Heh. Russell Brand can sing, a bit, contrary to conventional wisdom. Shame about the fan vid. It’s like watching a peacock fidget around shrubbery. Hopefully someone will rip the scene from a pirated DVD screener. See also this Trey Parker/Alfred Packer classic, along similar lines.
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Early Sunday morning I was listening to Russell Brand’s radio show and he mentioned one of his and Matt Morgan’s YouTube videos (The Weatherclerks) and how it’d only gotten a thousand hits. That is quite a pathetic amount of hits for a video that had been on YouTube six months. The problem is the way the videos were released. The first set of his unseen old-school (sort of old-school, post drugs) videos were disseminated via ‘Warren Kelp’ (an obvious sockpuppet) with some bullshit about the videos being found in a skip. That was all well and good, but the only people that would come across the videos were people specifically searching for Russell Brand. The largest proportion of his fans are ordinary people and are not going to do that. I saw the videos soon after their internet debut and featured them on this blog, but I, and people that come here (hello!) are elite internet ninjas. Many of whom have seen or heard of Russell Brand prior to the last couple of years (like me; he was funny out of his head on smack, back in the day in dingy Islington pubs, and he’s still funny minus the smack in front of audiences of hundreds. That’s a hell of a transition). Releasing the videos to the baying hordes, even with a celebrity name attached, is no good without doing internet basics like building up an internet audience (which is totally different from a telly/stand-up audience, and will become increasingly important in the next few years).
I think YouTube is proof that people will watch things that aren’t normally featured on television or the screen. Every celebrity should own a basic HD camera, such as the Canon HV30 (see note, it’s important), which produces good quality video without much technical complexity, or cost, or barriers to just switching on and filming. Buying a more expensive camera means more fucking around than is necessary, and nobody busy wants to fuck around. Buy a camera that doesn’t require training to use (the HV30 is excellent and produces excellent video). Film mundane stuff (people are interested in the mundane of any celebrity), stick it up on YouTube, build up some e-fame (which is like real fame, but with significantly less money) and profit. Videos a minute or two long. Below ten minutes of your life a week. Stick to basic editing, using the software that came with the camera, upload it to YouTube. It’s not difficult. Why more celebrities don’t do this is beyond me. Especially if they realise what the Internet is going to do to TV – like Tay Zonday does here. The time and money invested is minimal for hedging your bets on the Internet vs. TV question.
Then, the next time something like The Weatherclerks is released, far more people will watch it.
Note:
Canon: this is technically a plug I will sell my soul for a EOS 1Ds and a few professional lenses. I’ll even take the Nikon D3 off my shopping list for this year. In fact every photo I’ll produce this year with the EOS 1Ds will have “this was not produced by a Nikon D3” as an unobtrusive watermark. If, on the other-hand Nikon are reading this – quick - send me a Nikon D3 with several pro lenses – get there before the competition. It’s the first rule of business. There’s not many things I’d whore myself for, but for either one of those cameras I would cave in, contrary to the advice in this Bobby Conn video.
David Icke appeared on Russell Brand’s radio show on Saturday. It was a broadly uncritical interview – less critical than his Richard Dawkins interview, somewhat exposing his personal biases. To be fair, it makes entertaining listening. Unlike many media outlets Russell’s show does have a wide variety of views represented so Icke is one voice among many. The interview is very funny. Particularly the bit where David Icke accuses Father George Bush of being (a presumably reptilian) paedophile. Pedolizard. I think Russell Brand, in common with youth today, is deeply sceptical of the media and political establishment. Obvious ironies aside. My father remarked, over Christmas, that things, the cultural mien, remind him of the 1960s. He thinks there’s a generation gap and that the media and politicians are totally out of touch. As a result of disillusionment caused by foreign policy, the internet, and stubbornness of the traditional media.
Listen to David Icke and Russell Brand here.
I think one of the great downsides to generation gaps, real or perceived, is that they can lead to indiscriminate scepticism. The broad scepticism towards politics and ‘the system’ during the 1960s and 1970s gave rise to many good things. It also gave rise to much irrationalism and muddy thinking. I believe a similar situation exists today. There is a generation gap forming under the nose of a political and media establishment that is still firmly rooted in the 20th Century. Among many young people there is a broad scepticism towards government, politics, and the media. Much of this is positive. Many young people seem willing and able to Google and get information from multiple sources. And savagely mock the absurd.
Scepticism without critical thinking can be dangerous. Because in those circumstances a rejection of the mainstream can lead to unqualified acceptance of any ideas regardless of their logical consistency or evidence. Conspiracy theories - for instance. People accept them because they do not have critical thinking skills. They don’t have critical thinking skills because our society does not encourage critical thinking outside of fields where it is required. They’re not stupid people. There is a paradoxical situation in which people can be deeply sceptical and lack the critical thinking skills to distinguish the things they should be sceptical about. It’s a real shame. People that believe in conspiracy theories are seeking answers, which is something that should be applauded, but unfortunately they’re barking up the wrong tree.
An example of this is the rise of David Icke. He is more popular than ever. I quite like David Icke. Really. I don’t think he’s a bad person, but I think his theories are wrong. Even a cursory examination of what constitutes evidence for many of his theories, parsing his arguments, leads to rejection of them on the grounds of consistency and lack of evidence. But there exists a situation today whereby those with undeveloped ideas of what constitutes evidence, and lacking critical thinking skills, are led to David Icke and his kind. Many young people with legitimate scepticism of government post-Iraq/post-Blair/post-Bush are ambling into the hands of 9/11 conspiracy theories, people like David Icke. Much in the same way many hippies were led down blind alleys by religion, drug culture, and ill thought out ideologies.
In an ideal world books like Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World and Darrell Huff’s How to Lie With Statistics would be mandatory secondary school reading material. If I had the free cash I would by a few thousand copies of each and give them away. A basic understanding of statistics and basic critical thinking skills are essential for understanding the modern world and essential for positive changes. Otherwise people act with scant regard to evidence which, as has been proven time and time again, leads to very bad things indeed. In an ideal world the revolution would be everyone being able to think critically. Scepticism minus critical thinking equals wasted energy.
