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Bob Saget 2.0
theodp writes "Slate makes a pretty convincing argument that YouTube and its knock-offs can trace their roots back to America's Funniest Home Videos." From the article: "The show's stock in trade was to find the lowest common denominator and then hit it in the crotch. Consider this list of select highlights from the show's 'Best of Kids & Animals' DVD: a kid doing a cannonball onto his dad's groin, a baby running into a church pew, a dog peeing on a wedding dress, and a kid clocking his dad in the nuts with a helmet. While these clips are all certainly lowbrow, they've also got something else in common: They're oozing with family values."
Now if most of youtube's content could be somewhat funny, or even "slightly more funny than bland humor" I would see comparing it to funniest home videos. Like it is, youtube is painful to endure. I would venture to say countless people singing into a qvga camera isn't exactly entertaining for most of us.
Funnypics
Anyone who hasn't already made that connection must be a bit out of touch... Heck, some of those places are even paying the submitters of the most popular videos... $10,000 grand prize anyone?
Youtube may have some low-brow physical humor, but America's "Funniest" Home Videos doesn't have TV clips and music videos. The variety alone places Youtube in an entirely different category. Plus, Youtube doesn't have those annoying voice-overs.
Esoteric reference.
speaking of bob saget and youtube...
THIS is bob saget 2.0! (NSFW)
I have wondered how many parents know that their teenage kids are dancing in front of the camera for youtube's global audience.
Wincopy
YouTube is nothing like America's Home Videos. What a stupid analogy.
You can do the same comparison for just about everything, how the car has it's roots in the horsewagon, how the internet has it's root in just about any other media distribution etc...
And while I'm at it, why say "YouTube and its knock-offs", YouTube wasn't exactly the first site where one can post homevideos. YouTube is a knock-off which just happens to be the biggest.
Is it American humor?
American television executive humor. About as funny as applying for a dog license.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
You're not alone. I think these shows survive by attracting a ridiculously small minority of people who think they're funny.
A *really* popular sitcom might get a few million people to watch it every night. Out of a population of 400 million, the actual ratio of people who enjoy that humor regularly is tiny.
My guess is that's it's much easier and cheaper to produce crap and get 30% of an already small audience simply by being slightly less crappy than the competition, than it would be to produce something great and attract more people who would usually do something else.
To get a really huge audience, you would need not only to win over the people who think TV sucks, but also the kind of people who watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" religiously. What kind of show would appeal to both sets of people? I certainly don't know.
And as far as AFV goes, the first show ever was hysterical, and it was all downhill from there. Now you're really lucky if it's as funny as a "Cathy" cartoon.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
All of the videos on America's Funniest Home Videos were copyrighted too. Like before they were submitted even. Amazing, huh?
I can guarantee you they gave up every single right in their video when they submitted it to AFV.
History will look back on YouTube and see a similar trend: 1.8 million out of the 2 million submissions were related to either Mentos exploding Diet Coke or some attempted funny music video remix.