In Kevin Kelly's article Becoming Screen Literate he mentions the massive amounts of uploads on the photo sharing site Flickr. He says there are 3 billion photos on the site of which 200,000 alone are of the Golden Gate Bridge. With this incredibly large number of photos Kelly points out "there is really no reason to take a new picture of this bridge. It's been done." This is his key point. Why not use the resources we have and add to them to create something new? Millions of people have already been asked this question and answered via mash-ups on the web. Mixing and re-inventing anything and everything that is out there and posting their creations on Youtube.
One such sensation was the recent Pants on the Ground epidemic from American Idol Season 9's Larry Platt. This 62 year old man's audition song was a catchy but ridiculous chant that quickly spread across the internet reaching millions in lightning speed. Those living on the West coast saw "Pants on the Ground" before American Idol had even aired because of those on the East coast who saw it first and catapulted it to the web. Soon everyone was familiar with the song and began replicating it like Jimmy Fallon and Brett Favre.
Now you might be thinking "What's the point of pants on the ground?". Well their isn't one with the song itself but as soon as the song was aired, multiplied, and replicated it changed from pointless to powerful. This explosion of exposure used pants on the ground to connect our society. People who had never met before could now start a conversation with the words pants on the ground and have complete understanding of what the other was talking about(unless they somehow missed this epic sensation- very unlikely). Anyway, mash-ups and remixes help create unity among people while using resources we already have. Kelly points out:
"After all, this is how authors work. We dip into a finite
set of established words, called a dictionary, and reassemble
these found words into articles, novels, and poems that no
one has ever seen before. ...What we do now with words, we'll
soon do with images."
This phenomenon has already begun and taken off. The results are endless as we can see on the constantly growing video warehouse YouTube. People can now create something by using other's material and putting a new spin on it. Through these mash ups we can see several different points of view on one topic. I think mixes are a fun way to get something new out of something old.
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Great insights in this post. I love the example you chose because it is a case of how television shows are not just television shows anymore... they spread out and become popular through the Internet and other media. As you say: "as soon as the song was aired, multiplied, and replicated it changed from pointless to powerful." It seems like what the song lacks in meaning or quality is made up in quantity and crowd-sourcing. And, that might be a clue about how viewers like to experience TV through participation and social media. That's the point you make: "This explosion of exposure used pants on the ground to connect our society." Honestly, that element of communal experience is almost totally absent from Kelly's article, but I think it's definitely a key to screen literacy.
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