Video killed the Television Star
Video is undoubtedly killing television, and with TV's demise comes the death of serveral television stars - who are all vulnerable to their latest escapades being covered by the various tabloid websites popular on the Internet. While images have been the bain of Celebrities for centuries, video has quickly made it all the more embarassing for celebrity to be quoted saying something ignorant or stupid. While an image could capture an embarassing moment, video allows everyone to relive it over and over and over again. Even worse is that video prevents celebrities from rebutting claims or falsifying the evidence, because everyone can see the video for themselves and make a judgement on what actually happened. Granted that video, much like any other medium, can be edited to appeal to a particular agenda - it's a lot more difficult, and even in its edited form still gives off a better impresion of what actually happened (something which can never truly be hidden).The more garish thing is that online video affects not only celebrities, but real life ordinary people. People get turned into overnight stars through viral YouTube videos, but sometimes this can be much more of a curse in disguise. Take the incident of Star Wars Kid, by now you've most likely not only heard of him but have probably seen the variations of the original video. For those who have been living under the preverbial rock, Star Wars Kid is a Montreal (Quebec, Canada) teenager who was goofing around in his school's storage cabinet with a video camera - mimicking the moves of a Star Wars jedi (pretending he had a light sabre). Unfortunately for him, he forgot to remove the tape from the video camera and some of his evil peers decided to upload it to the Internet - in less then a few weeks, the video had spread and become a wild attraction. Variations of the video were made and edited, and the kid faced embarassment from the entire world - with people writing to him and even ridiculing him on the street. His parents sued the kids that leaked the video, and there has been much cafuffle on the sanity of the Montreal teenager. Many other cases like this have become common, with sex tapes, mms scandals and the likes becoming an all too familiar presence in our technological world.
Labels: britney spears, canada, celebrity, davo, evil, killed, mms, mms scandal, montreal, pamel andersen, paris hilton, peers, star wars kid, television site, video, video scandal, writing
When you live in a country as ethnically diverse as America, Canada, UK or any other country for that matter, you're bound to have people whose culture or language differs from that of the dominant culture. Large Telecoms and Media companies have exploited this for far too long and they usually offer a basic tier of cable, and special language or cultural channels are deemed "speciality channels" and you have to pay a premium subscription to just get the few channels that you want.
Not so new, but more of a new discovery to me - is the existance of a site called FreeTube, that claims it "[..] lets you watch TV online for free without the need for any special software, hardware or subscription service. We are a completely free alternative to cable television that lets you watch tv channels and tv shows online using just your browser. "