Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to text stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor at how stuff works dot Com. Sitting
Speaker 1: across from me, not cracking up nearly as much as
Speaker 1: I'd hoped at that introduction, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: We're actors. We're the opposite of people, since you actually
Speaker 1: are an actor. Yes, I I don't know if you
Speaker 1: could speak to the veracity of that. Yeah, No, that's accurate.
Speaker 1: The things that people do in private to keep away
Speaker 1: from private eyes, we do in public on a stage
Speaker 1: for all to see. Okay, then that's paraphrasing. Yeah, but anyway, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because what we're talking about today is people who are
Speaker 1: I hate to use this phrase because it's been overused
Speaker 1: Internet famous. They are celebrities. You really like that, don't
Speaker 1: I love it? Because I am one. Okay from a
Speaker 1: very tiny, tiny way of If you you have to
Speaker 1: generously give me the benefit of the doubt to call
Speaker 1: me a celebrity, well, some some of us are less
Speaker 1: comfortable with that. But other people have used the Internet
Speaker 1: to go out and try to make a name for
Speaker 1: themselves and possibly become Internet famous or actually even real
Speaker 1: time you know, real world famous out on the on
Speaker 1: the big screen, in the little screen and on the
Speaker 1: radio and all what all else. So we decided that
Speaker 1: would be kind of interesting to talk about that because
Speaker 1: you know, uh it, I know that none of our
Speaker 1: audience is surprised now this. We're in this generation of
Speaker 1: people that is very comfortable with the Internet. Um and
Speaker 1: I mean that for all age ranges. Now my my
Speaker 1: eight six year old dad as as comfortable with internet.
Speaker 1: So you know, but yeah, we're all we're all pretty
Speaker 1: familiar with this. It's it's not hard to make a
Speaker 1: name for yourself on for good or ill for good
Speaker 1: or ill on venues like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flicker and
Speaker 1: all the other similar sites. Um and you know, so
Speaker 1: that the thing is, there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: out there, how do you go about doing it? And
Speaker 1: we we picked some people that we thought it would
Speaker 1: be kind of interesting to look into, um and talk
Speaker 1: about how they managed to make themselves into mindoring in
Speaker 1: some in a lot of cases major celebrities. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: when you look at the traditional routes to getting success,
Speaker 1: especially in the arts anything as a musician, as an actor,
Speaker 1: as a writer. Uh, you know, going the old media route,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty high barrier to intrigue. Well, there are
Speaker 1: a lot, a whole lot of talented people out there.
Speaker 1: It's it's obvious in just checking in with some of
Speaker 1: these sites, um that I mentioned a few minutes ago,
Speaker 1: that you there are a lot of talented people out
Speaker 1: there who may or may not be signed to a
Speaker 1: major recording or writing uh contract, and uh you know,
Speaker 1: the these uh, these tools give us an opportunity to
Speaker 1: check in with with some of them and see what
Speaker 1: they're about doing. Yeah, there there are tons of people. Well,
Speaker 1: let's put it this way. If you were only able
Speaker 1: to consume content by listening to the radio, by watching television,
Speaker 1: by going to movies that kind of thing, you would
Speaker 1: see a certain range of artists and uh and of
Speaker 1: various disciplines. Yes, right, you would see a certain range
Speaker 1: of music video directors. You'd see a certain range of
Speaker 1: musicians and singers and bands that sort of thing, actors, writers,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But there'd be a large number
Speaker 1: of people you would never see because they just didn't
Speaker 1: have whatever it was like, whether it was luck or
Speaker 1: the right opportunity, they didn't know the right person. They
Speaker 1: have the talent, but not the venue to reach an audience. Well,
Speaker 1: the web really helped take care of that problem. The
Speaker 1: web kind of created an equal ground for people to
Speaker 1: reach an audience. You didn't have to sign a contract
Speaker 1: with a major label in order to get your your
Speaker 1: content on the web, So you didn't have to you
Speaker 1: didn't have to answer to anyone else, You didn't have
Speaker 1: to meet that person's expectations. Because what happens if you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a movie studio executive and you, Chris, we're going
Speaker 1: to do a hypothetical here, hypothetic you're such a good actor. Confused,
Speaker 1: I don't want to green light it. There you go,
Speaker 1: that's my movie studio executive. Um. And but let's say
Speaker 1: I'm a movie studio executive and Chris comes and he
Speaker 1: pitches an idea to me for a movie or a
Speaker 1: television show. And uh, in which, look at this, here's
Speaker 1: your problem. You're pitching a TV show to a movie executive. Um.
Speaker 1: But no, let's say you're pitching your idea to me
Speaker 1: and I'm either having a bad day, or I just
Speaker 1: don't get the concept. I don't see how it can
Speaker 1: be successful. And it's not that the concept is bad,
Speaker 1: it's just that I'm a human being. I have my
Speaker 1: own set of biases and preferences, and so I say
Speaker 1: no to that. And then Chris walks off a broken
Speaker 1: and humiliated man. So typical Thursday. And anyway, we uh,
Speaker 1: we didn't get to a point where, you know, Chris,
Speaker 1: Chris has been demoralized. He has less impetus to go
Speaker 1: out and try and push for it again. And if
Speaker 1: you get a series of rejections, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: if you're an actor or artist, life is a series
Speaker 1: of rejections, um, you know it can it can really
Speaker 1: take the wind out of your sales. But then let's
Speaker 1: say that Chris decides, Hey, you know what, this thing
Speaker 1: I have would work as a web video series. So
Speaker 1: what I'm going to do is for less money than
Speaker 1: it would take to do a television show or a movie,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get together the best possible people I
Speaker 1: can of the budget I have, which granted, is still
Speaker 1: not going to be insignificant for many of these projects.
Speaker 1: In a lot of cases, it's a big risk and
Speaker 1: you are pouring a lot of money into it. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a lot of money on a different scale, right.
Speaker 1: There might be a few thousand dollars, which is still
Speaker 1: a lot of money for most of us, as opposed
Speaker 1: to several million dollars for television or hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: for a movie or you know, and albums also, I
Speaker 1: mean record companies, the same sort of thing. But go
Speaker 1: about the web and then you know, you as long
Speaker 1: as you register a space or you use something like
Speaker 1: YouTube to uh to upload your content too, you've got
Speaker 1: the platform there. You don't have to jump through any
Speaker 1: hoops with the television companies or the movie studios. Um,
Speaker 1: It's it's still a challenging road, but it has a
Speaker 1: much lower level of entry than the traditional media. So
Speaker 1: let's let's actually use some examples and talk about some
Speaker 1: people who use the Internet to kind of launch their careers. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: I wanted to point out too that in some ways
Speaker 1: this is scary to the major entertainment properties because well,
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of a good and a bad thing though,
Speaker 1: because on the bad side, Um, since I started off
Speaker 1: with that, you know, you go great, you know, how
Speaker 1: am I supposed to a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: the executives I've seen quoted say, well, you know, our
Speaker 1: company is a way of weeding out the people who
Speaker 1: are you know, the most talented and putting them in
Speaker 1: the spotlight, and and that those who are of lesser
Speaker 1: talent we reject, and that that means than anything that
Speaker 1: we do has you know, we've already vetted this for
Speaker 1: the consumer. And then then there's some there is some
Speaker 1: truth in that, I would say, because I've you know,
Speaker 1: everybody knows somebody who has is you know that thing
Speaker 1: like oh, look I I wrote a book, or you know,
Speaker 1: check out my band and you go, yeah, that's great, man,
Speaker 1: check out my public excess television show exactly exactly. But
Speaker 1: then you every once in a while you run into
Speaker 1: somebody you go, wow, you're really God, how the heck
Speaker 1: did you not get famous already? And that is why
Speaker 1: the big media properties have tuned in and are starting
Speaker 1: to find people. And that's what brings us to our podcast.
Speaker 1: It is some of these some of the people were
Speaker 1: going to talk about are people who went, you know,
Speaker 1: the major executives have gone, uh uh, Mr Johnson, we
Speaker 1: need to sign this kid up. So so let's talk
Speaker 1: about some of them. Okay, let's talk I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk a bit about let's talk about a guy who
Speaker 1: really as is kind of the definitive Internet celebrity as
Speaker 1: far as geek music goes. Okay, so we're talking about
Speaker 1: a certain Jonathan Colton. I yes, now, the code monkey,
Speaker 1: the code Now. I have to uh, I have to
Speaker 1: admit that I my first interaction where I didn't I
Speaker 1: haven't had an interaction. My first uh knowledge of Mr
Speaker 1: Colton came from a certain person that we met one day,
Speaker 1: a friend of the stuff you should know, uh Mr Hodgeman. Yes,
Speaker 1: John Hodgman and and and Jonathan Colton are friends. And
Speaker 1: the first time I encountered him was when uh Mr
Speaker 1: Colton was playing back up on the Hoboes song. Right
Speaker 1: would you call it a song? Uh? There's music to it.
Speaker 1: There's music to it. And he managed to play it
Speaker 1: all the way through. It's like fifteen minutes long without
Speaker 1: making a mistake. And I don't know that I've ever
Speaker 1: played that long without a mistake. Uh, certainly not guitar.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen Jonathan Coulton play fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: without a mistake. Since then. But but you go back
Speaker 1: and I said, who who is this Jonathan Colton guy?
Speaker 1: And then I checked out his catalog and wow, yeah.
Speaker 1: So what Jonathan Colton did was he was working as
Speaker 1: a coder a programmer at one point and then decided, Um,
Speaker 1: he made a he made a big decision. He decided
Speaker 1: he was going to really make a go of it
Speaker 1: to be a professional musician. And it was a scary thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was He's a family man. He's not
Speaker 1: just it's not just some single guy. He's a family man. Um.
Speaker 1: But it was a scary notion too, to leave what
Speaker 1: you know behind, to leave a steady job behind, and
Speaker 1: to try and make it as a musician. Yes, it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Chris is nodding at me knowingly. As a fellow musician,
Speaker 1: he can he can attest to this personally. As an actor,
Speaker 1: I can tell you that I never had the guts
Speaker 1: to try and make it as an actor as that
Speaker 1: as my primary occupation. In Atlanta, it's particularly difficult. But
Speaker 1: no matter what what market you're in, Uh, it's tough.
Speaker 1: It gets a little easier once you have a following,
Speaker 1: but you have to have a pretty big following be
Speaker 1: score it gets to be the comfort level gets to
Speaker 1: be okay, well, I mean even even Scott Adams of Dilbert. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: not that he's a he doesn't fall into this category.
Speaker 1: But he was drawing Dilbert and got syndicated before he
Speaker 1: ever left his day job, um if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: So that's you know, and I think of him as
Speaker 1: a miss a famous cartoonist now, but at the time
Speaker 1: he created some security for himself before he jumped ship.
Speaker 1: And that's not what Jonathan Coulton. So what Coulton decided
Speaker 1: to do was he created a blog and he began
Speaker 1: to he he did this pub um, this project called
Speaker 1: Thing a Week. Yes, the idea I think a week was.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a very ambitious project. The the
Speaker 1: idea of the project was that he would write, produce
Speaker 1: and record a song each week for a year. So
Speaker 1: for a full year he would produce a song and
Speaker 1: then he would put it up on the blog and
Speaker 1: allow people to listen to it for free. Yes uh,
Speaker 1: and this produced He produced several songs that have since
Speaker 1: become uh some of the standards that he plays at
Speaker 1: his concerts. Colton has been playing for quite some time
Speaker 1: now and He's released a lot of his music on
Speaker 1: the internet, a lot of it under a license that
Speaker 1: allows you to download the music for free. And you
Speaker 1: can even use it as long as you're not using
Speaker 1: it in a way to to make money yourself promoting
Speaker 1: your own product. Yeah, you can use it like, you
Speaker 1: can remix it, you can set it to videos, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing for a lot of his music. Um
Speaker 1: but he also was offering music for sale on his site,
Speaker 1: and he even gave people the option. He said, if
Speaker 1: you want to steal my music, go ahead and steal
Speaker 1: my music. I'm giving you the opportunity to download it
Speaker 1: for free if you want to. If you think my
Speaker 1: music is worth paying for, then please purchase my music.
Speaker 1: And people began to buy his music. They wanted him
Speaker 1: to keep making music. And that was the thing that
Speaker 1: they knew that if they did not pay him, that
Speaker 1: they did not buy his music, then he would have
Speaker 1: no recourse but to not do this anymore. Right right, Well,
Speaker 1: he you know, at least not in the way that
Speaker 1: he's doing it now, because basically it's it sort of
Speaker 1: reminds me of the old style um my als, where
Speaker 1: you where artists had a patron the old composers centuries
Speaker 1: ago who would have a king who would commission works
Speaker 1: from them on a regular basis. Painters as well, Michaelangelow,
Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci. These are guys who had patrons who
Speaker 1: would give them room and board and pay them a
Speaker 1: salary to create art. Yeah, and and now, um, artists
Speaker 1: like Jonathan Colton can say, hey, you know, if it's
Speaker 1: worth five bucks to you, send me a five and
Speaker 1: I will. You know, I won't take a day job again,
Speaker 1: and I will continue to write music more frequently so
Speaker 1: and I can share this with more people, so you know,
Speaker 1: it pays the web bill. Right. And Colton still does
Speaker 1: the music thing. He still does tours, he'll he'll he
Speaker 1: plays uh tours quite a bit. And I've seen him
Speaker 1: play probably five or six times. Um and uh, and
Speaker 1: you are his patron. I am. I am his patron.
Speaker 1: I sat front row center for the last show that
Speaker 1: I saw him in, and I got to exchange in
Speaker 1: witty stage benter, which also known as heckling. But I
Speaker 1: wasn't really heckling. It was more of a goofy little conversation.
Speaker 1: I think next time I'll be quiet, because I'm not
Speaker 1: nearly as funny as I think I am. Anyway, Uh,
Speaker 1: Johnathan Colton seen quite a bit of success and he's
Speaker 1: remained an independent artist. Um and still does release music
Speaker 1: on his blog and you can still purchase things. Now
Speaker 1: not all the songs are available for free anymore, but
Speaker 1: many of them still are. And uh, and you can
Speaker 1: still purchase his his music directly from him and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting in case you were wondering. He also is
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote the song at the end of
Speaker 1: the Portal game Still Alive, and he also wrote the
Speaker 1: song that will be at the end of Portal two. Yes,
Speaker 1: so uh. He actually he spilled the beans on that
Speaker 1: on Twitter and then realized that maybe he shouldn't have.
Speaker 1: But anyway, but now the word is out. Not that
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. I just drove up excitement because
Speaker 1: everyone loved that song so much. So Jonathan Holton really
Speaker 1: managed to leverage the web in a big way. And
Speaker 1: he also he values the interaction with his fan base.
Speaker 1: You know, he doesn't ignore them. He doesn't just set
Speaker 1: his stuff up on the web and then say here
Speaker 1: you go and then walks away. He maintains a nice,
Speaker 1: healthy relationship with his fan base. And so that's really
Speaker 1: helped cultivate very loyal fans who will go to as
Speaker 1: many shows as they possibly can and buy all his music.
Speaker 1: So he really he really nailed it. When you when
Speaker 1: it comes to using the Internet as a platform to
Speaker 1: market yourself and to get your work out there for
Speaker 1: people to enjoy, it doesn't hurt that he's a bona
Speaker 1: fide geek who really does love science and technology and
Speaker 1: the sort of stuff that people who are really devoted
Speaker 1: to the Internet the same kind of things they're interested in. Right, So,
Speaker 1: who else do you want to talk about? I was
Speaker 1: going to talk about Rooster Teeth productions. Yes we well
Speaker 1: we've actually sort of talked about them before, Yes we have.
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth is the production company that produced the web
Speaker 1: series Red Versus Blue, which of course is the mashinima series.
Speaker 1: It uses the Halo game engine as a digital puppets
Speaker 1: for the scripts that they wrote, which when when they
Speaker 1: first started off, Red Versus Blue was really just kind
Speaker 1: of a vehicle for jokes about how boring it is
Speaker 1: to be in the military and how sometimes decisions in
Speaker 1: the military seemed to defy all common sense. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of a surreal satire in a way. It was
Speaker 1: sort of on the level of Catch twenty two, but
Speaker 1: with more curse words and uh and anyway and more
Speaker 1: surreal humor. But Rooster Teeth created this model where these
Speaker 1: guys who had worked in commercials and worked on another
Speaker 1: website that was called Drunk Gamers back in the day
Speaker 1: they used to do sketches and things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: they got together and they started doing this series. And
Speaker 1: the model that Rooster Teeth used was the two upload
Speaker 1: videos to their website and then they invited people to
Speaker 1: become sponsors. So you could become a sponsor for I
Speaker 1: think it was twenty dollars when it started off, and
Speaker 1: for twenty dollars you would get access to special videos
Speaker 1: they would make that they would only make available to sponsors.
Speaker 1: You'd also get to see the videos early, so I
Speaker 1: think like two days before everyone else could see them.
Speaker 1: You could watch the episode, and at the end of
Speaker 1: the first season, all the sponsors got a DVD of
Speaker 1: all the episodes that were produced during that first season
Speaker 1: of Red Versus Blue. Now, uh, that was how they
Speaker 1: are initially began to fund Red Versus Blue. Since then,
Speaker 1: they still Rooster Teeth gets gets revenue from a variety
Speaker 1: of sources. They produce commercials for video game companies. They
Speaker 1: they also sell advertising on the videos that they have,
Speaker 1: so you might watch a pre roll add before a
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth video. They also have advertising on their website. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, they sell merchandise and they sell d
Speaker 1: v ds of the shows that they've done. Plus they
Speaker 1: still have the subscription based so you if you pay
Speaker 1: that that subscription price, you do still get exclusive content
Speaker 1: and you get to see stuff early. So that model
Speaker 1: really worked for them. They've been around for I think
Speaker 1: eight years now, maybe close to nine, and that's pretty
Speaker 1: impressive that they've managed to make that work. So again,
Speaker 1: this is a company that you know, they had some fun,
Speaker 1: fun ideas, but they would probably never have made a
Speaker 1: break into either the independent film circuit or the television
Speaker 1: circuit based upon what they were doing. I mean, it
Speaker 1: would be really hard to to get a foot in
Speaker 1: on those doors. Instead, they went with using the web
Speaker 1: as their delivery system. And since then now they have
Speaker 1: shown their stuff at independent film festivals, they've they've shown
Speaker 1: an entire season as a movie and uh and so
Speaker 1: that again is a good internet success story. And and also,
Speaker 1: like Jonathan Colton. They have a community of users. They
Speaker 1: have a message board where people can comment. They can
Speaker 1: comment on on the various videos, and they also have
Speaker 1: interaction with their fans, like they even will go on
Speaker 1: Xbox Live and play games with their fans. In fact,
Speaker 1: they invented a um a type of gameplay for Halo
Speaker 1: called griff Ball, and it's named after one of the
Speaker 1: characters from Red Versus Blue. Yeah, yeah, whoever, whoever is
Speaker 1: the person with the griff Ball in the game turns
Speaker 1: the color that griff is in Red Versus Blue, which
Speaker 1: is kind of a yellowish orange supposed to be orange.
Speaker 1: I maintained that it still looks yellow, but anyway, So
Speaker 1: Rooster Teeth Productions is has seen a lot of success
Speaker 1: that way, and it's really impressive to to kind of
Speaker 1: see where they came from and how a group of
Speaker 1: guys who had this kind of silly idea managed to
Speaker 1: turn it into a viable entertainment business. Now, um, we
Speaker 1: were talking about the some of these folks. I started
Speaker 1: thinking about people that I saw getting picked up up
Speaker 1: after working on online now um. One of the first
Speaker 1: people that came to mind was a man to congan
Speaker 1: Uh formerly of Rocket Boom. She and her partner had
Speaker 1: started UM Rocket Boom, which was a little daily would
Speaker 1: you call it a newscast kind of thing that was
Speaker 1: shown on the web. It was newsy ish and UM.
Speaker 1: They actually had a big, pretty well public falling out. UM.
Speaker 1: She and her business partner disagreed on on how things
Speaker 1: should be run, so she left UM, started a blog
Speaker 1: and then eventually got picked up by ABC News UM
Speaker 1: as an anchor and now has has left and is
Speaker 1: doing other projects. UM. But that's kind of interesting to
Speaker 1: to imagine that it's, you know, really you can start
Speaker 1: your own show and just get picked up. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's also what you could say about people
Speaker 1: like The Lonely Island UM. And if you're not familiar,
Speaker 1: they are a uh comedy group UM who have been
Speaker 1: making videos since two thousand, according to their website, The
Speaker 1: Lonely Island dot Com. UH, you may if you watch
Speaker 1: American television, you may recognize at least one of them,
Speaker 1: uh Andy Sanmdberg a Cuba Shafer. And I really hope
Speaker 1: I'm not mispronouncing uh drama Taknis or Tacn's name. Someone
Speaker 1: running and tell me that I mispronounced it. I mispronounced
Speaker 1: it at least once. Um. Uh they're very very funny people, um,
Speaker 1: and have been on Saturday Night Live as a result
Speaker 1: of getting picked up, and probably more importantly, Andy Samberg
Speaker 1: has been on Yo Gabba Gabba. Of course that's important,
Speaker 1: that is important. UM. But yeah, I mean people you know,
Speaker 1: you start creating things, uh you know, your comedy or
Speaker 1: your music or your writing. And I mean there have
Speaker 1: been many bloggers who have gotten book deals based on
Speaker 1: their blogs, um, which I find impressive. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean if it helps to to have a a have
Speaker 1: to be able to cultivate a good audience, um, if
Speaker 1: you're working to create a little buzz around it. Like
Speaker 1: I also thought of a Lonely Girl fifteen remember that, um,
Speaker 1: which there was a I hadn't actually watched the video,
Speaker 1: but I became acquainted with the show, which aired on YouTube,
Speaker 1: um from Wired magazine, and they did a show after
Speaker 1: the after it had been revealed that uh, this person
Speaker 1: that yeah, that basically the Jessica Rose as a young actress,
Speaker 1: um had been basically portraying herself as um, you know,
Speaker 1: somebody who really just needed to get out there. She
Speaker 1: had a kind of um a family. They sort of
Speaker 1: encouraged her to keep to herself. If I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: it's kind of the thing, and she really wanted to, uh,
Speaker 1: to get out there and be a little bit more
Speaker 1: open to the public. And people were captivated by this story.
Speaker 1: I said, wow, really, I mean, she she seems so nice.
Speaker 1: I want to be your friend. Which was presented at
Speaker 1: first as a legitimate sincere kind of like like it
Speaker 1: was real like video video blog, and as it turns out,
Speaker 1: no was. It was a scripted event. She was an
Speaker 1: actress playing the part of uh, this young woman who
Speaker 1: was bearing her thoughts for the world to see. And
Speaker 1: we should maintain that that does not in any way
Speaker 1: make the video necessarily less enjoyable to watch. But the
Speaker 1: story captivated so many people's attention. UM and you know,
Speaker 1: I think you it's sort of one of those things
Speaker 1: that you go, wow, I mean you can really just
Speaker 1: because you make a video yourself and upload it to
Speaker 1: UM one of the video sharing sites in the web,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that people aren't watching it. And if you
Speaker 1: do a good job with it, you know, you you
Speaker 1: could capture a lot of people's interest and attention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've we've seen that go both ways. Right.
Speaker 1: Of course, we've talked about the memes in the memes episodes.
Speaker 1: Some some videos turn into memes, they don't necessarily allow
Speaker 1: the the person in the video to leverage it in
Speaker 1: in a useful way. Yeah. I think it's good that
Speaker 1: you make that distinction because people people like the tron guy. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about
Speaker 1: people who are trying to make a creative endeavor, not
Speaker 1: necessarily just shoot something funny or in extemporaneous, but it's
Speaker 1: it's the idea of leveraging the web to get content
Speaker 1: that you normally would have seen in these more traditional
Speaker 1: uh media form factors. It's just that there's you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, you can't necessarily break into those easily. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're yeah, we're not talking about David after the
Speaker 1: dentist right now. We're talking stuff purpose purposefully trying to
Speaker 1: do this in an artistic way to gather attention. Um,
Speaker 1: so we're talking We've talked a bit about music, we've
Speaker 1: talked about video and movies. Uh. We should also mentioned that,
Speaker 1: you know, print is another way, another thing that can
Speaker 1: be difficult to break into, particularly for things like let's
Speaker 1: say that you're a comic strip artist. Web comics are
Speaker 1: a big thing, and there are lots of different artists
Speaker 1: who have tried using the web to produce or to
Speaker 1: publish material self published material in many cases, and uh,
Speaker 1: the list for this is really long. I mean there
Speaker 1: are tons of different artists who have done this, and
Speaker 1: some of them have done art in more traditional form
Speaker 1: factors as well, like Phil Folio. Yes, Philfolio, who is
Speaker 1: a comic book artist, um and artist in general who
Speaker 1: has produced art for lots of different venues, including he
Speaker 1: did the illustrations for all the uh for some American
Speaker 1: editions of the myth Adventures books, and also did the
Speaker 1: comic book series for myth Adventures, which was written by
Speaker 1: Robert Aspirin. And um, yeah, they also a number of games. Yep,
Speaker 1: he and his and his wife have both collaborated on
Speaker 1: on things like that. And the Girl Genius comic. Yes,
Speaker 1: Girl Genius is the one that was specifically thinking about
Speaker 1: because he's published it online. I actually used to buy
Speaker 1: it in print form. Um, but yeah, I've been reading
Speaker 1: it online and it's it's funny because when you said that,
Speaker 1: it reminded me of Scott McCloud. You did. The Understanding
Speaker 1: Understanding Comics series has written some really awesome books about
Speaker 1: what you could do with it with comics as an
Speaker 1: art form, and he talks about the limitations of the
Speaker 1: standard strip and I think on the web you can
Speaker 1: do so well. He would argue, that's too. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure it has that. You can do so much more.
Speaker 1: If you can open up the space and show art
Speaker 1: in different ways, you can tell a different kind of story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and some artists have tried to embrace that. Some artists
Speaker 1: have been very resistant toward it, thinking that the that
Speaker 1: it's it's hard. It's another tool to tell a story,
Speaker 1: and I think some artists are more comfortable using that
Speaker 1: tool than others. UM. For example, what you've probably heard
Speaker 1: about the comic books that maybe you actually read them.
Speaker 1: You maybe you read comic books online or using an
Speaker 1: iPad feature. Now a lot of those comics have added
Speaker 1: features uh in them, so that there's there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of action in there as well. It's not just
Speaker 1: static images. You you get a few little effects that
Speaker 1: you can add in that you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: do on the page obviously. UM. Same sort of thing
Speaker 1: with web comics. The idea is that you could add
Speaker 1: more elements into your storytelling, or even choose to tell
Speaker 1: a story in a totally different way that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to tell if it were confined to a page.
Speaker 1: Like I said, some artists do not agree with that
Speaker 1: particular approach. They think that the human that human customers
Speaker 1: are pretty much uh, kind of conditioned to reading comics
Speaker 1: in a very static way, and that it's very hard
Speaker 1: to get people to break out of that. So it's
Speaker 1: an interesting debate that still goes on in the web
Speaker 1: comic space. I wanted to mention a couple of other
Speaker 1: web comic artists. Scott Kurtz, who does pv P online. Yes,
Speaker 1: he so that that jumped off the screen and onto
Speaker 1: the page, released print versions of a lot of his
Speaker 1: comics after they were on online. Right, Yeah, he managed
Speaker 1: to Um. He started off doing publishing his strip to
Speaker 1: the web, and uh, he was getting most of his
Speaker 1: money from ad revenue, and then he began to collect
Speaker 1: strips in books and sell them just like you would
Speaker 1: find other traditional comic strips. You know, like you go
Speaker 1: to the bookstore and you look in the humor section
Speaker 1: and you're going to find all the you know, the
Speaker 1: Garfield books and you know, I haven't read comic strips
Speaker 1: since so long. I'm not even going to do this
Speaker 1: because I'll date myself. But at any rate, same sort
Speaker 1: of thing you could find, you know, p VP books online.
Speaker 1: I'm sure in some bookstores as well. You could purchase them.
Speaker 1: And then you also have Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade,
Speaker 1: who are very successful web comic creators and uh and again,
Speaker 1: just like the other examples we've said, both Scott kurts
Speaker 1: And and Tycho and Gabe in particular have been very
Speaker 1: good at cultivating that audience and creating a community for them,
Speaker 1: not just not just a website where you read a
Speaker 1: comic strip, but a place where people actually interact. And um.
Speaker 1: They've also experimented with other forms of media, so they're
Speaker 1: not just drawing comics, but they might do a podcast.
Speaker 1: The podcast could be about different challenges that web comic
Speaker 1: artists face and their own perspectives on some of these
Speaker 1: debates that are within web comics themselves. And it's pretty
Speaker 1: interesting to hear from their perspectives because of course, these
Speaker 1: are the guys who are producing the art or video
Speaker 1: games or video games. Yes, Tycho and Gabe made there's
Speaker 1: a Penning Arcade video game. I think you can get
Speaker 1: it off Xbox Live if I'm not mistaken. Um, but
Speaker 1: the I had And another example something that was interesting
Speaker 1: to me, Another example of a person who has a
Speaker 1: history in old media who created something in new media.
Speaker 1: Josh Weeden. So Josh Wheden as the creator of such
Speaker 1: shows as Buffy, the Van Pire, Slayer, Angel Firefly, also
Speaker 1: did doll House. Um. He of course he's known for
Speaker 1: writing some you know, kind of quirky dialogue, creating very
Speaker 1: strong female characters, and having sort of a geek perspective
Speaker 1: on culture. All his characters tend to be really pop
Speaker 1: culture savvy, and they very much tend to be geeks.
Speaker 1: Um to summing to you know, there's a spectrum there, right, yes,
Speaker 1: so um. Anyway, he created a show called Dr Horrible, Yes,
Speaker 1: which the three episode story. Yes, they created this on
Speaker 1: a very modest budget, too, right, and was this really impressive?
Speaker 1: I think the the impetus for this was the writer strike.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the writer strike. So the writers strike in
Speaker 1: Hollywood meant that no new content for television was going
Speaker 1: to be created during this time because the writer's Guild
Speaker 1: had decided to strike. As it turns out, the networks
Speaker 1: are really good at funding a lot of these shows,
Speaker 1: so when the writers are doing it themselves, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I watch it and I don't
Speaker 1: think at all that it looks like a low budget show. No.
Speaker 1: The the the budget for Dr Horrible was probably much
Speaker 1: higher than for your average web series, and the people
Speaker 1: who were making it know how to make inexpensive stuff
Speaker 1: look really good. And it also helps when Josh Weeden
Speaker 1: has a big enough name that he's able to attract
Speaker 1: high level talent to be in his production. Really like
Speaker 1: who like? Uh like? Oh Neil Patrick Harris? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, your average web series doesn't have Doogie Howser
Speaker 1: as the lead. Uh. Neil Patrick Harris was of course
Speaker 1: the lead in Dr Horrible. He was the the title
Speaker 1: character Dr Horrible. Felicia Day, who had been in episodes
Speaker 1: of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a Sears commercial um
Speaker 1: and also had her own web series called The Guild.
Speaker 1: She was of course cast as the potential love interest
Speaker 1: for Dr Horrible, and so jos Wein used this story
Speaker 1: to tell the tale of a supervillain from the supervillain's
Speaker 1: perspective about why he does the things he does, how
Speaker 1: he's human just like everybody else, how he's affected by
Speaker 1: his own emotions, and what finally propels him to uh
Speaker 1: celebrity status within the super villain community. And it's an
Speaker 1: entertaining and of course heartbreaking story because Josh Weeden can't
Speaker 1: make anyone have a happy ending. And uh that's another podcast,
Speaker 1: probably not for tech stuff, but anyway, it's he used
Speaker 1: the web to launch this series, and he has, of
Speaker 1: course we hadn't already had a very strong fan community, yes,
Speaker 1: from his television series and also his work in movies,
Speaker 1: and so he had a built an audience, right, yes,
Speaker 1: he did. I also want to give a shout out
Speaker 1: to one of mine and my wife's favorite characters whom
Speaker 1: you didn't mention. So, Nathan Phillion, if you are listening,
Speaker 1: it was me who mentioned you, Captain Nathan Philly, and
Speaker 1: I love you too, but you know that because I've
Speaker 1: tweeted to you at anyway, he doesn't know me. If
Speaker 1: Nathan Phillion knows me, he's doing an awfully good job
Speaker 1: at keeping that information riv it anyways, just going to
Speaker 1: use it against you later. He's famous first prank he
Speaker 1: could be you know, he said that he might be.
Speaker 1: He would be willing to be mal again if Fireflight
Speaker 1: were to be relaunched. Hey, that works in two different
Speaker 1: ways relaunched anyway. So yeah, this was an example of
Speaker 1: someone who had worked in old media going toward new
Speaker 1: media and it was a huge success as far as
Speaker 1: web video series are concerned, right, yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: you might look at that versus the numbers, you know,
Speaker 1: strictly from the numbers perspective, versus an average TV show
Speaker 1: on an average night, you might go whatever. But you know,
Speaker 1: for the web actually, with as much content as there
Speaker 1: is on the web and many choices you have to
Speaker 1: choose from, the show did very well. Yes, and it
Speaker 1: in fact, it's available on DVD now, so you can
Speaker 1: actually purchase it. And I think it I just wanted
Speaker 1: to add that. I think it shows the viability of
Speaker 1: that as a way to a vehicle to do this,
Speaker 1: the same same kind of thing with the Battlestar Galactica
Speaker 1: mini videos that they did in en seasons. Um shows
Speaker 1: you that you can you can use that to either
Speaker 1: bolster your property or use it as a a different
Speaker 1: angle from which to look at it. Now. Of course,
Speaker 1: not every web series that comes out is going to
Speaker 1: have the production value of Dr Horrible, because I mean,
Speaker 1: like we said, it's it was much less money than
Speaker 1: it would take to make a typical television show, but
Speaker 1: much more money than the typical web video person has
Speaker 1: at his or her disposal, So you know, but it
Speaker 1: does show that the web is a is a viable
Speaker 1: platform to get your material to an audience. And and
Speaker 1: it's like I said, there's DVD sales now. There was
Speaker 1: a big contest for people to create videos to um
Speaker 1: to become the next member of the Evil League of Evil.
Speaker 1: By the way, that trivia Jonathan Strickland has a video
Speaker 1: of him as a character called the philosophize Er. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to do a search on YouTube for
Speaker 1: Room Hilda, that's Room with a v Room Hill and
Speaker 1: the Philosophizer, you will see the audition video for the
Speaker 1: Evil League of Evil. We were mentioned in the credits.
Speaker 1: We did not make one of the final five. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. We were really really evil. They were
Speaker 1: really good. I enjoyed it. The performance was really oh
Speaker 1: thank you so anyway, uh yeah, they that was another
Speaker 1: example of fan interaction and it really helped with the
Speaker 1: DVD sales as well. And we've seen, you know, other
Speaker 1: material inspired by Dr Horrible. There are single long performances
Speaker 1: of Dr Horrible that will happen, kind of like the
Speaker 1: old Rocky Horror Picture show stuff. And there's that great
Speaker 1: video that was produced as if Dr Horrible were an
Speaker 1: eight bit in S game, like an old inn S
Speaker 1: RPG game. Uh. And we mentioned the Guild briefly. That's
Speaker 1: Felicia Day's series, which is about a group of gamers
Speaker 1: who are playing a game very similar to World Warcraft
Speaker 1: and kind of the um the complications that arise in
Speaker 1: their lives. Yeah, and it had the very first part
Speaker 1: of it they actually meet each other in the flesh
Speaker 1: instead of in the pixel. Yeah. First, very awkward. That
Speaker 1: was painful for me. Well, yeah, because you realize a
Speaker 1: very good job, which is why exactly you realize it's
Speaker 1: showing off gamers as being socially awkward. Socially awkward, so
Speaker 1: I have a t exactly. So they're very good at
Speaker 1: interacting online, but once you get them in person, they
Speaker 1: have problems and what I think is amusing. This is
Speaker 1: kind of a spoiler alert, But in later seasons of
Speaker 1: the guild, you get a delicious villain played by a Mr.
Speaker 1: Will Wheaton, which just shows that, you know, if your
Speaker 1: web series gets enough traction, you might actually find people
Speaker 1: who have had work in old media get interested and
Speaker 1: get involved, and um, you know, these are just some examples.
Speaker 1: There are thousands of examples on the web. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: for the thousands of examples on the web of success,
Speaker 1: there are millions of examples of things that never went anywhere. Yes,
Speaker 1: so there's still an element of luck. There's still definitely
Speaker 1: an element of quality if you're if you're if what
Speaker 1: you are using is not a very good quality, if
Speaker 1: you do get famous, it's going to be for the
Speaker 1: wrong reason, right, Um, so you still have to create
Speaker 1: good quality stuff. But the web gives you that that
Speaker 1: that access that you might not otherwise have, especially if
Speaker 1: you're like, let's say that you're somewhere where you're far
Speaker 1: away from Hollywood or New York or even have the
Speaker 1: other centers where we think of the entertainment industry being located.
Speaker 1: You can produce this theoretically anywhere. So the web has
Speaker 1: really helped out with that. Now, Uh, if you guys
Speaker 1: have a great idea for a web series, like a
Speaker 1: comic or a video or a song. Then definitely pursue that.
Speaker 1: Think about using the web as a platform, look into
Speaker 1: people who have done it before and seeing how how
Speaker 1: they've achieved success, and learn as much as you can
Speaker 1: before you just you know, try and strike out there
Speaker 1: and throw something up on the internet. And you know,
Speaker 1: always work at it because chances are your first attempt
Speaker 1: may not go over well. But who knows, you could
Speaker 1: end up being the next Justin b or yeah you
Speaker 1: could gosh, the babe who got discovered from YouTube. By
Speaker 1: the way, uh, I just want to point this unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I heard it from Fitty Cent himself. Never make fun
Speaker 1: of Justin Bieber fans because they will not accept your apology.
Speaker 1: But no, and jokes aside, and whether or not you
Speaker 1: like his music. He got picked up from YouTube. Somebody
Speaker 1: saw him on YouTube and now he's a very big star.
Speaker 1: So that's about as big as you can get. It
Speaker 1: can be done, yes, So so guys, you know, I
Speaker 1: encourage it creativity. I love seeing good creative work out there.
Speaker 1: If nothing else, it's fun, go do it. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, keep in mind that that
Speaker 1: failure could still be part of the equation. But it's
Speaker 1: better to go ahead and try something and fail than
Speaker 1: to not even put forth the effort. You can always
Speaker 1: look at it before you post it. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: like I said, and again, do your research, find what
Speaker 1: works and what doesn't work. Don't just go into it blind.
Speaker 1: And guys, that will wrap up this story. If you
Speaker 1: have a particular web series or comic or or web
Speaker 1: artist who uses the web to to publish his or
Speaker 1: her work, let us know. Let's know on Facebook or Twitter,
Speaker 1: are handled, there is tech stuff hs W or shoot
Speaker 1: us an email. That address is tech stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and Chris and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
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