The Lessonstream Blog » YouTube potato

Everything is a Remix

Jamie Keddie — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:42:13 +0000

On a number of occasions I’ve seen teachers share, with apparent enthusiasm, a site called Copyright Kids. I’ve never liked it. And I really can’t imagine that kids do either, even if the mascot is a cool-looking cat who wears sunglasses.

Larry Lessig (second last video on the page) asserts that outdated copyright laws have turned our children into criminals. Kirby Ferguson would seem to echo that in his recently-completed Everything is a Remix series.

Finally, two TED talks worth watching – the first is an early one from 2007 by campaigner Larry Lessig:

The second is from earlier this year. Teacher-writer Clay Shirky talks about SOPA and PIPA:

A brief history of the Nyan Cat

Jamie Keddie — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:27:38 +0000

On the 2nd of April 2011, Nyan Cat was launched into (cyber)space by PRguitarman. This is the sort of thing that young people do these days. I used to make Airfix model planes. Is there much of a difference?

Nyan Cat is a happy little guy. He has the the body of a cherry Pop-Tart and leaves an unbroken stream of rainbow fart wherever he goes. Originally, he cruised through the cosmos in silence. The catchy music that you hear was added by saraj00n just three days after launch date (note that as well as getting involved in pointless practices, young people these days don’t have normal names). This was not a planned collaboration. PRguitarman and saraj00n had never met before.

Nyan Cat proved to be very popular with the kids and the YouTube video went viral. But young people these days aren’t passive consumers. Since the happy digital feline was created, hundreds of remakes, remixes, parodies and mashups have been uploaded onto YouTube. Here are some of my favourites:

The Nyan Cat is an example of an Internet meme. Internet memes have a habit of coming together in diverse and unpredictable ways. Watch the following two videos and you will see what I mean:

Despite the fact that Nyan Cat was born only 4 months ago, it is most likely that his time is up. He now joins the Internet meme hall of fame where he can mingle with other stars such as dramatic chipmunk, badger badger badger and the sneezing panda.

Animated interviews

Jamie Keddie — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:02:52 +0000

Video-sharing culture has given visual life to a number of audio interviews from yesteryear. Here are my three favourites:

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatles fan called Jerry Levitan sneaked into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, the recording was edited down to 5 minutes and illustrated.

Here is an interview with Salavdor Dalí. I’ve no idea what it’s all about but it’s strangely captivating.

Only 271 no-hitters have been recorded in Major League Baseball. In this radio interview with Doc Ellis, pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the player talks about the famous 1970 no-hitter that he threw against the San Diego Padres while under the influence of LSD.