There’s been a lot of questions about what makes SCHMOOru so COOOL? I love these questions — and to be honest, we’d be dead if no one asked them. I really like to consider them to be — what’s ALIVE about SCHMOORU? What’s its humanity? What does IT live FOR? What air does it breathe, or quite frankly DOES it have any POTENTIAL? — etc.. Let me ASCHOO one of them here-IS SCHMOORU this User Generated Content???? Your SCHMOORU curators have been working at the forefront of what has been referred to as the ‘user generated content’ industry for about the last 4 years and we’ve got something to say about it — click for more info UGC will not replace the pros and attempting to make it do so creates a lot of losers all around — its just one of many tools — frankly, we’ve always had.
buy Ivermectin online uk Paying Tribute to the FOUNDING FATHER — “AMERICA.. THIS IS YOU!”
WE didn’t invent “User Generated Content”, this man did (no one ever pays enough respect to BOB SAGET — the FATHER of USER GENERATED CONTENT but we won’t make the same mistake):
Recently a lot of hucksters, schemesters, cheapskates and corporate mongols have lost sight of the fact, that UGC, which began with BOB SAGET, in almost ALL respects have not lost him and His show is the best place for it even if he’s gone of to other things).
For instance, while Bob may not be the HOST anymore — that other guy is, the AFV — as America’s Funniest Home Videos is now known — did not destroy scripted content — Jay Leno DID! (or might..more on HIM later;). Bottomline, it may be funny to see the cat fall off the TV — but it hasn’t replaced the whole industry. ALSO PLEASE NOTE IF YOU’RE GOING TO DO THIS AT HOME: How much writing, curation, ON PURPOSENESS, CONTESTING & loser making they put into each segment — they didn’t just put it up there — but that’s for another day.)
For those not paying respect to SAGET and there are many these days, lets explain some of the UGC GOO that’s out there and why its really not SCHMOO.
Field of Dreams approach: If you build the tools — they will come!
Not so fast. Tools are great. There are some really expensive ones floating in outer space right now though which have lost connection to MANKIND. These formerly REALLY EXPENSIVE and AWESOME TOOLS are now space junk! Further, these days, what’s the HALF LIFE ON TOOLS? Just about 5 seconds right? TOOLS are just like the old JAY LENO DORITTOS commercials at the only moment when I liked the guy — “CRUNCH ALL YOU WANT — we’ll make more!” At the end of the day, if you fall subject to these tool houses, whether you’re a client or self-respecting producer — you end up feeling like a TOOL. Cause either your hard fought for work is under appreciated, or you don’t get what you ask for and it degrades expectations for your entire industry. Most clients don’t like the race to the absolute bottom we’ve had since the dawn of Youtube.
Stock Market Systems
If you like the wall street commodities guys taking a cut in the pursuit of journalism excellence — why not put your video up on one of these sites? Again, where’s the risk? YOU put your work and your idea out there and they get to maybe pay you something for it. The stock marketeer always gets a cut. There may be 1 winner and 7 losers on an effort from their 5,000s of video makers- — but in the long run, after coming SECOND so many times, creative people who need to raise kids and feed a family have no choice but to leave the market place.
WHERE’s THE BEEF?!: You built it but who really came?
THE biggest MYTH of all USER GENERATED CONTENT — is that its USER INSPIRED. We’ll go into this further, but almost ALL video is not serendipitous User Generation — which means its a promised not kept OR a Wendy’s single DAVE THOMAS wouldn’t recognize! Video is Hard. Good SOUND, even worse! Making a good Story out of that stuff — PRICELESS. Unless you’re next to the lightening strike or the FOOTBALL in the GROIN, everything else UGC isn’t PURE %100 American BEEF unless its really simple to do — like checking a box, or sending a text message — even then, don’t expect the next Larry David. Your audience is NOT sitting at home looking for ways to do work FOR YOU, they’ve done their work for that day, drove thru on their way home and they want you to do something for them. Making those looking to take the video business serious HIDE under the umbrella of UGC when you used to bring them in as interns, isn’t all that honest and unlike the Field of Dreams, you can’t kidnap James Earl Jones to save you this time — cause kidnapping’s illegal.
Fuck With Morley at Your Own Risk
Which brings us to YOUR audience. Its slip, slip, slipping away. What to do? UGC is one option to make up for the loses, but so is examining the way you do business. You know that UGC does not provide reliable output. You also know that if it did — ABC would now be called “AFV” cause its so cheap to produce America’s Funniest Home videos — and while that show is cheap to produce, its never beaten 60 Minutes, let alone taken over the entire network — why should it take over your entire project?
It Doesn’t Have to End This Way — but it could and right now its on its way
Everyone agrees right now we’re in a precarious spot — no audience, no work, no money, no future? Leveraged against each other in a quick race to an entry in the history book next to the corset factory. In the end — using the UGC for purposes beyond what the manufacturer intended it for *SPOILER ALERT!* — always turns out like the last scene of a Tarintino movie. Your network/project doesnt have audience, there’s no one left to make the sausage, you later find you don’t have a job — everyone’s dead. With the time we’ve got left to ‘build a better media’ we have a choice to make. Lets talk about all this..
What’s left…?
We need to carve out a space in this void for professionals to produce reliable, creative work — without having to compete with your cousin and without having to shoulder the entire risk for a multinational corporation. Do you ask contractors when you build a house to build 3 and then you only pay for the ONE that you like? Well then don’t ask us to build three videos or websites for you and only pay us for the one that you like. That’s the best way to make sure there’s no one left to build houses for you — unless you only want kids in college making your news, informational and entertainment everything.
There is a space between the way its been done for the last 30 years and those tied to legacy equipment and ideas AND Bob Saget. IN that space you find SCHMOORU.
-D.P.B.-Midtown Sublet, 09.21.09
Tags: america's funniest home videos, Bob Saget, jay leno, jay leno doritos commercial, user generated content