“Crank Dat ROFLcon” was made at ROFLcon by Kevin Driscoll during his presentation, “Work it, Move it, Bang it, Bump it: Crank Dat Online Dance Craze“. The presentation talks about Soulja Boy Tell Em’s rise to stardom via his heavy use of online video on YouTube, his fan interactions, his community, his music and the encouragement to learn the infamous dance and put videos on YouTube. You could think of the entire thing as an hour long interactive advertisement of the success of Soulja Boy. At the end it was capped off by everyone (myself included) attempting to learn the dance, and it was videotaped for putting back up on YouTube. We did a really bad job, but it’s a funny video with some kinda big internet people in it, including Bre Pettis, iJustine, Brookers and other totally cool people!
Hundreds, if not thousands of videos get taken down from YouTube daily. What’s the problem? Isn’t this a copyright violation as the takedown notice claims? Well yes, it could be viewed as a copyright violation. Yet, the slap in the face comes from the fact that Soulja Boy (or more presumably his record company and lawyers) need to remember where they are coming from. Without YouTube this kid would be nothing. Without people making videos of themselves dancing to his video, he would be nothing. This video wasn’t an attempt as disenfranchising Soulja Boy, or taking revenue from his record company. This is what made him famous. These are his fans. These people in the crowd ARE the influences. Copyright violation or not, its also the encouraged norm for his videos and music. In his own music video he even shows himself dancing in front of a huge screen with people’s home-made videos playing behind him. Half of his videos are about people learning his dance and spreading it online. In his posts he talks about and encourages such things seemingly. Not once have I heard him complain on YouTube about people taking his music and that they need to stop making videos of themselves.
This is akin to Jimi Hendrix going onstage at Woodstock and telling everyone that they are pothead druggies that need to get real jobs, join the army and take a shower. It’s a complete slap in the face and totall out of character. I don’t get it. I’m going to assume that it’s his overzealous lawyers and record company that are at fault and not Soulja Boy. However, he needs to keep in mind that these people are his representation. They are extensions of him, and its not a good excuse. He needs to keep them in check, and work with the right people. We can learn from John McCain that having poor representation and the wrong people around you can kill your career and people’s opinions of you.
So Soulja Boy, please tell your record company to send Kevin and ROFLcon an email to apologize for the mistake, and thank him for giving a presentation like that which highlighted your success.
UPDATE: Other bloggers have picked this up too. Fred Benenson’s blog had a good writeup and Rebecca Corliss also wrote about it. I sent a YouTube message to Soulja Boy asking him to check with his representation to see what’s the deal. I noticed that even in his YouTube Live thing the other day that they seemed to mention and encourage other people learning the dance and making videos. This is absurd. I want answers.
I came across Weezer’s new video this morning. It’s basically the ROFLCon of Weezer music videos. While sadly there aren’t any people in the video or mocked in the video that were actually at ROFLCon (maybe a good list for next year?) there were plenty of memes to be seen.
Yahoo is ranked as the #1 site on the Internet by Compete and Alexa. Google being #2 by traffic.
My question is who the hell uses Yahoo? These services don’t group together all of their web properties likes YouTube or Orkut. The only two Yahoo properties that I personally visit are Flickr and MyBlogLog. Everything else is Google.
I know that I’m not the “typical” internet user, but I don’t see anyone and I mean anyone going to Yahoo for search, groups, email, etc these days. Then again, half the people I know have iPhones, and 3/4 use Apples.
As a small note, Yahoo doesn’t seem to index my blog pretty much at all. Maybe that will change since I’m using MyBlogLog now, but all of my search traffic comes from Google. Does Yahoo play favorites when it comes to what blogs they will search since this one is Google hosted?
UPDATE: Stella was wondering why I would want my blog indexed. It’s a good question. I guess the easiest answer is that I want this to be a public blog to serve as a discussion with the public about things that I don’t mind for the most part being public information. I generally don’t talk about relationships, friends, etc… and much more of it is stuff that I want to have a public forum for.
I’m honestly hoping to start blogging better soon. I write a lot, but I don’t write well imho. Maybe someday.
Yesterday a student was tasered by police at a John Kerry speech at the University of Florida. The student, as far as I have read was unarmed, and did not make assaulting movements towards the police.
He was making a statement and asking questions of John Kerry, which Kerry said he would answer. The student was being a little bit aggressive, but non-threatening in his questioning manner. The police started to pull him away, after they cut his mic.
The student said several times that he would leave if he was allowed to, and made no threats towards the officers. He also continuously asked for help, and asked why he was being arrested. The cops did not say why they were arresting him, and threatened to user a Taser on him. At this point there were around 6-8 cops surrounding him and holding him down. He did not appear at all to be a large student, nor strong, nor threatening. He was holding a book however, and ideas are dangerous weapons. School officials told students to stand back from him and provide no help as the pigs (I mean cops) thought to put somewhere between 100kV up to 1000KV through him with a taser.
The media outlets (Reuters, CNN, Fox) were slow to pick up on this with Digg (article) and Reddit picking up on it much sooner as many students were video taping and photographing this event and posted it to youtube.
More information on Tasers (electroshock weapons) which are potentially leathal and damaging is here on the wikipedia.
The Wikipedia coverage of this event is here, however should be taken with a grain of salt since this is a charged (no pun intended) current event.
Two of the pigs (I mean cops… keep slipping) involved have been put on paid administrative leave while this matter is being investigated. WTF? Give them a vacation? They should be docked for pay and arrested themselves for assault and battery.
This is a perfect example of police abusing their powers, attacking students (This is close to home since the pigs used ‘non-lethal’ weapons in gunning down Victoria Snellgrove, an Emerson student, in Boston in 2004 after a Redsox game. Police are allowed to abuse their power and normally get off far lighter on penalties than if a citizen made the same ‘mistakes’.
There are SEVERAL videos on Youtube and around the internet that show the full and unedited footage of this police brutality.
This is yet a reason again that surveillance of police is just as important as their surveillance of crime. Anything that prevents people from use of video or photography equipment is a horrid breach of our First Amendment rights and only encourages police brutality. Without video, this story would not have even hit the news. The Rodney King beatings would have likely gone far differently were if not for footage. Let us also not forget the greatness of our National Guard for the shooting of students at Kent State or more recent the brutality unleased on New Orleans citizens as police had gunned down several unarmed, or legally armed citizens after the Katrina flood.
Keep in mind that at almost all of these events, if cops had not been present, there would have been no resistance, no riots, no guns, no bullets and no shootings. Cops encourage violence. Anyone who has ever been to a protest or demonstration know that.
