It’s fascinating how certain videos can explode on to the
Internet, and then make their way around various media.
From emails and Twitter feeds to
blog posts and then into newspapers and media websites, some videos get
picked so fast, it’s often hard to get an actual grasp on what people
really think of it.
I was talking with a colleague recently about the Barack Obama
tribute video made by Will.i.am from the Black-Eyed Peas and Bob
Dylan’s son Jesse, and how it had moved around the web, being
judged as it went.
Yes We Can
When I first came across the video,
known as the “Yes We Can” video, people were
describing it as
compelling and passionate — many seemed impressed by the fact
that it
wasn’t official.
And by the fact that it had young men and women of all
colours in
it, symbolizing the breadth of Obama’s reach and how people
connect
with his message.
No We Can’t
Over time, however, you could see the tide starting to turn.
Some
people started to talk about how slick it was — filled with
celebrities
and very commercial, in a music-video kind of way.
Then people started
musing about how that was part of the problem with Obama’s
campaign to
begin with: style over substance, etc.
Within a day or two, the video was being used as an example of
how
“user-generated” media isn’t always such
a great thing for a campaign.
The political site Hot Air called
it “disturbingly cool,” while a blogger
at The New Republic wondered whether it might not hurt
Obama more than help him. One commenter on Twitter wondered
when Obama’s campaign had started having his videos done by The Gap.
Conclusions
So the Barack Obama video went from blockbuster media event and
unadulterated success story to backlash in about 48 hours —
less time
than it would have taken for a typical campaign video to even be
distributed to TV networks a few years ago.
Whereas this got distributed, watched by almost
two million people, posted to blogs, commented on and analysed all in
the time frame. It even got a John McCain spoof done on it.
Fascinating.
Written by Mathew Ingram, a technology journalist. Catch his views on the intersection between media and the web at MathewIngram.com. This post is licensed under the Creative Commons.
