The biggest problem I seem to be
having with my life at the moment (indulge my teenage melodrama, please) is
that there are just so many options and opportunities out there for me. One
minute I want to be able to work every minute and be sent to all different
places, the next I want a job where I hardly have to leave the house. Both are,
interestingly enough, possible. As far as journalism goes, I haven’t decided
what field I’m more inclined to, mostly because I could do any or all of it.
Reporting at the moment holds strong appeal, but I also would love to be a
foreign correspondent, or a radio announcer (and continue with what I’m doing
right now), or work in entertainment (which would probably be more sci-fi and
nerdy stars than the normal stuff although I would love either!), or my
original plan to work in print media. Even the notion I had a few years ago of
being a travel journalist (Get Away seems
like a dream come true gig to me, always has) keeps popping up in my head. But
this lecture pointed me back in the direction I had intended when enrolling for
journalism at university. Do what I love – that seems to be the best piece of
advice I could ever receive.
So our last lecture as I said was
very relaxed, mostly because we had a special guest Steve Molks (though his
last name is much longer and complicated so we’ll stick to Molks) who is the
creator of the fastly flourishing entertainment blog MolksTVTalk.
Now I’m rather fond of blogs. I read
a couple, but I certainly following vlogging (video blogging, mostly on
YouTube) a lot more avidly, possibly even religiously. Even then, I hadn’t
heard of this MolksTVTalk. Which is a shame, because I’ve looked around the
website and it’s actually really good and a wonderful concept. Much for helpful
than anything on TV actually.
What I found most helpful and
wonderful was seeing the creator in person and hearing his story, knowledge and
advice. Because he made a name for himself and will continue to do so; exactly
my type of role model.
Now blogs are definitely a different
type of media, but are also a rapidly growing market for journalism. It’s a
journalist playground out there to tell you the truth, be you a professional
one or simply citizen. Take the blog Mamamia
for example. That started out as a blog from a mother’s perspective and now
it’s become an actual business with thousands of people traffic on the site.
Heck, the other week the creator Mia Freedman had the Prime Minister of Australia use her computer to do a Q&A
session on the website over public (mostly parental) concern over the changes
in the Federal Budget.
But what makes a blog good? Well
apparently its duration is a big thing. People want to know you are reliable
and consistent. It’s hard to stay committed when an update is once every few
months. If a blog can be updated frequently, even routinely, for 5 years with
good quality material (of course) than it will be going somewhere. Blogs are
also fantastic in the sense that it is completely personal (well if you so
choose it to be). You don’t have a word limit, it is a source where all the
extra information you find can be shared. Heck, if a journalist did an
interview with someone for TV, edited it and had a lot of extras, even
bloopers, a blog would be a great place for that stuff (with permission from
your boss and the person interviewed, obviously).
Of course if you have a blog that is
completely you, you are the publisher. This is fantastic because you control
the message being sent out there, but it is also comes down to you for
responsibility. How you represent yourself will have an input as to where you
end up, and that can be a good or bad thing, depending.
The main points I jotted down from
the lecture were these:
o
Journalism is not dead
o
Be my own publisher
o
Get a job/gig now
Like I said, when I left this lecture
I had all sorts of plans and ideas running through my mind. I’d actually like to put one of them into
fruition and a blog seems to be the perfect way to do that. So I’m heading to
the drawing board, putting as many ideas together as I can and who knows, maybe
one day I’ll be talking about my successful blog and where it has lead me to
some eager journalism students. The world is funny like that.
(I'm also briefly going to mention that because of MolksTVTalk I found a great Aussie sitcom called Outland above a group of sci-fi geeks who just so happen to be gay. So that's a wonderful thing.)
Attempt
at a minor case study
I feel that there is an example of
blogging to celebrity status that I should mention due to the topic of this
blog. I’ve actually referenced them a number of times. The bloggers I am
talking about are actually YouTube vloggers (video bloggers) – the vlogbrothers
to be exact.
The vlogbrothers consist of John
Green (popular young adult author) and his younger brother Hank Green (who just
does everything, I can’t really narrow it down, but one thing is his own record
label for internet talents). They have millions of hits and hundreds of thousands
of subscribers and what they do, essentially, is record videos of themselves
being themselves and looking at the world.
John Green (our left) and Hank Green (our right) doing their signature nerdfighter hand signal.
It started off as a vlog to each
other. They gave up textual communication (mobile texting, email, that sort of
thing) and would alternate each day for a year (with the exception of weekends)
to each other about whatever they felt like. I think it was an interesting idea
and a way of bonding – and they achieved it with such success and enjoyment
from both sides that they continued for a second year. This time only update
three days a week, alternating the days again. It was soon that they got a
particular audience who associated with their nerdy ways and brilliant minds,
and thus the nerdfighters were founded! (Note: nerdfighters are nerds who band
together to fight against not-awesome things, rather than people who fight
nerds). And since then, everything has just sort of expanded on its own.
Currently the vlogbrothers have been
running for five years. They still vlog weekly, get thousands of hits and get
up to all kinds of mischief. They have been invited to NASA and Pixar and have
celebrities who follow them (Wil Wheaton is a nerdfighter!). They have even set
up an annual tour (the tour de nerdfighting) which goes to a bunch of different
cities in America each year where vloggers can get together and do random,
nerdy and wonderful things and meet other fantastic vloggers and followers.
John has now had several bestselling novels, his latest The Fault In Our Stars can be found on shelves in common bookstores
here in Australia now. Hank has a few successful businesses running out of
nerdfighteria (the name given to the place where nerdfighters should live – its
basically the name for the internet community of nerdfighters) including a
record label and two very popular self-made albums of his own.
Probably the coolest thing they do is
raise thousands of dollars for charity. As soon as they mention a charity and
how we can help, thousands of dedicated fans who just want to do good, be
awesome and decrease world-suck (which is the foundation of what attracts people
to being a nerdfighter) will donate money or time or effort and do whatever
they can to help.
In fact, this is basically how Project
for Awesome started. Project for Awesome is something you might have actually
noticed but confused about. Essentially it is a weekend in which people flood
YouTube with videos about charities to spread awareness. What you do is you
choose a charity that you want to talk about and think people should know
about, make a video about it, use a pre-made picture for the Project for
Awesome as your thumbnail and on that weekend you upload with the thousands of
other people. Then that weekend is spent watching and commenting on those
videos in the hopes of spreading awareness and taking over YouTubes from page
of ‘most watched’ (which is an old design of YouTube now). And it worked, every
year. And at the end of the weekend there are five charities chosen by the
vlogbrothers where the funds they have raised throughout the year will go to in
a way of helping the charities. That’s thousands of dollars. But each charity
gets help because there is awareness and nerdfighters of their own accord
donate money to all of them if they so wish it.
Here's a video in which Hank explains the Project for Awesome a whole lot better than I do. It's from the latest Project for Awesome, which was last year. Be on the look out for this year's one at the end of the year.
So blogging and vlogging are powerful
tools. They can create communities, and in the case of the vlogbrothers,
communities that support and expand themselves without the need of their
creators. I think the biggest thing that makes blogging and vlogging so attractive
to the eyes of the public is that people can be themselves, find others who
agree and just run away with it.
The vlogbrothers are my idols and its
partly because of them that I intend to be a journalist. They're slogan is DFTBA, which stands for Don't Forget To Be Awesome, and not only do I think that is the greatest goal ever, it is one I have set for myself.
DFTBA!
No comments:
Post a Comment