Most of the art history I've come across in class is very Euro-centric, which I suppose is fair since the syllabus is set by a British university. But when it comes to local artwork, I hadn't realised how out of touch I was until I finally visited the National Visual Arts Gallery on June 10th. 

"A Tamil Beauty" Penang, 1910

Description of "A Tamil Beauty"

I mentioned in an earlier post that YouTube celebrities are so diverse that it's impossible to generalise them as a whole, so I figured for this post I'd narrow things down to one YouTuber. Or rather, the YouTuber, Felix Kjellberg, better known as PeeuuuuuwwwDeePAII (PewDiePie).

Felix is the most subscribed user on YouTube, with over 56 million subscribers and holds the distinction of being the most viewed channel of all time. He has a dedicated fanbase that he refers to as his "Bro Army", and was one of Time's "The World's 100 Most Influential People" in 2016.

PewDiePie's videos generally have between 3-6 million views, with most of the content being focused on video game streaming. He is known to have exaggerated responses to games, which is what his viewers find entertaining. In February 2014, Wall Street Journal released an article that used content from PewDiePie's videos to postulate that he might be portraying anti-Semitic values. This resulted in Disney-owned Maker Studio severing ties with him due them not wanting to be associated with his image. PewDiePie's defense was that all his videos were made for the sake of humour, and that he was being unfairly targeted by mainstream media because of his YouTube fame.

Rather than going on about PewDiePie's content, I want to explore what exactly makes him such a popular figure, with his "bros" supporting him even through the controversies he's faced.

In Charisma On Command's video on "Why PewDiePie Is Unstoppable", Charlie Houpert (the voice behind Charisma On Command) calls PewDiePie an "expert in capturing attention". Whether it's his video thumbnails or his high-pitched intros, PewDiePie makes people notice, for better or for worse. PewDiePie also utilises strong emotions in his "let's play" videos, often with exaggerated screams or swears when faced with monsters or in-game death. It's more likely than not that Felix does not respond that way to thing that happen in his daily life. He has perfected a persona which draws in viewers, and he knows how to monetize on it.

In essence, Felix seems to be an actor, with PewDiePie being the one role he plays the most. And the fact that his fans let him get away with paying impoverished people to hold up anti-Semitic signs means that his fans know it's all an act too. Surely no one is really that much of a caricature, they might think.

But that could just me my wishful thinking. When you're standing outside of the fan base looking it, seeing a sea of fanatic people practically worshiping one person just looks bizarre, whether it's PewDiePie or Jesus Christ. Surely people can't actually believe in this guy?

References:

Nicas, J., Fritz, B. and Winkler, R. (2014). Disney Severs Ties With YouTube Star PewDiePie After Anti-Semitic Posts. [online] WSJ. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533 [Accessed 4 Jul. 2017].

PewDiePIe (2017). My Response. [video] Available at: https://youtu.be/lwk1DogcPmU [Accessed 5 Jul. 2017].

Sidenote: 

After checking in with my lecturer I was informed that essay topic 5, which I had mentioned in this post does NOT in fact mean "do specific mediums end up diluting a campaign's message, but rather "does the mere VARIETY of mediums dilute a campaign's message", I guess that's one less essay question I need to worry about considering.

Keeping question 2 in mind, the other type of celebrity I want to bring up is K-pop idols. K-pop burst into the global cultural sphere in the early 21st century, featuring various bands filled with young, attractive, members. Members of the K-pop fan base can range from as young as 10 to as old as 40. To capitalise on the fanaticism of fans, K-pop idols often have a no-dating clause in their contracts, which can last between a few years to the entire duration they are signed to a company (Harrison, 2017). K-pop Idols are seen as a commodity for fans to consume, with tight schedules, strict diets, and carefully curated images.

Crazy fans are abound in all fan bases, and the K-pop fanbase is no exception. There is even a specific term for a crazy K-pop fan - "sasaeng", which refers to fans which engage in obsessive behaviors towards their idols. These can range fan letters written in blood, to getting on the stage to try to drag their favourite idol off it. The intensity of sasaeng obsessions led to South Korea amending their Minor Offences Act in March of 2013, implementing tougher punishments and fines for those convicted. One does wonder if this is enough to stop the fans from harassing their idols, though. A K-pop fan event in Malaysia in 2015 caused an uproar in the conservative Muslim community after seeing footage of female Muslim fans being allowed on stage to be hugged by their idols. This type of event is not uncommon throughout the K-pop sphere though, as fans are fed on information released in magazines or websites about what each idol likes or dislikes in a member of the opposite gender. K-pop fans almost seem to be encouraged to picture themselves as potential romantic partners for their idols, probably to fuel album and merchandise sales.

I feel the need to state #notALLkpopfans before someone gets defensive, but on the surface it does look like an unhealthy obsession with K-pop idols is not only common but possibly encouraged. I'll need to examine what makes up "healthy" celebrity-fan connections in a future post.


References:

Harrison, O. (2017). Dating Ban In South Korean Entertainment. [online] The North Wildcat Word. Available at: https://northwildcatword.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/dating-ban-in-south-korean-entertainment/ [Accessed 1 Jul. 2017].

 Korea JoongAng Daily. (2017). Get tough on stalking. [online] Available at: http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2976297 [Accessed 1 Jul. 2017].

Mail Online. (2015). Malaysian girls who hugged K-pop band threatened with arrest. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2910312/Malaysian-girls-hugged-K-pop-band-threatened-arrest.html [Accessed 1 Jul. 2017].

seoulbeats. (2017). The Dogma Behind the Dating Ban. [online] Available at: http://seoulbeats.com/2012/05/the-dogma-behind-the-dating-ban/ [Accessed 1 Jul. 2017].

Due to the original post being over 800 words, I figured it made sense to split this into multiple parts each featuring a different celebrity. 

2. Compare and contrast the relationship of celebrities with their fans in two different creative communities. Which one is relatively more healthy in their connections?

Upon reading this, the first "celebrities" that came to mind were actually YouTubers. People who have, by sitting alone in a room making videos, amassed millions of devoted fans. Top names that come to mind include Pewdiepie, NigaHiga, and JennaMarbles. These online "influencers" gain revenue from YouTube's AdSense displaying advertisements on their videos, as well as via sponsors or affiliate links.

YouTubers tend to have a main content channel, featuring anything from comedy skits to gaming streams to makeup tutorials, but many also have a vlogging channel, which is supposed to feature less edited, more casual glimpses into their lives. YouTubers can use vlogs to reach out to their audience on a personal level, making themselves seem like relatable human beings. Without the barriers of production companies or recording studios, YouTubers can come off as more genuine in their connection with their fans, with popular YouTubers sometimes holding informal "meet and greet"s to interact with their fans in real life.

On the surface level, YouTubers seem to have a pretty "healthy" relationship with the fans, but this cannot be said for all YouTubers, since the spectrum of content is so wide across each channel. The less regulated fan interactions of YouTubers can also end up being a source of concern, as evident on the 10th of June 2016, when popular YouTube singer Christina Grimmie was fatally shot by an obsessive fan during a signing event in Orlando, causing shockwaves across the YouTube community. Some speculate that stricter security checks by the venue management might have prevented the issue, with the former general manager Kirk Colvin issuing a statement that after he and his team were replaced on the 1st of June, he believed that "the replacements hired were completely inexperienced and ill prepared to manage the Plaza". The lax security concerns are indicative of a perception that YouTubers are not "real" celebrities, and thus do not need the same level of protection.

All in all, it's hard to generalise the types of interactions they have with their fans. YouTube is a diverse platform for all sorts of content, and thus attracts fans of all creeds. I intend on delving further into this topic by picking one or more specific YouTubers to examine.

Unfortunately this is going to be a post where it was tough to find more "scholarly" resources, being a fairly recent event. I only recently heard about Adpocalypse from a video by Hank Green on the vlogbrothers YouTube channel, which was posted on the 21st of April, due to an insane backlog in my Watch Later playlist. I realised that it was linked to the 5th essay question:

"Explore a variety of media is used within the context of branding or transmedia storytelling. Does variety dilute the effectiveness of an advertising campaign or story?"

I'll try my best to explain and elaborate on why.

 Ads are everywhere. Brands are clamoring to get every millisecond on attention they can get out of you, and they will pay websites for every pixel or annoying pop up they can get.

Enter YouTube, the massive video-sharing social media site currently owned by Google. With billions and billions of total views on their videos, it is a pretty unique social media platform due to the fact that it shares ad revenue with its content creators. The most-subscribed YouTubers can earn up to the millions, excluding brand endorsements and sponsored videos, but even small time niche creators with a few thousand subscribers can get their small crumb from the proverbial pie.

Adpocalypse is a portmanteau of "Ad" from "advertising" and "Apocalypse". It is currently used to refer to YouTube taking drastic action to tighten their advertising algorithms after backlash from companies who were afraid that their brands were being advertised on videos which did not fit their corporate image. This happened around the 31st of March, with many channel owners noticing a sudden cut in revenue from YouTube.

"Grow your... Islamic State..?" (Dean, 2017)

Since then, the Adpocalypse restrictions have been loosened somewhat, but many YouTubers speculate that "things will never quite be the same".

Which brings us back to the essay topic.

Many companies have realised that a lot of their target demographic no longer use traditional media  like TV's or radios as much as YouTube for their entertainment. As brands shifted their ads to that 5-second space on a YouTube video before someone clicks "skip ad", a potential concern which they had failed to anticipate was the wide array of content available, and how viewers might perceive their brand's association with the videos they were advertising on.

"Does variety dilute the effectiveness of an advertising story or campaign?"

In this case, it seems like a very strong possibility. Ad placement can positively or negatively affect the impact and impression it makes to its audience. While YouTube is still a valuable advertising space, brands need to be careful not to end up being shown on the same page as terrorists or misogynists. While these mishaps are probably due to Google's Adsense tracking user data and cookies to target ads towards different users, the fact that a company's ads end up on a controversial video leads viewers to perceive it as tacit support towards that video.

As designers, it's important to be mindful of where your ads are being shown, and if possible, to utilise this link to maximise its impact. It's not just about what the ad is, but also what happens before, after, and while this ad is showing that can affect how it ends up being perceived.



References:
Dean, J. (2017). Screenshot of a banner ad on a video where two women hold up an ISIS banner. [image] Available at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7i7UItW4AAMMwK.jpg [Accessed 28 Jun. 2017].

Harris, R. (2017). Improving our brand safety controls. [online] Google. Available at: https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/improving-our-brand-safety-controls/ [Accessed 28 Jun. 2017].

Kim, J. (2012). The institutionalization of YouTube: From user-generated content to professionally generated content. Media, Culture & Society, 34(1), pp.53-67.

Ligato, L. (2015). YouTube Is Crushing Cable TV, According To Google. [online] HuffPost. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/youtube-vs-cable_us_55acf44fe4b0d2ded39f5370 [Accessed 28 Jun. 2017].

Pashkevich, M., Dorai-Raj, S., Kellar, M. and Zigmond, D. (2012). Empowering Online Advertisements by Empowering Viewers with the Right to Choose. Journal of Advertising Research, 52(4), pp.451-457.

On the 10th of June, my class went on a trip to some art galleries. In this post, I will mainly be talking about a piece of artwork which caught my attention from the Ilham Contemporary Forum.

The Ilham Contemporary Forum has 7 different curators and features artwork from 27 artists, This exhibition is further broken down into four "grouping"s, which are titled
(i) “play, negotiation, resistance”;
(ii) “discomfort”;
(iii) “reassemble”; and
(iv) “archive, narrative, world”

The Soil Is Not Mine is a project by Tan Zi Hao which he started in 2013. The artist started this project by filling up 50 plastic packets with soil from Malay Reservation Lands, soil from the artist's home, a torn copy of the artist's birth certificate, and the artist's sperm. He then traded each bag of soil with the people around him, with the only condition for trade being that the person needs to convince the artist that the object traded has "Bumiputera value".

The final product was a case filled with various items, each with a number describing what it was and how it was traded with the artist.

Yes, that small glass bottle contains human saliva

An empty glove? Nope, apparently it's filled with air exhaled from the artist's friend.

(Can you tell I like alliteration yet?)

Once more I venture into the world of blogs, primarily because I have to. Similar to last semester, I'll begin by breaking down each question in a more in-depth manner before choosing one to focus on.

Originally I had intended on making one post with all the questions like I did last semester, but after finishing the first question, I realised it would be way too long. I promise I'm not trying to inflate my blog post numbers, and you can choose to count all five of them as one post if you want.


1. Critically review a local art/ design exhibition in-depth. Discuss it in terms of its curatorial goals and exhibition design with related research.  

Many Malaysians might be surprised to find that there are more local art exhibitions than they realise. Besides the usual big-shots like the National Visual Arts Gallery Malaysia, there is much to be explored in other spaces like the small-scale but posh like Artcube; reputable and contemporary Ilham Gallery; or vape-filled tiny indie spaces like Minut Init.

Art and design exhibitions might have a single featured artist, or curate artworks from different local artists. The term "curatorial goals" refers to the motive of the artist or the curator in showing those specific pieces of artwork. Whether it's to convey a certain mood or political message, what is exhibited is intricately tied together with why it is there.

"Exhibition design" might refer to the layout or floor plan of the exhibit. Is it audience directed from one piece of artwork to another, or allowed to wander randomly? Are the pieces linked visually or separated? It might also feature different mediums in which the art is conveyed - is there audio to accompany the visual? Is the artwork interactive in some way? Exhibition design can be just as important as the curated art content, and influences the way the intended message is delivered to the audience.

Personally, I'm not ruling out choosing this as my essay topic, but I don't have an exhibition that I'm certain I'll be able to write about yet. But in the meantime, I'll try to keep my eyes and ears out for as many local exhibits as possible and find one that I might able to do justice for if I wrote about it.