{"id":4012,"date":"2011-04-04T17:16:39","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T01:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=4012"},"modified":"2011-04-04T17:16:39","modified_gmt":"2011-04-05T01:16:39","slug":"colberts-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2011\/04\/04\/colberts-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Colbert’s “Friday”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stephen Colbert Sings "Friday" With the Roots<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If it doesn’t happen on YouTube, does it count?<\/p>\n

That’s exactly the point.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no counter on this video, therefore it’s forsaking a huge percentage of its impact.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you read any articles about Rebecca Black’s video that have not included the play count (82,751,513 at this moment)?<\/p>\n

We live in a society that embraces rankings, no entity as much as television, with its Nielsen ratings.\u00c2\u00a0 Why have they forsaken ratings here?<\/p>\n

One must not see virality as a profit center, but as an image enhancement feature.\u00c2\u00a0 As big a star as Stephen Colbert is, and he’s gigantic, there’s a huge section of the populace that is either unaware of him or has no idea of his impact upon popular culture.\u00c2\u00a0 By including a counter, this video could help enhance his career, as well as that of host Jimmy Fallon.<\/p>\n

In other words, if you think the modern era is about control, you’re missing the point.\u00c2\u00a0 YOU CAN’T TRULY SUCCEED IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY UNLESS YOU’RE WILLING TO GIVE UP CONTROL!<\/p>\n

It’s not as simple as piracy, it’s not as simple as profit, it’s first and foremost about marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 Your marketing is done by the audience today, via electronic technologies, and you must do everything in your power to help them spread the word.\u00c2\u00a0 Old wavers think it’s about spamming, having street teamers send e-mails and post about a project.\u00c2\u00a0 But new wavers know it’s about quality.\u00c2\u00a0 Catch lightning in a bottle and then you have a chance of random surfers picking up on it and spreading the word because what you’ve done is so damn good!<\/p>\n

OK Go is known for the most innovative music videos.\u00c2\u00a0 People will watch the clips.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, they’re not known for their music.\u00c2\u00a0 One incredibly catchy tune would make people pay attention, but in order to cement a career, you need a few.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, OK Go has an incredible marketing campaign for a so-so product.\u00c2\u00a0 Focus first and foremost on the product.<\/p>\n

Colbert has an A+ product.\u00c2\u00a0 And Fallon’s musical parodies are cementing his place in the entertainment firmament.\u00c2\u00a0 Not many people may be watching at 12:30 AM, but the virality of his Neil Young clip and this have made him important, whereas Conan has faded into the woodwork.\u00c2\u00a0 No one passes along Conan O’Brien clips anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d be more worried about that than the short term ratings.<\/p>\n

In other words, you have to do it for the art.\u00c2\u00a0 Conception is primary and execution comes thereafter.\u00c2\u00a0 What people love about this clip is they’re all in it together.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the opposite of the Top Forty ethos, evidenced in too many hip-hop songs, "I live a fantastic life and you’re a loser!"\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not including the audience, you’re missing out.<\/p>\n

In other words, you play to your fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Not to your label or network or radio or advertisers.\u00c2\u00a0 Those come last.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like in the sixties. The music on the radio was so good, premium advertising prices could be charged.\u00c2\u00a0 The music on the radio today is so bad there’s got to be twenty odd minutes of commercials per hour to make it all work.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to have fewer commercials at a higher price.\u00c2\u00a0 But commenting on radio’s failures is like criticizing Bon Jovi for blaming Steve Jobs for the decline of the music industry, way too easy.<\/p>\n

Radio wouldn’t play "Friday".\u00c2\u00a0 They ceded it to the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 Where it’s the biggest story going, with even late night TV personalities weighing in.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio is out of touch.\u00c2\u00a0 You own something.\u00c2\u00a0 They could have owned "Friday", taken negative phone calls whenever it aired, made a party, but research didn’t tell them this so they didn’t do it.<\/p>\n

"Friday" is a cultural phenomenon.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody online is in on the joke.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody’s having fun.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a way for us all to feel together, part of a vast human continuum, when normally we’re listening to different music, watching different television and videos, and reading different books.\u00c2\u00a0 We need moments like this to zip up society, to counter the Tower of Babel the landscape has become.<\/p>\n

If you’re just saying "Friday" sucks, you’re missing the point.\u00c2\u00a0 It does suck but it teaches us that the audience is sophisticated, in on the joke, and that the music industry is selling lowest common denominator crap at its peril.<\/p>\n

Colbert on Fallon was the biggest viral story of the weekend.<\/p>\n

But NBC won’t let anybody know, because they refuse to play on YouTube, they refuse to have a counter, they want to undermine their success.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you doing the same thing?<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Colbert Sings "Friday" With the Roots If it doesn’t happen on YouTube, does it count? That’s exactly the point.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no counter on this video, therefore it’s forsaking a huge percentage of its impact.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you read any articles about Rebecca Black’s video that have not included the play count (82,751,513 at this moment)? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-12I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4013,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4012\/revisions\/4013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}