Viral Videos

Burgess talks about how viral videos create community. People interact through these videos, whether it be with a video response or with a comment. Burgess talks about the reproducibility of viral videos, and how each is sort of a sample or appropriation, just like music. Both of the videos that were mentioned were music. They were reproduced and there were spoofs of them, and this is what created a dialogue and a community with these videos, according to Burgess. Drax seemed to take a similar approach to the use of the internet. He also believed that it created a community. He thought it was a way for the community to become informed in a more accessible way. Both Drax and Burgess think that it is a way for people to become involved and to interact. The videos that Burgess wrote about and Drax's videos did elicit a different response from me. I thought Chocolate Rain was interesting and I would likely tell other people to watch it. But I wouldn't tell people to watch the Drax videos. The second life made me uncomfortable and it made me afraid that that is where we are all headed, only communicating through the internet, not just using it to laugh at funny videos.