Media Meditation #2: A Digital Stage

These are the faces of the front runners of the derrick comedy sketch team. We have Dominic on the left, DC in the middle, and Donald on the right. There are two other 'main' players, Dan and Meggie, but they are more behind the scenes whereas the three pictured are the biggest actors.

A comedy team who got their start with wildly popular YouTube videos, derrick comedy has released an independent film which showed at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival called Mystery Team (derrick's link to the movie seems to be broken at the moment). I've seen it, it's pretty great.

You might know their popular sketch 'Bro Rape' with almost 8 million views on the exalted YouTube:

One of my personal favorites, however (don't get me wrong, Bro Rape is absolutely hilarious), is this:

Those are two great examples, but they have dozens of skits available on their website and on YouTube.

So, how do these guys fit into our media culture? Well, they got their popularity on YouTube, a digital platform. Comedy troupes usually start out on stage at local venues, but nowadays the internet works just the same. The aesthetic shift to convergence can be seen here as platforms for expression, even literal platforms like stages, are changing standards from local sources that limit publicity to digital sources that expand publicity to before impossible limits!

They use humor in absurd ways to persuade viewers to watch more. The outlandish acts of the people being played are hilarious, not entirely out of this world, and thus so engaging. Kevin bribed his film class to play more of his own work that is just a large hate statement against (M)Belanie. The credits of each film attribute outrageous things such as, "Suffering by: Kevin. Jeremy bribed by: Kevin." and so on. Haha, right? Right.

The idea that all media are construction is true, but why does it always have to be in a negative way? When making these sketches I can't see the crew brainstorming ideas on how to manipulate viewers to gain as many views as possible, but rather expressions of comedic ideas that were successful in entertaining their audience.

What would Carr say of derrick's rise to popularity? Were they appreciated by a mass of dull eyed zombies or a mass of people looking to be entertained, a group of people who do know what they are looking at and have a reason for it?

This screams about the technological shift of our world. Derrick took the standards of 'ANALOG' sketch performing and changed it to 'DIGITAL' by joining the early wave of funnies that swarmed YouTube over the last several years.

Unfortunately much more simple and, in my opinion, usually less humorous videos are the ones topping the view charts. Thankfully YouTube views don't correlate too directly into cash...yet.