Last night I spoke at a great event in Manchester about audeinces. I talked about the how they are in a constant state of flux and how you can never fully understand your audeince because they are constantly changing their behaviours. The best you can do is get amongst them rather than learning about them via powerpoint. The life of the parody video is a great example of this. Their place in fan culture fascinates me.
I was speaking to a group of students at Salford University earlier this month about the cultural value of parody videos. Even the terrible ones. I made the arguement that the really terrible ones may be more important than the really good ones.
Let me explain.
As I pointed out yesterday most people are waiting for permission to make their moves. As social creatures we take our cues from those around us. We are a nation that needs nudging. We like to copy. Mark Earl talks about this in his book 'I'll Have What She's Having'.
I explained to the students that for every terrible parody video on Youtube there will be hundreds of super talented viewers saying to themselves "I can do better than that". The terrible parody video is what it took to kickstart their creative career.
So a few day later I was at the Futures of Entertainment conference at MIT in Boston listening to Dorian Electra being questioned about her music videos. "So how did you get started?" came the question. "Oh, you know, I saw a really terrible parody video on Youtube and thought 'I can do better than that'".
In a networked culture everything you make will be part of an ongoing conversation. The conversation will take what you've made to the most unusual places creating scenarios you could never have imagined. Quite often the results can be magical even if your cultural artefact isn't so.
The media makers are just the starting point of that conversation. Designing for an 'audience with an audience' is a new way of thinking that embraces the power of audience as a 'circulator' or a 'multiplier'. It's easy to dismiss how we label our 'audience' as semantics but putting the labels at the centre of your thinking helps focus on humans and human behaviours and should completely change how you design your experience.
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