Viral Video: The NEW Reality TV
Reality TV has obviously hit its peak and on the decline. What’s next? Viral video according to this Pittsburgh Tribune article by Andrew Johnson. It’s a nice article that tracks the EepyBird explosion and identifies a number of other top viral sources (see more below).
Obviously we at WillVideoForFood hope the viral video fad sticks around for a while. But it’s probably short lived. People will eventually tire of viral video… like when you eat Candy Corn. The first couple handfulls are great, but then all of a sudden you realize you’re eating waxed sucrose. And you long to consumer video that’s more than “Doritos for the Brain.”
When the viral video craze ends, we’ll return to wanting good scripted television shows (and maybe some of those will derive from the viral craze). That’s my humble opinion. But I hope that’s at least 18 months away.
Viral Video Hall of Fame (Pittsburgh Tribune)
(Home of Tunesmith & Anthony, Pittsburgh viral video-ists)
Tony, in his “30s” with a “white-collar” job, said his blog is just for fun, and he doesn’t see any career emerging out of it. He began it a year-and-a-half ago and treatises on divisive culinary queen Rachael Ray followed, as well as videos such as the one posted last week, showing two elderly men coming to blows in a driveway.
This one belongs to arguably the most popular genre in the viral video universe — white guys, about 29 years old, dancing as wacky as they know how. Matt Harding, of Seattle, has a unique peg in that he dances in lesser-traveled places such as Jordan and Peru. Among his credentials is the boast that he “has never lost a staring contest.”
Hosea “Ze” Frank, New York-based, has on his blog well-produced “educational videos” that are not so much educational as they are funny. “How to Impress Your Date” features the hero of the blog acting spastic in the presence of a blond love interest on a repeat loop, in a Brooklyn restaurant.
Video blog that once generated more than 200,000 daily viewers to its “The Daily Show”-lite, SNL “Weekend Update”-inspired Internet delivery of the news. Buxom star Amanda Congdon’s departure this month, though, has sent the Internet reporting community into a frenzy, and viral video’s version of the Star Jones Reynolds-“The View” feud threatens the blog.
“The Andy Milonakis Show,” on MTV2
Milonakis is viral video’s answer to Andy Kaufman, whose weird comedy has landed Milonakis on a hard-to-find cable channel after making a big splash on the Internet with profane rapping by the rotund boy-man. Milonakis has a medical condition making him appear far younger than he is. Looks like a naughty tween doing what he does but reportedly 30.