This is the second time I’m writing about this today.<\/p>\n
The first time the story was how the mainstream press was completely out of it on this one, how this was truly a Web phenomenon.<\/p>\n
Now the story is how Alanis herself is completely silent, how the story is the story, what exactly happened here?<\/p>\n
Was it an April Fool’s joke?\u00c2\u00a0 Did she get permission?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, you need permission to synch music with video.\u00c2\u00a0 Or do the Black Eyed Peas not even care?\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the RIAA issued take-down notices to sites that NIN leaked its songs to.<\/p>\n
Where’s the press conference?\u00c2\u00a0 The late night TV appearance?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, even lonelygirl15 went on "The Tonight Show".\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, that actress needed the publicity, she was a nobody, whereas Alanis Morissette is a somebody.\u00c2\u00a0 A badly tarnished somebody who’s seen as a one hit wonder.\u00c2\u00a0 Aren’t unknowns supposed to use the new tools?\u00c2\u00a0 Aren’t the stars always guilty of manipulation?<\/p>\n
This video appears on YouTube out of nowhere?\u00c2\u00a0 How did people find out about it?<\/p>\n
E-mail.<\/p>\n
Have you gotten the one about the Turtles video?<\/p>\n
It’s astounding to those who haven’t seen it, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan reciting their managerial woes laughingly, in an honest way so different from today’s pampered media-savvy rock stars as to single-handedly show why the sixties were so magical <\/p>\n
\nTurtles<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
But I’ve seen this video.\u00c2\u00a0 God, was it January 2000 when I went to a screening room in Beverly Hills to see Rhino Films’ Turtles movie?\u00c2\u00a0 What ever happened to that movie?\u00c2\u00a0 Harold Bronson stopped updating me on it.\u00c2\u00a0 But suddenly, an excerpt is a hit on the Web, it’s gaining momentum.\u00c2\u00a0 I get an e-mail link every day.<\/p>\n
But this "My Lumps" thing is a juggernaut.<\/p>\n
Earlier today, during my first unpublished attempt at delineating this phenomenon, there were only 64 references total on the Google News.\u00c2\u00a0 And not a single one of them was in a mainstream print publication, or its Website, until hours previous, days after the video phenomenon broke.<\/p>\n
But if you did a straight Google on "Alanis lumps" there were references to the Websites of VH1 and other entertainment media.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, who pays attention to that media?<\/p>\n
Hell, the very first link, the very first news story, was on April 2nd, from the Wired News.\u00c2\u00a0 Who reads the Wired News?<\/p>\n
Believe me, I seem to consume more media than anybody I know.\u00c2\u00a0 And I often feel like I know nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no one place to go to graze and get a hit of everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, the mainstream press didn’t cover this "My Lumps" story until today.\u00c2\u00a0 You rely on your peeps.<\/p>\n
It’s all a matter of how many friends you have.\u00c2\u00a0 Not fake friends on MySpace, but real friends, whom you trust, who’ll you follow a link sent by.\u00c2\u00a0 Have no friends then you’re out of the loop.\u00c2\u00a0 Have friends and you don’t even need to leave your house to be part of the community, on the pulse, to the degree anybody can be on the pulse anymore.<\/p>\n
In other words, we no longer live in a top-down society.\u00c2\u00a0 The mainstream comes to the party last, after the public has delineated what’s important.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, we saw this a year ago when the blogosphere made Stephen Colbert’s appearance at the White House Correspondents’ dinner a story, which the mainstream press previously ignored, and then ran with.\u00c2\u00a0 Same deal with the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, in fact.<\/p>\n
As of this writing, Alanis Morissette’s "My Humps" video has 2,120,369 plays on YouTube <\/p>\n
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