Wednesday March 25

As I was watching Synecodoche, New York yesterday, it finally occured to me what I dislike about how Hollywood tends to do aging (i.e. making actors look "old"). I always found something particularly funny about it, but I could never realize just what it was that was that I didn't like. As I watched the "old" Samantha Morton (fine actress, BTW) the other day, I realized the thing that makes Hollywood aging unconvincing to me is the teeth. Old people tend to have bad teeth, young Hollywood starlets, not so much, so when they age a Hollywood actress, yet keep their teeth white and shiney, it really loses effect.

There's also something in the eyes as well, the color in older people tends to be a little but duller, but actors often have really brightly colored eyes. Movies where they do this kind of half-assed aging tend to lose me. Morton had the same problem with the eyes that she did with the teeth, they were really bright, which made her look younger than she was trying to be.

One of the nice things about being off of school for a while, besides the extra movie time, is the time I can catch up on my youtube watching. But this extra youtube time has made me realize how much I've lost interest in the site. It's a totally different place than it was when I first got into it.

It used to be personality driven, and that's what I liked about it, watching videos made by real people in their living rooms, but now it's something else. I don't want to say "corporate" because that puts a negative spin on it, but watching videos on the site isn't as appealing as it used to be.

Part of the problem is that waaaaaaay too many people on that site take themselves seriously. They get caught up in the allure of being an internet celebrity and don't realize until its too late that their videos actually suck. I think that part of the problem is that the people who are genuinely talented aren't taking that route anymore; they have seen too many of the people who gained "fame" via youtube totally flame-out when they are given a shot at real, mass entertainment and realize that it's not the way to go.

Being an internet celebrity is not the same as being a real celebrity. Next to the reality show celebrity, internet celebrity is lowest form of it. With both, being talented and actually accomplishing something isn't the deciding factor, it's how willing you are to get on internet (or tv) and make a total ass out of yourself and show how low are you willing to go (think Chris Crocker). And as time goes by, the internet celebrity fades because it isn't based on anything real.

But youtube still has a place in society, when something goes viral, we all still go to youtube.