My essay on Vlogging

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February 14, 2005, the URL youtube.com was registered for the first time ever. On April 23, a few months later, the very first video was uploaded to the site, and the site officially launched in November of that very same year. Now in 2013, Youtube has become much more than just a website for sharing new videos and uploading goofy videos of yourself and your friends. Two annual Youtube Conventions- Playlist Live held in Orlando, FL and Vidcon in Anaheim, CA- with a brand new film festival dedicated to just Youtube content and it’s creators, Buffer Festival in Toronto, Canada, bring together content creators and their fans for face to face interactions, and celebrate the brilliance of youtube. Along with these new, innovative conventions to bring together the youtubers and youtube enthusiasts alike, came the creation of Vlogging (video blogging). While Vlogging began back in 2000, vlogging has exploded over the last couple of years and it can easily be said to have become the new reality television. Reality television is not reality television anymore. The vlog has redefined it to actually be the documentation of real life, the ordinary and the extraordinary events of life rather than the loosely scripted shows to enhance the ‘realness’ of the situations reality tv film. Popularized by youtubers such as Charles and Alli Trippy of the  channel Internet Killed Television, Shay Carl Butler of the channel Shaytards and Apprentice A productions (with their vlogging channel Apprentice Eh, vlogging is a new wave of entertainment that is becoming a phenomena.

Vlogging is the evolved form of personal blogging, the internet equivalent to the diary/journal. Blogging involves the discussion about day to day, month to month, year to year activities and events, the good and the bad, the insignificant and the significant. It can also involve thoughts around social, political, and economic events that the author of the blog finds to be interesting and important.  Vlogging has taken that concept and moved into video format, with the length of videos ranging from 3 minutes to 20+ minutes (pushing an hour long with the greatly important events such as the weddings of two vloggers, and holidays). It’s slowly taken over as the new television, specifically reality television. Reality television shows are mocks of real life. They put people in situations where they usually have to outlast their fellow cast mates with the promise of large amounts of money and, to a degree, fame if they make it to the end of the season without being voted off. With shows like Amazing Race, teams of two are put against each other, travel the world, and complete tasks in order to advanced to the next round. This a perfect example of how reality tv is scripted. Another example of scripted reality tv is with the show Big Brother. Cast members are put in a house together and the last one in the house is the winner. With this, comes task for power in the house for a length of time. Most people have come to realized how scripted reality tv with these shows, especially if it seems that one particular team or person seem to be getting an advantage over others. Survivor is a harder show to see as scripted, but with the challenges that are created for the tribes to compete in, it is scripted to a degree. The additions of the challenges in certain reality tv shows takes away the realness of the show, making it seem rigged at certain points of the show. That’s not what reality means. It means the real, unexpected events that take place. Vlogging, literally, is just the day to day activity of a person or persons. The internet has evolved to take everything that people love about television, and put it on sites such as youtube. The internet literally killed television because people can easily find episodes of their favorite shows or their favorite movies uploaded to sites like youtube. Vlogging has taken reality tv and literally made it about real life, real events, real people. While the people in reality tv shows like Survivor and Amazing Race are real and not actors, certain situations they go through are not. Vlogging has taken the idea of putting real life people in typically theoretical situations and made them real, except for the idea of being put into a deserted island situation to see what happens. It’s simply the documentation of a person’s day to day activities rather than the staged challenges and the set up drama that is reality television.

Youtube in general has people from all over the world that have hit fame status, all through one viral video from person to person. Some of these people have kept their viral status and become youtube celebrities, famous in their own rights. A lot of them have started second channels, connected to their original channels, for vlogs, whether they be random, monthly, weekly, or even daily. People sit down and watch their vlogs, wanting a look into their day to day lives and actually enjoy them. The Internet Killed Television is the vlog channel for Charles and Alli Trippy, a married couple out of Bradenton, Florida. Charles began making youtube videos while he worked at a movie theatre, using downtime during shows to do so. He and Alli had grown up in the same places, knew the same people, and even went to school in the same areas, but did not know each other until Myspace. They had started dating in December of 2008, right around Christmas time, and began vlogging together in May of 2009. On October 5, 2009, 3,889, 069 people watched their daily vlog where they got engaged in Valencia, Spain (recorded on October 4, 2009), where Alli was doing a study abroad program for college(Surprise Marriage Proposal in Spain!!!). 5 years later, Charles and Alli were given the Guinness Book of World Records for having uploaded a youtube video every single day for the past 5 years without missing a day, while Charles was in New York City  in August of 2013 and hit one million subscribers to date (that number has since risen to 1.1 million and continues to rise). Shay Carl is another famous youtuber who does youtube full time, along with his wife Colette, and his kids, who go by stage names ending with ‘Tard’ (Sontard, Princesstard, Babytard, Rocktard, and child number 5 on the way who has not gotten a name yet). The Shaytards channel is one of the most watched vlog channels on youtube, having hit one million subscribers in December of 2012, right around Christmas/ New Years Eve. Interesting enough, Shay and his family are not shy about talking about their religion on camera (they belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or Mormon for short), where others may keep that aspect of their lives private. Prank vs Prank is a channel run by a couple named Jessie and Jeana of Phillidelphia. They are well known on youtube for posting videos of them pulling pranks on each other, and the world. Jessie and Jeana have over 3 million subscribers on their main channel and have over 2 million subscribers on their daily vlog channel. There are a vast number of youtubers that people watch  daily vlogs on youtube and they’ve done it for long enough where the viewers actually consider themselves friends with those youtubers, many of whom viewers have yet to meet in person. The title of Charles and Alli’s vlog channel rings true, The Internet Killed Television because people are starting to watch shows and movies on youtube, and also they are starting (slowly but surely) to watch these peoples’ daily lives. Vlogging has become the new reality television. 

In January of 2013, Shay Carl Butler of the Shaytards and Corey Vidal of Apprentice A productions (another youtuber who hit viral status in 2008 with his video Star Wars Acapella (John Williams is the Man) and runs the Canadian based youtube company) announced the creation of Vlogumentary (then titled I’m Vlogging Here!) and launched an Indiegogo page to raise money for Corey and his team to travel to America and spend 6 months here filming the documentary. Vlogumentary, in short, is a documentary film created to define vlogging, how Youtube Creator became a viable job choice, and how vlogging has changed the industry of Youtube. Corey and his team, who also filmed Charles and Alli’s wedding (which was nicknamed the royal wedding of youtube), reached their goal by the end of the month of $180,000 and surpassed it by nearly $22,000. In March of 2013, Corey and his team traveled from Toronto, Canada to Los Angeles, California and on March 5, 2013, they began shooting for the documentary on the 5 year anniversary of the Shaytards, before traveling to Orlando, FL for Playlist Live (and to shoot B roll for the documentary). After Playlist Live ended, they kicked off a three month road trip across the United States in Sarasota, FL with Charles and Alli Trippy and ended back in Los Angeles, in June of 2013. In August, as two of the last main stage events at VidCon, Corey, Shay, and Apprentice A shot the last few B roll shots. One shot was of We the Kings, the band that Charles Trippy plays bass, playing one of their largest shows to date, with 9,000+ people screaming, chanting, and singing right along with them. They also released the trailer for Vlogumentary (which had gotten the Green Band from the Motion Picture Association of America (mpaa) only about a week before), and released the trailer on youtube at the exact same time. In this trailer, We the Kings new single Just Keep Breathing is featured as the music (We the Kings will be providing music for the film). A line at the end of the trailer really brings to mind what youtube is all about. “If you can turn on a camera, for one minute and make a connection with ONE person, you’re a youtuber” (Alli Trippy Vlogumentary trailer). Youtube isn’t about reaching celebrity status. No one on youtube ever expected to reach that. Youtube is about making videos, having fun, and connecting with people. Even the people who have only a handful of subscribers on their channels are youtubers. 

Vlogging has become the new reality tv. It has taken over the concept of reality tv, and redefined it so that reality really does mean reality. “Youtube is not just the future of entertainment, it’s the present of entertainment” (Chris Pirillo Vlogumentary Trailer). People are moving away from tv and moving towards youtube, discovering the side of youtube that isn’t the cat videos and the music videos for their favorite band or pop singer. They’re discovering the skits and the short films of the Youtube community and through that, they are discovering Vlogging. Vlogging is the new ‘Big Brother’, so to speak, and it’s a phenomena that is not going to be dying out any time soon.