Seen This Before

If you watch the news anymore you can see that these days it is all about video. It used to be that if you couldn't tell what you were looking at news directors wouldn't bother putting it on air, but that rule has been tossed aside in the name of shaky camera phone footage. Now they live by the rule that a picture is worth a thousand words, even if it isn't a particularly helpful picture. I guess the idea of seeing the news as it happens, even with poor quality, is better than just hearing someone describe it to you makes sense, but most of the time the videos just give me a headache. Sometimes the video itself is news, which I really can't understand. A few months ago everyone when everyone was making Harlem Shake videos the news ran a story on it in which they just showed a bunch of YouTube clips of people doing the Harlem Shake. How exactly is that news? I know some people think a video going mainstream is the apex of success, but I contend as soon as someone is on the news explaining it your parents you have already begun your slippery slope back to anonymity. The goods news is that there will always be another viral sensation to come along and half of them are easy to understand because they are pretty much rip-offs of a previous fad. I just think it was time someone told the people making the copies that their efforts are never quite as good as the videos they are trying to emulate.

Normally I would be in favor of people copying a good idea because it just leads to more for everyone. I mean, if blatantly ripping off a competitor didn't exist there would only be one kind of car to buy and every manufacturer would only produce one item. The problem is that concept really should only apply to things which would help us all like generic drugs or really good cake. But instead we are all in a tremendous hurry to make yet another video of a guy falling off his roof into a pool to try and grab 15 seconds of fame. Of course, this is even worse in the comedy world because making making a video is super-easy and coming up with an original comedy idea is hard. Plus, unlike a joke where someone can call you out by naming the comic who said it first no one every takes the time to trace the origin of internet videos. That means the copying is here to stay. However, I would like to ask the people thinking about making a copycat video to really ask themselves if they could at least come up with a new branch off that comedy tree, because some of them are really bad. I think the worst offender ever is the "Shit Girls Say" video. The original viral clip was very funny. The problem is that it not only spawned a book, but it gave birth to about 100 copycat videos, 95% of which were not funny at all.

You see, the best rip-off artists are the ones who can at least take the joke in a slightly new direction. They don't reinvent the wheel, but they do manage to put on some nicer rims. I'm afraid the entire copycat process is just getting too fast for that. Rather than take a couple days to think of a creative spin on it, people are doing near shot-by-shot reshoots and putting it online. (It didn't work for "Psycho", it won't work for you.) I bring this up because a couple weeks ago a clip was brought to my attention "Convos With My 2 Year-old." In the video a guy recreates actual conversations he has had with his young daughter, but rather than have her stand there he has another grown man fill in and read her lines. It shows just how absurd that conversation would be if it was between two adults and it is funny enough. The problem is that just the other day I was looking up a DIY project on YouTube and because I had watched that video, YouTube suggested I would like "Actual Conversations With My 2-month Old." That video features and old man doing the baby's part and considering 2 month-olds can't talk it is just as stupid as you imagine it is. I only made it a few seconds in before I couldn't take it anymore. This is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about - I don't really care if you are unoriginal, just don't be unoriginal and unfunny.

Then again, considering how often Hollywood rips off ideas from one another I shouldn't be surprised it is happening on the internet, where anything goes. But, at least with movies the second offering is better because that is usually the one which was worked on first and had a completed script which went through multiple re-writes until it was good, whereas a studio will rushed the copycat through just to make sure it will be released to the general public first. (This is why "White House Down" will probably be better than "Olympus Has Fallen".) The problem is that this is what you will get as long as internet content goes largely untrademarked - anyone can take it and make it their own and they don't even have to change anything. Originality may be coveted but it certainly isn't rewarded. It just seems really unfair to all the people who came up with the idea in the first place. Plus, if you saw how much the quality of the second and third videos in the "Conversation" series had dipped from the original, it serves as a stark reminder that when you base an entire series on one joke that joke is going to get old fast on its own - it really doesn't need any help by being told by 100 other people with almost no variation.