Broadcast Yourself!

Michael Wesch's talk delivered at the Library of Congress in 2008, in short, covered the anthropological changes in communication and human relationships resulting from the new forms of creation, collaboration, and distribution, owing to the user-generated content and input, on such websites as Youtube. I think it is an incredibly informative and thoughtful piece of presented research, and in particular relevance and interest to my work, is the study of webcam performances.

Within the first few minutes of this 55 min presentation, is an example of the potential power of Youtube and the Internet to make content go viral – and that is of course the 'Numa Numa Dance' by Gary Brolsma. Wonderfully described as single-handedly justifying the existence of webcams, Brolsma's recorded and shared performance, marks the beginning of global video sharing, responding, and re-mixing (over 58,000 tributes have appeared to Brolsma's original video).

The topic to really mention though, is Wesch's discussion on the experience of an individual communicating with a webcam, and the notion of context collapse (you can't judge the context of what you're presenting if you have no idea when and who by, it will be viewed) – "as if everybody is watching, but nobody is there" – an experience which is very private (often made in a bedroom) and also  very public – with the potential to be seen by the whole world. And on top of this is then the likelihood that you will watch back what you present, and this then results in a 'hyper self-awareness'. Watch this on Wesch's video above for a better explanation: a good bit from 21.26, but definitely watch 24.55 to 28.05.

Insofar as the videos that I intend to produce under the online persona of Gorgeous George, Wesch's research gives me encouragement, as it champions the user generated and home-made content, and shows that there is potential, however difficult, to acquire a select or even mass audience. But also the matter of self-awareness found through webcam use, is fitting to my proposed aims to explore the varying versions of public and private self. How will my presented Gorgeous Georgeo character alter over the course of producing and re-viewing a video blog?