MySpace, boys in jackets

Posted on | September 6, 2006 | 4 Comments

Social Networking with Demetri Martin (link changed due to copyright issues).

Last week I used an older clip from The Daily Show to introduce students to the idea of blogging as a subculture. It was good timing on the back of the Emmy Awards, and the ongoing success of Stewart and Colbert’s respective empires. But I underestimated how many students even knew about the show. It’s still a great teaching tool, regardless; in fact it actually proves the point I use it to make. I ask them to think about how much you already have to know, or have in place, in order to find the clips funny. This helps them to consider issues to do with class, access, literacy and leisure. The main point that comes across is that if you don’t find them funny it’s because you either don’t read blogs or you don’t follow current affairs. Which, it never bores me to point out, is still the majority of people. We need to bear that in mind before we even begin to make claims about blogs, their newness, and their potential.

I still find the old skit funny. It’s sophisticated. It slowly builds up a series of jokes about the dynamics of the blogosphere, critiquing the self-importance of journalism & the quest for a major expose, the extremes of both right and left wing politics, & prevailing stereotypes about age, gender and interest. It’s a great entry-point for a discursive analysis of blogs.

This latest clip has one good joke and runs with it. It’s still funny, but it’s not exactly clever in the way the previous one was. It does however capture a particular moment in a zeitgeist I can’t even stop myself from being part of: somehow I’m now writing a paper on youth and online social networks for a conference in Shanghai next year, and I’m kind of excited by it. I’ve even started a MySpace, but my RSI is going to stop me from using it much.

What this second clip makes me more aware of, if it was necessary, is the blokeyness of this genre of news-satire show. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, as part of my quest to understand my position re: the ubiquitous Chaser boys. In the past I’ve had a quite personal reaction to what I have taken to be their rich private school boys making a killing by being smart-arses vibe. But the fact that there are definite correlations in subcultures of comedy across the Pacific makes me think there’s something broader at stake. To put it simply, I’m disappointed and disillusioned by the prospect that boys in nice jackets performing an urban-centric, over-educated knowingness appears to be the most popular and only remaining voice of derision tolerated, indeed solicited, in the current political climate. Then again, things could be turning. After last night, I’m just so pleased that there’s one more heroine to add to our public service broadcaster trail of portfolio Gen X workers. Imagine: Marieke vs. A Chaser Boy: A Five Week Series. Now that’s a show even I’d get cable to watch.

Category: Gender, Viewing, Web(log) Stuff

Comments

4 Responses to “MySpace, boys in jackets”

  1. Mel
    September 11th, 2006 @ 9:48 pm

    We actually screened that video at YouTube Tuesday. You know, sometimes I look at what I have become and cry.

  2. melgregg
    September 12th, 2006 @ 6:15 pm

    What are you talking about! You are Madame Zeitgeist! (That’s my favourite word at the moment, can you tell?) I envy your ability to exploit hipsterism. I will have more to say on that subject in the next few days.

    A relevant update: I got free tickets to see the Chaser boys at the Brisbane Writers Festival this weekend, so I am looking forward to pursuing my line of inquiry!!

  3. home cooked theory » Blog Archive » More notes on cool
    September 13th, 2006 @ 3:12 pm

    [...] Reading this sheds light on my scepticism towards the MySpace Valentines Day card sender from earlier. [...]

  4. ipoh2u342s
    February 1st, 2007 @ 9:31 pm

    no live, no death…

    …

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