I Talked To My Parents [10.26.06]

[Smashing]

milowent said:

No way is bree getting off this easy! When Daniel comes over tomorrow, dad is going to stick him, I know it!

That's what I was thinking.
Mostly, I just want to be surprised. So, creators, (never know if/when they might be reading) as we get near the end, whenever that is (Nov? Dec? Next Year? maybe it's better to not know) My challenge to you is to put the "creative" back in "creator" (but then take out the "ive" so that it spells creator again, and not "creativeor"). Wow 'em in the end. We complain cause we want it to be good. We're rooting for you.

[Joss]

Getting closer.. But not there yet..

So domino effect is still ongoing.. Since Daniel revealed the truth a chain reaction started.. First he saw the light, then enlightened Bree, now Bree tells her parents and they too become enlightened.. Who knows! Maybe even Lucy recognizes the new prophet and creates a new religion: Danielbeasticism! ;D

But all right.. They are trying to get somewhere out of nowhere and that's something that takes time and several episodes to put toghether.. So we shall give them some credit and let ourselves become blindfolded believers for the time being.

Now.. Let me point two things out:

1- Community.. Community this.. Community that.. Community here.. Community there.. Our community.. Their community.. Why is this word all over place now?

2- She is really proud of Daniel.. You can tell in her face expression when talking about explaning her parents that he kept an eye on her all this time.. Is Bree in love? Not yet? How long will she resist?

[Terryfic]

I do have to say I tend to agree with Alissa that I think we have recently begun to be overly harsh critics towards the LG series. Some of us have been repeating the same argument over and over again against the series for weeks now; my particular gripe is how they stopped making it resemble a normal blog any more. I really love genre theory and thought it was interesting to see someone play with a new one, so I was really disappointed when the abandoned that aspect.

It seems a lot of us are getting hung up on two things that the creators said in their first ‘press release’ - the idea that this is a new form of art (and even that they are interested in creating art) and interactivity. As to Mesh and Miles creating art, I seriously doubt that was their intent, and after taking them off the pedestal the early episodes made me put them on, I don’t think either of them is clever enough to know how to create a new art form. I mean that constant star wars analogy was just plain stupid. LG is pure pop entertainment and we shouldn’t expect higher quality than we would of the next Madonna album. Sure it started off strong, but I am more and more convinced that was a fluke.

The interactivity was simply some buzzwords they tossed out when the series got publicity to try and make it sound more ‘fresh’ and ‘innovative’ to everyone that hadn’t seen the show yet. I think they had no idea how to really incorporate other people into the story and never planned on it. I do believe that they listen to the collective fan voice and adjust the story accordingly, but that is a far from original concept. Hell, Soup of the Day the thing that the guy behind NoHoGirls used that idea. So, I think we should let things slide a little bit on LG, after all it is a no budget production by an F-List screenwriter, an ex-doctor, and a lawyer – come on, that sounds like the setup for a joke.

So after all that, what do I think of this new vid. Meh. It was ok. I agree that they seem to have very suddenly run away from the ceremony and central role that the religion has played for this middle part of the story. Gemmer’s most recent vid seems to hint that this storyline is likely not as over with, as Bree would like. There has been a lot of really fast, almost random character, development recently, but I am will to accept that if it gets the show back on a more realistic and less silly path. I for one will always remember all this ceremony stuff as when the show got kinda drunk and silly for a while. I’m sure it is accidental but I do like how in this one Bree is wearing the same thing she was in the first vid with DB, which just so happens to be one of my favourites. I hope this is a sign they are head back towards making videos that would realistically be made by people.

[lesbrent]

Terryfic, I'm curious. Here is the scenario. Blog is a production from day one. Everyone didn't think it was made by "real people". A sinister plot was headlined early on. The ceremony stuff had an anticlimatic twist. Now Bree tells her folks she doesn't want to be a part of their Santanic cult anymore and they say, "well, okie dokie whatever you want sweetie".

No one has been bitching about this for weeks - none of us knew the plot weeks ago. I didn't think this video by Bree "I talked to my parents" would be in her bedroom that's for sure. I still don't know if they are making the teenyboppers happy or if it's a ruse. That's why I'M A FAN and am still suscribed. I think we have every right to be criticial, just as we have every right to be supportive when we LIKE something they do. Just MHO.

[Terryfic]

lesbrent said:

I think we have every right to be criticial, just as we have every right to be supportive when we LIKE something they do. Just MHO.

Of course you have the right to be criticial, I am just pointing out that people should be aware of what they are being criticial of. This is not a professional production, this is pretty much an amateur production, those involved have minimal experience. When you go to a local theatre production of a play you don't hold it to the same standards as you do a broadway production. I just think people should keep this in mind when writing their critics.

Oh, and there was no sinister plot in the LG story until fans seemed to demand one. A Crowley of picture, as many have pointed out, doesn't equal sinister.

[lesbrent]

Of course you have the right to be criticial, I am just pointing out that people should be aware of what they are being criticial of. This is not a professional production, this is pretty much an amateur production, those involved have minimal experience. When you go to a local theatre production of a play you don't hold it to the same standards as you do a broadway production. I just think people should keep this in mind when writing their critics.

Oh, and there was no sinister plot in the LG story until fans seemed to demand one. A Crowley of picture, as many have pointed out, doesn't equal sinister.

Point taken and it's good. However, this isn't criticism of the production quality - it's basic plot and story, of which an amateur can totally be proficient at. I'm not judging their lighting skills or music choices!

Sidenote and something I just thought of. Do you think the group has been contacted at any point by a big or semi-big producer/writer/director to take this to the next level? I would find it incrediably hard to believe if they HAVEN'T been contacted at this point with the sheer amount of viewers they have for LG15. I think this whole thing could end in a cliffhanger.... with a movie wrapping it up. Totally possible, what do you think?

[buckwheat]

Terryfic, ("I don’t think either of them is clever enough to know how to create a new art form.):
You might remember that it was not the creators who put forward the idea that LG15 was a new art form, but rather folks like Adam Sternbergh in New York Magazine "Birth of a New Art From" , and Virginia H herself, who said on NPR ("This is Jane Austen! George Eliot!") Fairly fine company for the unclever Mesh and Miles, wouldn't you say? (And no, I am not Miles or Mesh lurking...)

[Terryfic]

buckwheat said:

Terryfic, ("I don’t think either of them is clever enough to know how to create a new art form.):
You might remember that it was not the creators who put forward the idea that LG15 was a new art form, but rather folks like Adam Sternbergh in New York Magazine "Birth of a New Art From" , and Virginia H herself, who said on NPR ("This is Jane Austen! George Eliot!") Fairly fine company for the unclever Mesh and Miles, wouldn't you say? (And no, I am not Miles or Mesh lurking...)

Oh, the series definitely had the potential to become something interesting and at that time a lot of us, including myself was caught up in the excitement and were ready to call them groundbreaking. Upon further reflection they have done nothing really new, they just were just the first to get really popular doing it and I think that was a total accident.

Yes, they worked the YouTube system well, making response videos and spamming friend requests to get initial attention. But I think the biggest factor was one that was out of their control, the massive increase in visitors that YouTube got just as LG was getting popular. I think the two are completely unrelated events, but it definitely cause LG to gain a lot more attention that it almost certainly otherwise would have.

I stand by my statement that Miles and Mesh are likely not clever enough to really create a new art form, but to be fair nether is 99.9% percent of the population. It was not meant to be so much an insult, as it was to try to keep people from projecting unrealistic expectations on them and then being disappointed when they don’t live up to it.

[milowent]

true, buckwheat. i think lg15 did so well as a youngster (i mean, think about the her YT competition!?) that our expectations are all unreasonably high at this point.

[buckwheat]

I think it's more accurate to say they weren't so much creating a new art form as exploring one, a form that simply did not exist prior to the first LG posting in June. That form now exists thanks to M and M (witness the growing number of imitators), but whether it's art or not will require judgements much further down the road. (The novel wasn't considered art when it first appearded in 18th century England). What you guys seem to be overlooking is that M and M have managed to hold their YT audience (not exactly Masterpiece Theater folks) over a period of five months, without using sex, violence, crudity or sensationalism, but rather with wit, nuance, and delight in adolescent ebullience. That in itself is an extraordinary feat in these times and seems churlish and myopic to casually dismiss it at this point as though it didn't happen on the scale that it did. If, after close to 60 episodes at the rate of four per week, with no funding, and while at the same time trying to navigate a sudden, unprecedented and galactic amount of press attention in early September (and while trying to keep from getting outed the whole while)-- if the storyline has slipped and the nuance grown thin.....well, Dostoevsky can get a bit stale after the first 300 pages....
And no, Terryfic, it was not the massive YT numbers that brought the John Fines and Virginia Heffernans (and us) to LG....it was the wit, the nuance, the pure delight....... Myself, I call that art.

[Terryfic]

Wow, I think you are taking this a shade personal, but it is hard to blame you

I’d like to point out that a fairly quick survey of YouTube will show that they did not create this form, it did exist prior to June. Take for example LittleLoca or EmoKid both used the form of a mock blog to tell their story. I will agree that neither were quite as grand as M and M, but if you extend this survey outside of YouTube you will find people have been doing this for a long time.

Take Scott Zarakin as an example, he is currently (we suspect) working on NoHoGirls, likely something you consider an imitator, when in fact he was making series like this since 1995. I think LG is an important step in the history if IMS, but it is not its inventor. The point of my post was not to say that LG is a terrible show, I like it. I was a little tired of people constantly bashing it and felt if people remembered that it was done by two more or less amateurs then they would cut it some more slack.

Oh, and I agree with pretty much everything else in your post, a large chunk the series is really enjoyable and still ranks up there as some of my favourite online media.

[milowent]

Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, but only he made everyone able and want to buy one!

[buckwheat]

C'mon, LittleLoca or EmoKid were hardly nuanced narrative (which is what I feel M and M brought to YT for the first time.) It may be that the disappointment with LG at this point is less with M and M, as with the YT medium itself and with the possibilities for it that early LG raised. . How far can one take nuanced narrative in this medium, anyway? Possibly, M and M reached the limits of what's s possible and were forced by the limitations of producing two minute episodes in a teenager's bedroom (and keeping it PG!) to finally move it towards ARG/soap opera, (not their strengths). How many Proving Science Wrong could even we take?

[BaileysMom]

I could take hundreds of Proving Science Wrong episodes. Those were always my favorites!

[buckwheat]

Mine too . . . .(except for Lazy Eye)...but narrative requires conflict, no?