"James Kotecki: Video Blogger"

Our class video conference with James Kotecki was the most memorable class period of the quarter. I often think about the rise of Youtube or video blogging celebrities such as Kotecki, and one of my favorite new artists, Marie Digby, who aired on Star 98.7 after she was discovered on Youtube. A lot of times, it seems that these video bloggers are simply doing what they love, reporting politics in a fun way, or making acoustic covers of popular music, not wanting or anticipating the fame that can literally happen overnight. Digby has a record deal now. Kotecki landed a job with Politico.com. And they are veritable cyber-celebrities, but where does something like Kotecki's current job begin exactly? I had the opportunity to ask him a bit about it. Here's a re-cap of my class notes, Kotecki's responses to my questions etc.:

• Regarding how he got started, Kotecki says...

"I realized there was a low standard for what people can do to be popular [on spaces like Youtube]. I decided I would try an experiment to see how popular I could get by rehashing presidential candidates' news. I really just wanted to see how popular I could get."

"I started out making short videos in my dorm room."

• Praises and critiques about life in the Youtube world....

(+) POSITIVES

"See, the thing about Youtube, is that it should be a conversation, a dialogue...and I think a lot of the time it achieves that two-way dialogue."

"It emphasizes participatory culture, and I get instant feedback, sometimes within three or four hours of a post. Sometimes there are video responses."

"Specifically thinking about the political debate concept, candidates operating on live feed need to be much more candid. It's like a town hall format, and I feel, a step in the right direction. It increases the legitimacy of the candidates' answers, and tests their ability to improvise and spin the answer in their own interest. It features dialogue which is possibly censored on mainstream news."

"Youtube and internet culture offers a level playing field helping to launch careers everywhere. It made me who I am today."

"It's simply a great space for fun, quirky videos."

(-) NEGATIVES

"I acknowledge that net culture can be vicious, vile, sexist, homophobic... but that's just the nature of the internet".

"Sometimes people say is that all it takes is quality [to become popularized on the internet], but that's not necessarily true. A lot of it is luck and timing."

• When asked how he actively defines and redefines his internet identity as a professional political blogger....

"I do a lot of pattern studies, subscribe to a lot of political channels..."

"Sold out? NO! I bought in."

• When asked about his job at Politico.com...

"I like the flexibility of sustaining my living this way. I never thought I would be doing this, that's for sure. "

"I'm more hardened to critiques now, and I'm comfortable with the attention." Kotecki remembers being recognized and praised on a subway in New York, but says, "I'm not that famous...not famous at all!"

"I love the performance aspect, skewing more towards entertainment rather than anything too serious...There's definitely no way to watch [Playbook TV] and get your fill of the day's news...it's a quick political fix...sometimes people tell me 'I get my news from you,' and my response to that is 'WHY?!!"

"I have three to four thousand subscribers who hopefully benefit from my web presence, and expand their political minds a little bit."

"I think I'd have more success as an attractive, young woman on Youtube."

• Anxieties about his private life as a result of his internet persona?

"I think my subscribers like the fact that I'm a real person, so I kept my Facebook profile as real as it was before. "

"I have, however, experienced some reputation restriction. On Facebook, I've censored things that are damning, and I've deleted critical comments [from others] on Youtube."

• Final thoughts about forging interesting online personas and developing them?

"(1) KEEP A NARROW FOCUS: something that you know about and are interested in
(2) HAVE A PLAN: for a script and editing, with time left to play around
(3) ENJOY!"


*** I can definitely enjoy Kotecki's net presence. He inspires a sense of opinionated edge with which to color the dry world of factual news. I think he represents a refreshing rawness of character, and frames valid, informed political opinion in such a way that is comedic and entertaining, but that also provokes the want and need for more information. His work is a sound opportunity for youth who, as a whole generation, are sweepingly apathetic about politics to take their typical hunger for immediate self-gratification somewhere else to eat for once. ***

Self-Censorship on the Net : Managing Your Net Rep for Potential Employers

During the summer, I laughed at a friend of mine for Googling the guy she was starting to date at the time. A quick search, and she found out that his past self wasn't the well-dressed, party boy, and hip-hop dancer-DJ that he appeared and claimed to be in the present. In fact, he was someone that graced the academic scene at Northeastern University with his severely, stereotypically "nerdy" ways (something I found attractive, but she apparently did not). She found his old Friendster account, found him breaking any number of fashion rules, and then proceeded to retroactively judge him based on some internet findings. The poor guy...I defended him, and his right to be who he is today, and who he was yesterday, in peace. I had spoken with him extensively about international career goals and traveling, and found him to be a very impressive conversationalist. So what, I told my friend, if his past-life wardrobe and hair cuts were so horribly offensive? Does he not show evidence of a serious style make-over? So what, I demanded, if he was more so an Indian bhangra dance DJ than a top-forties-esque hip-hop one? He didn't lie about his rich schooling and business history. He did not really lie about being a DJ either, per se, although he skewed or rather hid the actuality of things to some degree. We censor ourselves all the time in day-to-day interactions with people. But I think where it seems to count more nowadays, we do not think to censor ourselves, and that place which to which I am referring is (surprise, surprise) the internet.

Google "Hana Visaya". Search "Hana Visaya" on Facebook or Myspace. You will not be able to help but judge me. I cannot stop you. Little did that unsuspecting guy know, the "truth" which concerned my friend was only a link, click, and a load away. And he was out of a date! Out of sheer curiosity, I even helped dish the DJ details when I stumbled upon a site featuring download-able sample clips of his old work. With distaste for his beats, my overly critical friend (who, by the way, works for Kiis FM, a popular hit radio station) was even more turned off, saying that he had been bragging about music that was clearly not worthy of boasting about.

So he's out of a date with my friend at least. Too bad, so sad. I like to think that somewhere out there, a girl is going to Google that man and be happy with the search results. But what if I'm not looking for a date? What if I'm looking for a job?

What I'm more worried about is the potential sabotage of our professional lives because of employer access to social networking sites. The following Youtube video, taken from a CBS news broadcast, talks about employers seeing past our interview face by looking at our internet face...

MYSPACE//FACEBOOK: EMPLOYERS ARE WATCHING



Tim DeMello, the employer being interviewed, estimates that 20% of employers are doing net scans of potential employees before their interviews. The notion of an internet "footprint" scares me a little. It made me think twice about anything I've ever had on any online profile, whether they were public, private, or even deleted. Somewhere out there in cyber space, I feel like they're haunting me, taunting me with the possibility that a potential boss will one day hack into those things, and not like what they see. This is largely unwarranted paranoia that I'm experiencing, I feel, but at the same time, the fear is valid. If one thing can tip an interviewer off in an instant (say, you're wearing a case full of perfume or cologne), one little blurb, one tagged photo...anything on Facebook can rub them the wrong way. DeMello's right in pointing out that some students really don't care that anything and everything about them is exposed by Facebook, and that they need to metaphorically "cover-up" with a more careful, professional online identity. It's just not enough to polish your resume anymore, it seems. The following video from the UK agrees, we need to manage our net reputations.

MANAGE YOUR NET REP

I think that the rhetorical set-up of this video is powerful because it cleverly juxtaposes the interview setting and the interview persona (buttoned up, polished, and eager to sell himself), with the all-too-common online persona who lets it all go ("Loosen Up My Buttons" by the Pussy Cat Dolls comes into mind). I think people forget that the internet is a public space.

The statistics in the video are striking. 59% of the one in five employers who admittedly scan online profiles say it influences their decision!!! I scoped the site advertised at the end: "viadeo.com/netrep". It's fascinating to me that a business opportunity exists solely to help others "clean up" their internet reputations. The website's purpose is backed by a series of studies conducted by the independent market research company, YouGov. If you get a chance, please read the full report featured on the site called "What does your Net Rep say about You? A study of how your internet reputation can influence your career prospects". It's really interesting and eye-opening: a reminder that we never know who is watching us online.

'The Facebook Effect', a Newsweek Cover Story (August 2007)

In an article, "Facebook Grows Up", from the August 2007 Newsweek Magazine, Steven Levy analyzes the effect of social media, specifically Facebook, on digital society and the business world.

I remember the first big push for Facebook accounts when I was a freshman in the dorms here at UC Irvine. The site was just getting off the ground, and I was just getting acclimated into the blogging culture. My Xanga blog, as well as my Myspace account were as fresh as my crisp, new first set of extra-long twin sheets. When Facebook became popularized, I relished in the exclusive feeling I got from knowing it was strictly a college network. After its launch, Facebook morphed into a rocket soaring through the greater universe, taking with it high school teens and post-college career types, as well as its original university demographic. For many of its users, Facebook's role is a force that, like it or not, rules their lives as an undeniable addiction, or even a hyper-religious ritual.

Going along with the sacred quality I quickly afforded to Facebook, I was particularly upset when the site opened up to non-university students. Facebook was like Smeagol's "precious" in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and we were fighting for the privilege of calling it our own. I was admittedly a bit annoyed that high school seniors who had just received their college acceptance letters had jumped right on board. We, the "collegiate elite", weren't all that special anymore. We are all special now... Levy writes: "[Facebook's] people claim that more than half its 35 million active users are not college students, and that by the end of this year less than 30% of Facebook users will sport college IDs" (42). High school students are on Facebook now. Parents are on Facebook now. And it should come as no surprise that big businesses as well as budding business opportunities are all over Facebook now. The network is an ever-growing spider web in which to capture us: not just in the form of hundreds of snapshots or profile blurbs, but as food for the giant spider of advertising.

We make the advertiser's jobs easier for them, if you think about it. Not until a few months ago, and until I took this class have I really thought about what kind of people have access to my profile, and what they might be doing with it.

Facebook's current price tag is about seven or eight billion bucks, which rivals the value of MTV, according to some recent reports. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook at the age of nineteen, says, "Facebook is (1) not a social-networking site but a 'utility', a tool to facilitate the information flow between users and their compatriots, family members and professional connections; (2) not just for college students, and (3) a world-changing idea of unlimited potential" (42). It is interesting to consider his vision for the site, which most other people would readily call a social-networking site. What interests me is the notion of its unlimited potential.

One of my friends, Matt, and I had a conversation one night about Facebook's ultimate direction. Although I do not know his sources, he claims that one of Facebook's final goals is to let the internet technology auto-generate news stories of events. The idea of Facebook as a tool for building what Zuckerberg calls a "social graph" is right along these lines. Matt said that the mini-feed was only the beginning, that one day a short article could form from a cyber composite of the event invite, all related photos, notes and attendee comments/reviews. One day, my friend was so convinced, we would not have to remember what happened at that crazy concert or party on Friday night. Facebook would generate the memories for us. And furthermore, it would offer all possible angles and experiences from all those remotely involved.

Does anyone feel threatened by that possibility? I do.

Facebook is, perhaps, a self-imposed Big-Brother system that is cleverly disguised as fun. And pretty soon, it will claim all of us. Or at least that's what the main players in Facebook would like to happen. Those vampires...they got me!

"Karel Baloun, an engineer who worked at Facebook until last year, recalls vividly the baldly stated prediction of one of the company's cofounders: 'In five years...we'll have everybody on the planet on Facebook", Levy reports (42). (Side note: never mind those technologically deficient countries, shall we...but we'll get to the global technological divide at a later date.)

The site is catching like wild fire in Canada and in London, primarily, and is steadily gaining popularity among other places around the world (45). Is it not so far off to say that the developed nations of the world will have most of their population (young and professional alike) aboard the Facebook train in five years time? I'm still doubtful. Zuckerberg is soon to launch Facebook in other languages, but even still, I don't see my parents' generation signing up. My mom only occasionally enjoys utilizing her children's Facebook and Myspace profiles because they allow her to search for estranged friends and relatives' kids ("I want to see how they look like now," she says.)

David Rodnitzky, a marketing executive in San Francisco, criticizes some of the new applications on Facebook as not being the best way to interact in the 'grown-up' environment. Business colleagues, he said, shouldn't ask personal questions on the "My Questions" applications, or head-butt their bosses on "Super-Poke" (45). There's the personal issue of settling down and wanting more private, intimate lives in the family or business sphere; then again, other family people are eager to post photos of their newborns, or advertise their new position at the office. It goes both ways.

One thing is clear, however. Facebook has changed and is continually changing the way we live. An author named Robert Putnam states that "Facebook was originally a classic 'alloy', bonding the Internet and the real world", but that now "it feels less rooted in real life"(46). That gives me something else to think about when I sickeningly recall how many times I log in daily: how rooted in real life am I?

But that reminds me...I'll go log in...right NOW!