Critic's Notebook Watch Me Do This and That Online By SARAH BOXER July 25, 2005
Can you vlog a dead horse? Only if you make a video of it and post it on the Web. After blogging came photo blogging and then, suddenly last year, video blogging. Video bloggers, also known as vloggers, are people who regularly post videos on the Internet, creating primitive shows for anyone who cares to watch. Some vlogs are cooking shows, some are minidocumentaries, some are mock news programs and some are almost art films. Most simply are records of ordinary life. The Das Vlog recently demonstrated the virtues of urinating in the bathroom sink. Village Girl has posted a video of her 2-year-old dancing with a friend. Josh Leo taped himself browsing through his old baby pictures and art projects. (The first book he wrote as a child, "No," is excellent.) Fat Girl From Ohio is a man blogging largely about his wife's pregnancy. As the video blog Reality Sandwich recently put it in a video of vegetable shopping, quoting a mantra of the vlogosphere: "Hey ... mundane is the new punk." At this point the video blogging world is still small enough that all vloggers appear to know one another and show up in one another's work. For instance, two vloggers, Amanda Congdon and Richard Hall, recently met and their encounter was vlogged and blogged on at least three different sites, from more than one perspective. Michael Verdi, who wrote Vlog Anarchy, a manifesto, has two young daughters, Lauren and Dylan, both with video blogs. (Lauren shows off her Brownie badges; Dylan plays with Neopets.com and talks about a boy who can't get her name right.) Already, though, it's beginning to look a lot like television, at least in spots. Some vlogs even share television's worries, chief among them the burden of coming up with fresh programming on a regular basis. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/arts/25vlog.html?ex=1279944000&en=12e15e136db19f0c&ei=5090 Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _______________________________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
