Sunday 13 February 2011

Why you shouldn't start a video blog (sorry)

Hello everybody, it's been a while! A PROPER BLOGOMG!

Back in the day before the internet, people who demanded attention used to sing karaoke in rubbish pubs or set fire to park benches. Nowadays, they log onto Youtube and talk absolute shite for under 10 minutes after editing their masterpiece on Windows Movie Maker. Ahh, the video blog.

I've had an account on Youtube since the vintage year of 2006, contributing the odd splooge, viewing awful crap regularly and blinking in bewilderment at some of the dirtiest, horrible comments imaginable on the entire internet. The site has it all now and is a wonderful/awful place to lose yourself for a number of minutes/hours/entire weekends. You all know what goes on on Youtube, but it's the subject of "Vlogging" that I want to touch on here - something that forms the hunched backbone of the site.

Blogging in itself is a good way to showcase your talent (or lack of) for writing, share facts (or lies) and opinions to the world, to entertain or simply to boost your awful ego. It's the latter part I have a problem with and it manifests itself the most obscenely in video blogging. Now, I'll admit, I do quite enjoy the sound of my own voice and watching myself on a screen spewing dross to no one. As a kid, ridiculously, I made mock radio shows including interviews with myself playing a different person with a different accent, reading aloud sections from the paper for the news and, most regrettably, singing (I guess even fake radio shows struggle with copyright issues). I've even tried to do video blogs in the past, but scrapped them because they were the most boring pieces of shit I've ever seen.

It's this childlike egomania that exists on Youtube that really grinds my gears - people who have little to say and just like the look of their own face, or hair. There exists a long line of dorks waving their arms around and screeching "LOVE ME!!111" to an audience of other dorks, who are either enjoying it and making these creatures continue this jamboree of shit or telling them they're "homo cocksuker faggets". It's the same people that keep cruel freakshows like the X-Factor on the air and start sweating if they haven't heard any news about that bloke off Eastenders for two days.

I've categorised these maniacs into about five different types:

a) The Fringe: Hair grows at the front of the head, clouds thoughts, takes over. Opinion on hair and little else. Also known as "camwhores".


b) The Hyperactive Doofus: Usually a child who enjoys screaming loads. Very little humour involved.


c) The "Reviewer": "Reviews" various entertainment mediums by slagging them off exclusively with poorly backed or just plain incoherent arguments in a totally uninspiring and dull way. Usually silly looking. Polar opposite to the AVGN, who is da bomb.


d) The Nutbar: Genuinely mentally ill people. Kind of tragic really. Easy bait for "trolls".


e) The Crushing Bore: No point mate, no point. No one cares.


Don't get me wrong, I don't hold anything against people doing a video blog, but for the sake of the human race make it interesting, or entertaining, or relevant, or informative.. or any of the above. There's a reason you haven't got your own show or movie or talk show, IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE RUBBISH! Better ignore this though (It's a character isn't it?!).

Having a medium like Youtube is a double-edged sword, on one side anyone can put anything up and you can find pretty much everything ever. That also happens to be the other side. Quantity over quality is a motherfucker, and at times, it's like wading through The River Shit to find chocolate cake (hopefully sealed).

Good video bloggers are few and far between, but for the sake of balance, here is one of my favourites - this guy, is quite simply, a fat guy who couldn't give two shits that he's fat. He's the polar opposite to a "Fringe" and I respect him immensely for it.



I am also a huge fan of "character" video blogs as they're pure comedy monologues in their own right when they're done well; this chap being my favourite.


So there you go. Heed my advice, don't do a video blog if you've got nothing interesting to say and stop clogging up my internet. And if you must do a video telling everyone that you grazed your arm, please don't show me it. To end this mutha, here's a spoof I did FIVE YEARS AGO, fuck.


THANKS LOVE YOU BYE!