Believe it or not, you will always be a part of me.

–Reid.

This afternoon I saw a preview screening of the latest Harry Potter Movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I thought the acting was particularly good. I thought Hermione in particular had improved from previous movies in the series. The new potions teacher was perfect for the part, despite his lack of a “walrus-like” mustache.

The screening was held to support families of children who are suffering from a very difficult disease or any other sort of constant-attention-needing ailment. One of the actors was there in support of this. Very neat.

They’re splitting the next and final book into two movies. Loren (who came with me) and I were trying to figure out how they’ll split it up. We couldn’t think of anything particularly climactic in the middle of the book. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll move things around or invent some sort of cliffhanger.

–Reid.

Won’t be leaving the hospital today. Won’t be leaving tomorrow. Amylace and Lipace are trending up, the wrong way.

Bummer.

Stupid universe.

–Reid.

Several months ago, my sketch comedy group Better Than The Machine was courted to submit several sketches to a new show on the CW Network called Online Nation. The show was lauded as a television showcase for user generated web content. It was canceled after only four episodes.

When Online Nation was canceled, no one was really surprised, except maybe these guys. Though advertised as “the hottest online videos in one place,” Online Nation was watched by almost no one. For its fourth and final episode, the show courted only 2% of the viewing audience of 18-49 year olds watching TV.

There are a few very basic reasons why no one watched the show. At the most basic level, the appeal of viral web videos is that they can be watched any time, anywhere, and as many times as someone wants to watch them. Despite all of the promotional smoke blown by the CW, most popular online videos are not hard to find and are not encumbered by popup ads.

Additionally, a lot of the best web videos have teeth to them. Sure, there are some funny videos in which a rodent looks menacingly at the camera, but there are also a lot of great viral videos that contain swearing, violence, and suggestive themes. When the CW decided to put Online Nation at 7:30 PM on Sunday evenings, they made a decision to try to wedge all the videos they used into the mold of “family programming”. Many sketches were passed over for not being appropriate, and many that did appear were cut bizzarely. The show was often described as America’s Funniest Home Videos for Generation Y. However, most of the Internet is more like the real Bob Saget, rather than TV’s Bob Saget.

These fundamental flaws of the show beat out the fundamental selling points, which it turns out, were hugely exploitative of online video producers. Before its first episode, a friend of mine who is “in the industry” postulated that no matter how bad Online Nation turned out to be, the CW would keep it going because it cost almost nothing to make (it turns out it was too bad even for that). We were paid a small fee for our videos, but most producers were paid significantly less–or, in most cases, nothing.

Furthermore, no one was credited correctly. Our videos were all credited to names like “Reid from NY” and “Christina R”, despite weekly discussions with the producers about how this was unacceptable. Our friends A Week Of Kindness were credited as “Mike from Brooklyn,” and the The Secret Circus was credited as “Dave from NY”. There have been many, many more complaints of this.

All the videos were also all given new names that were very different from what they were actually called. For instance, How To Court A Woman became Dating For Dummies. This meant that, in the off chance that someone saw one of our videos on television and wanted to learn more about us, it would be impossible with the information Online Nation presented. This was bad for us–but even worse for the majority of video producers who were promised payment only in the form of “national publicity”. If no one knows your name or the name of your short, that’s not publicity.

Unfortunately, this represents an ongoing trend in the Internet-to-Television transition that many networks are trying to pull off. Over the summer, we produced content for the short-lived MTV sketch comedy show Short Circuitz, but were only credited for one submission–the rest of our work was credited to “Thrust Beefheart”. I don’t know whether networks think that crediting groups of people who produce content gives the impression that they’re not really made by “ordinary people” and are therefore less appealing to viewers, or if they simply get off on not giving people proper credit.

Networks see the power and popularity of viral videos as the next great product to harness. This is especially appealing to them because of the perceived built-in audiences that many viral videos appear to have and also the almost-nothing cost of putting already existing videos on TV. However, networks do not entirely seem to understand why viral videos are popular or how they spread. Worse yet, they seem to see the producers of Internet content as so desperate to get on TV that they will give up due payment, publicity, and even credit for their work just to get on.

The worst part is, they’re probably right about the producers of these videos. Whether or not these shows do well, I have a feeling that we’re only just seeing the beginnings of them emerging. And despite all the inherent problems with watching web videos on the television that I detailed above, I would still say with great certainty that most viral video producers would consider being on TV a huge step up–even if no one knew they had a part in it.

–Reid.

While walking around Pace today I all of a sudden felt very old and creepy. Maybe it’s because I just got my alumni ID card.

Maybe it’s because I’m old and creepy.

When did they start letting people into college so young?

–Reid.

Welcome to my new home on the web.  I’ll be adding some content soon.  Stay tuned!

–Reid.