Entertainment World
We live in a world of entertainment, where fun often washes over the controversial matters of race, gender, and overall representation of oneself. In the particularly case of three individuals, Daym Drops, Antoine Dodson, and Marilyn Hagerty who had attained fame through the internet, people were entertained by the parody of the former two and the genuine praise review of the latter. It wasn’t because any of the three’s original story or situation was rather extraordinary – Drops with his Five Guys burger review, Dodson with his encounter of a rapist, or Hagerty with her review of Olive Garden. All of these events – praising Five Guys burger, confronting a rapist, and admiring an Olive Garden restaurant – happen quite often every year. What really drove those particular individuals into fame was because, as Ben had emphasized in his post, that we can laugh at them, that we can get a little bit of entertainment and joy from sharing them to everyone we knew. The context of the rapist was completely forgotten as something dangerous, along with that line that Eyder Peralta claimed in his article, “A Gift From the Interwebs: A Brilliant Auto-tuned Burger Review,” to be brilliant – “You bite the fry, the fry bites back: that’s how you know you have an official french fry” –, and what Hagerty really specified in her review. What was remembered was two hilarious auto-tuned video, Dodson with his funny expressions and Drops with his “dayum, dayum, DAYUM” chorus; and, a very kind elderly who had seemingly not been to many restaurant franchises before to be fascinated to the extent expressed in her review. All three of these people’s age, race, or backgrounds were irreverent to overall entertainment. We had already forgotten those things about the three individuals while laughing to our satisfaction. Formal news is boring while parodies are enjoyable. The information and the original messages of Drops, Dodson, and Hagerty’s story had lost their way to the people, and were readily replaced with glee.
2 responses so far
You bring up a really interesting point and one that occurred to me as well while watching these videos–the videos are more about entertainment that stereotypes. It’s unfortunate that in today’s society we like to entertain ourselves at the expense of others. This becomes extremely easy because we can do it with complete anonymity and therefore we don’t have to feel bad about it. We forget that the people on our computer and television screens are real people who are part of a community somewhere that is being misrepresented. When you really look into the stories behind the videos, they have specific purposes that are lost when people begin to repurpose them for entertainment purposes.
It is true that parodies are more attractive and easier to entertain than formal news. I find being able to laugh or enjoy things regardless of age, race, or background as a positive thing, but there are still issues around that. It’s true that things are lost or forgotten when things are altered, and while it is often a negative thing, maybe it can be a positive thing and part of the video or such would be forgotten for the better (though the notion may be far-fetched).