Playground Games

This post is a response (in sorts) to a little video posted by Barrett Garese (@syptap).  He has since written a followup article and David Nett has also chimed in on the discussion.  Taryn O’Neill had also posted her own thoughts about the state of web video content creation here.  Please watch the above mentioned video first. UPDATE: Zadi Diaz has added her thoughts here. (I’m sure there will be more to add too).  UPDATE: A TubeFilter article and a blog post by Ben Brusell and a great podcast called New Mediacracy did an episode called “Episode 18: The One About “IndieTV” Versus “Immersive Entertainment””

There are many views and opinions and ways of thinking about our industry.  We are a growing group of people who all have different ideas and hopes for what we would like to see video on the web become, call it webseries, webtv, indietv, online content creation or whatever the phrase of the day is.  All these thoughts and ideas and personalities are what make this such a robust space and a place that I easily call home.

It seems to me that the latest conversation seems to be centered around why we create for the space we’re in.  Is it about merely creating content or is about being pioneers in a space that is ripe for innovation and creativity that has not been seen in other mediums before?

I don’t know that I want to come down on one side or another.

I agree and disagree with Barrett’s initial video.  I believe that the web is a great place for people to be inventive and creative and push the boundaries of things we have never seen before.  It’s what keeps things alive and exciting and leaves us with ohhhs and ahhhhs escaping from our lips.  Take for example the few days old music video from the Arcade Fire which utilizes HTML5 and could have never been done before this technology was available.  Click here to experience this music video (you will need Google Chrome).  But I disagree about his thought that we all must be this or that.

The most amazing part of the web industry right now is the fact that we are a giant hodgepodge of this and that.  Established Hollywood types doing things like The LXD, to people who just love great storytelling, niche series, to ordinary people recording their lives on youtube.

This is what makes us special.  In many ways I feel like over the past 12 months there has been such pressure for us all to “grow up”.  For us to “play by the rules”, either self created or perceived rules.

I still love the fact that we are young (young as in new) and we don’t have rules.  These are the things that set us apart.

We exist in a large playground which has structures like slides and swings but also has completely open spaces governed only by our imaginations.  We as a community have full choice about where we want to play.

Are we the type that want to grab all our friends and go down the slide one by one?

Are we taking turns pushing each other on the swings, catapulting us higher and higher?

Are we sitting in the sand/grass daydreaming?

Are we building something out of nothing?

Or are we even the ones who look at a playground and transform that structure into something it was never meant to be?  A spaceship, a castle, a hidden secret lair?

The playground is the place with rules but only just enough to guide us.  And most of the time we are totally free to break those rules.  Which is where we learn to be creative, to have ideas that no one else has thought of and to go places that only exist in our imaginations.

And even when we encounter “rules” they usually are about how we treat people.  How to respect other’s ideas and their way of playing “tag”.  Either we can choose to follow their rules and still probably have a good time or we can go and find some other thing to play on.  Feelings might be hurt in the short run, but rarely are the wounds so deep we can’t brush off the sand and still have a good day.

Are there valid points about distribution and about how we classify the content we make?  Yes.  But do I personally, think those matter more than allowing people to create content that they otherwise would have not been able to create?  No.  To me the most important thing is that people are creating.  People who never in a million years would be accepted in the “traditional” way of making content.

Ask people to follow their dreams.  Don’t demand that they dream a certain way.

The thing about the internet is that it’s so many different things to so many different people.

It’s a place for people to innovate and it’s a place to bring ideas.  Be it, tried and true ways of distributing media or new and experimental ways.  There’s room for all on the playground.

I think the kid in all of us just wants to be accepted with the ideas they bring to the table, but more importantly have a good time with people they enjoy.

I am thankful for all the people who I get to share this space with.  I am always excited to see what they are working on.  I am always excited to see what new things they come up with.  And I can only hope to return the friendship that so many have shown to me.

The future is exactly what it is, unwritten and filled with endless possibility.

Come play with me in the digital playground we call online content.  Bring some friends and some ideas.

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