the Internet. Or drive into the backyard of some crazy person so you can get near a cell phone tower.
My favorite quote of Steve Jobs: .55 percent of iPhone4G users complained. Seriously? CommonC’mon. I had prooblems (despite the video statement) but knew better than to sit on hold. Besides- I’m guessing the other 99% just dropped their call before Apple answered.
Well there are many things Apple does well, but damage control or issue management is not among them.
Yey free 2 cent bumper iPhone condoms and they’ll even honor that 30-day money back guarantee! Weeks later Jobs will be reporting that fewer than .55 percent of people felt like he didn’t do a perfect job handling this issue, so if you thought otherwise, you’d better log your complaint.
This video shows Hank Green (with his lesser known 3rd Green brother) announcing VidCon, taking place July 9-11, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. Here’s the official VidCon website.
For those of you familiar with the Vlogbrothers (John and Hank Green), I don’t need to tell you what an enormous connection they have with the vibrant and growing community of online-video. They’re funny, smart, and selfless; this week they’ll be orchestrating another “Project for Awesome,” where they encourage fellow video creators to make a video about a charity… to “reduce world suck.”
So it wasn’t surprising that they’ve attracted the “Who’s Who” of online video… literally the most-viewed and most-subscribed video creators of YouTube and beyond. Also- if you know Hank and John, you’ll know that the admission price is to cover costs, and proceeds are for charity. These guys aren’t interested in making money, but these events cost a lot to do well. So I’ve got little sympathy for those few dozen people who feel a price tag is “anti-community, man”- sing that tune to your waitress at IHOP, kids.
For you online-video industry people who are less familiar with the community side, I have one piece of advice. Attend. If I could only attend one conference this year, it would be this one.
There will be a series of professional tracks covering advertising, marketing and production. But of course you can see the “brains” of online video at any conference. This one you’ll see the brain and the heart. And you really don’t know online-video until you’ve seen the heart… watched the most-viewed amateurs interacting with the fans… seen the groundswell of enthusiasm about a medium that’s changing people’s lives… see the friendships among the talented people (and me).
The informal YouTube gatherings — like 7/7/7 — have brought hundreds and even thousands together in various cities, but this one’s actually organized and planned. So it’s likely to be a huge event. Book your hotel early, friends.
If you’re interested in speaking slots, panels or sponsorships (imagine how many videos your logo can show up on, and how many millions of times it will be seen), let Hank know or shoot me a note (I’m volunteering to help on the professional side). Much of that will be formalized by the end of January. In the mean time, follow VidCon on Twitter.
If you’re planning a conference about social media, and you haven’t got me on the docket then you’re screwed. Because I’m friggin’ hot right now. I was tired of the endless parade of social-media articles… they were repetitive, annoying, and written by people that had no business as authorities on social media.
Dear conference planner, I propose the following. I’ll get up at your next conference, and you list me as a “social media expert.” Then I’ll take on any of the personalities from this video… and just fall apart gradually. Begin with confidence, but then begin to fall apart. Thus spoofing the whole absurdity of “social media” hype.
It pains me to see so few views on YouTube for something this well written, acted and edited. It’s called “Font Conference” and it’s a great personification of the fonts we know so well. Baskerville Old Face and Bookman OId Style duke it out. Arial Black feels discriminated. Wide Italian played by an overeating fat guy. Futura played by a time traveler. And Century Gothic is played by a goth emo who resents the conformists (“I can’t wait for you to grow out of this,” says Times New Roman. In the climax, Ransom takes Courier and his daughter Curlz MT hostage, but don’t worry- Wing Dings celebrates in the end.
Extremely well done (right down to the incredible production values with rack focuses and perfect lighting), and especially entertaining for those of us who spend way too much time thinking about fonts.
I just feel sad for Trebuchet, who was sadly left out. Maybe a sequel? Can I humbly submit to play Trebuchet? Or maybe even a serif if College Humor provides acting coaches.
Thanks for your feedback on the attached deck. Here’s the final version, and now I have 3 minutes to get dressed and get to the meeting room. You can download it at Slideshare.
On July12, YouTube community members will descend upon Philadelphia. For more information on this event, or to share information about your own event, please visit the new Ning group I established for gatherings.
Seriously. I couldn’t make something like that up. In case you don’t recognize the name, he’s the guy who wrote the TechCrunch article about how marketers can “game” YouTube with fake thumbnails, fake comments, et cetera. This blog called him the Wicked Witch of the West to my Glenda the Good Witch, and that’s something you don’t soon forget.
Dan- do you want me to renew the URL I parked (www.viralvideovillain.com) pointing to your LinkedIn page?
P.S. Y’all like the new masthead designed by The Most Excellent Gage Skidmore? He’s with Cosmic Flight.
It’s been quite a while since I bashed Break.com, and the site has earned new status in my mind. I usually passively review Break.com clips people pass me, but today I went on my own little hunt. I’ve since found this clip documented on Waxy.org (it’s Gary Kasparov, the chess grand master).
I was pleasantly surprised to find this delightful clip of a helicopter dildo disrupting a press conference. I thought it was too perfect to be truly candid, but the reactions (including the security guy that punches the poor flying wiener to its demise) convinced me.
Folks, get yourself your own remote-controlled helicopter dildo and try it yourself. A wedding, funeral or office meeting. The possibilities are endless.
Don’t get me wrong. I love vlogging, collaboration videos, skits and even creative advertisements. But very little can top a flying remote-controlled dildo helicopter buzzing over the heads of annoyed professionals.
