Nobody Sings in the Library: a Look at Internet Videos

In today’s society, I think it would be difficult to find a person who had not at least heard of the concept of ‘youtube’ or ‘video posting’ on the internet. This type of communication has been spreading quickly over the last decade. With the introduction of the internet, people from all over the globe were now able connect with one another in a quick and relatively inexpensive manner. This access to new avenues of communication required a medium in which the communication could occur. At first, e-mail seemed to be the preferable mode of conversation. Unfortunately, this medium appealed only to those who are fluent with the keyboard and know the e-mail addresses of the one, or possibly many, specific persons they wish to contact. With the internet spreading to so many people, the idea that one must already know the location of audience they wish to address was too limiting.
Enter ‘Video Blogging’ and ‘YouTube’.
With these other mediums of communication, people are now able not only to access an audience that they do not already know personally, but to share more than just words on a page. Posting an online video allows people to share texts, images, videos and sounds. For people who cannot adequately express their emotions or feelings with text, the act of video recording themselves and posting it on the internet solves that problem. To help illustrate my point, I will use an example from our class. The video of Chris Crocker pleading with America to leave Britney Spears alone was able to convey a more powerful message than if he had merely written the words in a text post. Had he simply written a letter or posted a blog, the emotional factor which gained him so much publicity would have been lost altogether.
In Convergences, Sara Tucker states that webcams could have four possible agendas. They could be used for public safety, passive advertisement, exhibitionism, or as a new type of self-disciplinary method. I believe that the majority of webcam videos fall under the category of exhibitionism. Whether the video is of a city, person, animal, or nothing, it is placed on the internet to be viewed. Dictionary.com defines exhibit as “to offer or expose to view; to place on show; to explain; to display.” If a video was not meant to do any or all of these things, than it wouldn’t be posted on the internet.
The video I will be analyzing in this essay blog will be the first one embedded above though I may also reference the second one for supporting details. In this video, a young man spontaneously bursts out in song in the middle of an unsuspecting library. Half-way through his song, a young lady who at first appears to be just another spectator stands up and joins him in song and choreography. The video itself seems very much like a movie clip from a musical where all the people in the scene join together in song and dance, already knowing the lyrics and dance moves, though most of them have never met before. The second video is almost exactly the same except for its location, which is a college classroom during a lecture.
Due to the location of the two videos, these videos are primarily intended for college students, or people who have been to school and understand the act of going to classes and studying in libraries. If one has never been to a college lecture class or to a library to study, the humor in a witnessing a faux pas so extravagant as disrupting a professor to sing a song or singing a duet in an otherwise silent location would be lost. The video was produced as a source of entertainment much like the T.V. series ‘Punked’. Though I’m sure not everyone at the library that day enjoyed the disruption, watching the situation unfold on the computer provides an excellent source of entertainment for internet viewers. On one level, the message seems to be, and I quote, “Nobody sings in the library. Nobody here makes a peep.” On a deeper level, this video’s message is to challenge the accepted norms of society. I think that the video’s cultural significance parallels with the message. It is significant because these people did challenge the unwritten rules society imposes on itself. By interrupting a class to express a feeling of joy and to sing out at the top of their lungs in a library, these students show that not every unwritten rule is set in stone. They challenge societal authority, and they do it in a humorous way.
As before mentioned in this paper, I believe that all internet videos fall under the category Sara Tucker would call exhibitionism. And I believe this video is no exception. If it was not meant to be exhibited, it would not be on the internet. Though sometimes videos are not publicized by the people the video focuses on, someone posted the video, and they posted it to be seen. In an essay titled, On Acting, the author presents the idea that actors “need the approbation of an audience.” He suggests that people, beginning at infantry, have what are termed “narcissistic needs” which include the human desire to attract and influence onlookers. This video seems to fit into this category of human desire, and the internet provides an excellent medium for this attention seeking, exhibitionist movement.
Seeing this event in video form makes a stronger point than if one were to simply read about the incident in a newspaper or magazine later. By witnessing the event unfold in front of our own eyes, we are able to catch the subtle expressions of onlookers faces and other details that would have been left out had this story been shared by text alone. Hearing and seeing this event allows the viewer to experience what is happening instead of just being told about the event from someone else’s perception of it. It also allows us the experience this unique occurrence as many times as we want.
Through the use of videos that are posted on the internet, people are able to expand their horizons and witness things they might otherwise never be able to witness.


Bibliography

1. Atwan, R. (2004). Convergences: Message, Method, Medium. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
2. exhibit. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved October 04, 2007, from
Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exhibit
3. On Acting (in The TDR Document Series; On The Psychology of Acting)
Otto Fenichel The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 4, No. 3. (Mar., 1960), pp. 148-159. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0886800X%28196003%294%3A3%3C1 48%3AOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U