There was a sad piece of news yesterday about an accident in Peoria hat involved students trying to "make it" by performing a stunt filmed with the idea of uploading it to YouTube. I can see where the whole concept of user-generated creativity, and the lure of 15-minutes of fame will give sites like YouTube a bad name.
You can't simply blame the tool. But I think that while everyone (myself included) talks up the value of sites like YouTube as being the killer app (in relation to TV) of media, there has not been enough discussion aimed at young people about the need to steer away from acting stupid.
I thought about this more because I just completed an article on what I call the "Social Media Resume" and how people, starting young, should start thinking less about doing projects and internships because "it would look good on their resume" and start engaging in activity in a way that does not make them look stupid on their social media resume -something that shows up without one authoring it.
Sites like "Commercial Pitch" let a college student pitch an idea via text or video and get rewarded for it. YouTube holds its "awards" for the best user generated material with categories such as Music, Film, Politics etc. Higly attractive to young creatives. Many want to come up with the next "Lonely Girl 15" idea to launch a career. But no one should have to risk their life trying to get a Google hit.
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