Watch Me Do This and That Online By SARAH BOXER nytimes

The New York Times
July 25, 2005
Watch Me Do This and That Online
By SARAH BOXER

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.

For instance, Rocketboom, an amusing and ambitious vlog posted by Ms.
Congdon, looks like Weekend Update, the newscast on "Saturday Night Live."
Ms. Congdon has a wry look. She sits at a table in front of a map reading
reports off sheets of paper. She tosses them after she's finished. She has
correspondents in the field (who do things like give away the ending to the
latest Harry Potter book), and she wears cute, nerdy glasses. She recently
asked her audience to start sending her story ideas.

Another vlog, the Carol and Steve Show, in which a married couple offer up
the tedium of their daily lives - shopping, driving to the gym, arguing
about "American Idol" - has stolen its type and its theme music from the
land of sitcoms. It wants to sell out, but who would buy? Maybe a laugh
track would help.

One of the most winning vlogs is the 05 Project, the work of an 18-year-old
in Keynes, England, Ian Mills, who has promised to post a video a day all
year. He begins almost every short video by moving close to the camera and
addressing the audience with a sweet formality, "Okay, so today. …"

In January, he showed the inside of his closet to prove he doesn't have just
one set of clothes, but two. In February, he filmed a stuffed kangaroo
seeking directions from a stuffed teddy bear sitting in front of a microwave
oven. In March there was a video of a fire, with this note: "Damn im so glad
i went to my grandparent's house today. If i hadn't, i wouldn't have seen
this."

But now the 05 Project is beginning to look a lot like "Fear Factor," minus
the fearlessness. In June, when Mr. Mills found his well of ideas running
dry, he asked his audience for challenges: an easy one, a moderate one and a
hard one. In each "Challenge Ian" episode, he recites the three challenges,
chooses one, and then makes a video of himself doing it.

One of his most charming features is that he always takes the easy
challenge. "I'm not going to slam my fingers in the door," he said, in one
episode. "This isn't 'Jackass,' " he said, referring to the television show.

So far, he has drunk a pint of raw eggs and vomited; jumped into a wading
pool fully clothed; and spun around until he was dizzy. It doesn't sound
like much. But Mr. Mills has a great sense of pacing and drama. He has Conan
O'Brien's direct delivery and David Letterman's deadpan. In short, he has
television charisma.

Right now it seems that video bloggers can't agree what vlogs are exactly,
and some of them want to keep it that way. "What's the rush to define it
now?" Mr. Verdi asks in his video manifesto. "It would be like trying to
pick a career and a mate for a newborn."

But indeed, the newborn seems to have picked its mate. Congratulations. It's
television!



–
Lee Wells
Brooklyn, NY 11222

http://www.leewells.org
917 723 2524