He saw a film today. Oh boy.

July 18, 2007 9:54 PM

Ian Crossland says YouTube has become a zoo. There is no irony or sarcasm in his voice when he says it. Bare witness to the plight of a man who is too busy to finish his webpage and he's too busy to be famous like he believes everyone else wants to be, because Ian Crossland wants to save humanity with YouTube. You heard me. Why does this deserve mention in The Blue? Because of all the responses to him. The YouTube community is not taking his opinion very well, or very lightly. You may find it very amusing, or agravating, or you may think he's got a point; you may wanna join in the fun.
posted by ZachsMind (61 comments total)

"YouTube has turned into a fucking zoo. I see these people... just stumbling around talking about nothing! Like, wasting time! I was gonna say stumbling around like idiots. Talking about your shoes, and fake stuff that's not - It's not real! I see so much of it... I just saw this movie today, and I'm watching the struggles of humanity, and then I come home, I get on fucking YouTube, and I'm just watching people laughing, and joking, and trying to get a ton of hits so they can make some money..." - Ian Crossland

Now, I love a good rant as much as the next fella, but when I rant, I try not to insult the very people I'm talking to. Admittedly, I've on many occasions put my foot squarely in my mouth. Insulting your audience tends to cause your audience to stop being your audience. Guess that's a lesson Mr. Crossland's about to experience.

What do you think?
posted by ZachsMind at 9:57 PM on July 18, 2007

Insulting your audience tends to cause your audience to stop being your audience.

Why don't you go fuck yourself?

Nice post...checking it out now.
posted by dhammond at 10:00 PM on July 18, 2007

This guy is spending too much time on YouTube and mistakingly believes it is supposed to be meaningful. As someone who doesn't spend much time trying to follow the latest YouTube trends (I just watch videos that I came across via specific subject websites), this all seems whacky. A bunch of navel gazers complaining that they can't find meaning without going outside.
posted by bhouston at 10:02 PM on July 18, 2007

He's kind of self-righteous, but this is good. And he's mostly right, up until the "not helping humanity" part. Which is sadly kind of emo.
posted by dhammond at 10:03 PM on July 18, 2007

Can YouTube be used to better humanity? Yes. Is it a zoo? Yes. Are the two mutually exclusive? No.
posted by Mister Cheese at 10:05 PM on July 18, 2007

DHammond, your opinion about myself interests me and I wish to partake of your newsletter. =P

There's spending way too much time on YouTube thinking it matters, and there's spending some or all of your free time on YouTube because you just enjoy YouTube. It's supposed to be fun. Ian's charge that YouTube is supposed to help humanity would cause me to fall on the floor laughing, if it weren't for the fact that I live here and I know where my floor has been.

As for going outside? I been outside today. It was hot. I'd rather stay inside where it's cool and I have all the delicious YouTube silly wonderfulness I could possibly want.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:09 PM on July 18, 2007

It's so sweet that he's still naive enough to think that anything on YouTube matters. Primarily himself.
posted by GuyZero at 10:09 PM on July 18, 2007

This guy is *the definition* of PLATE OF BEANS. Surrealiously.
posted by Brittanie at 10:11 PM on July 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

We now pause this sanctimonious drivel to present a dog entering the Tour de France.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:11 PM on July 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

If you don't post this comment to at least 3 FPPs, you will be banned from MetaFilter.
posted by Poolio at 10:13 PM on July 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

I friend of mine just summed it all up for me:

"Ian is saving humanity by telling other people to save humanity."
posted by ZachsMind at 10:14 PM on July 18, 2007

There's a "YouTube community"?

I wasn't aware that piano-playing cats had a community...
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:16 PM on July 18, 2007

The Crass Menagerie.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:17 PM on July 18, 2007 [5 favorites]

Done, Poolio, although one might be deleted from the green.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:19 PM on July 18, 2007

and trying to get a ton of hits so they can make some money...

Last time I checked, that's what everyone with an Internet business from www.bigisp.com/~joeblow to Yahoo! is trying to do, yes? Why would YouTube be any different?

And more importantly, how does huge hit numbers on your video make you money on YouTube? Seriously, I'm asking. Because I can talk forever about fake stuff.
posted by davejay at 10:20 PM on July 18, 2007

I know how he feels. I felt the same way after seeing "Transformers."
posted by Brittanie at 10:21 PM on July 18, 2007

I was heartened to hear, at the end, that he hasn't quit his day job.

Kinda like Zefrank but sans humour.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 10:24 PM on July 18, 2007

Is Ian just famous on YouTube or is there some other reason we should know him? Not snarking, just curious. I only watch YouTube for the dog-bites-bike videos.
posted by mediareport at 10:31 PM on July 18, 2007

MediaReport, he has his own imdb page but for the life of me I can't reason why.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:36 PM on July 18, 2007

Zachsmind, a "fucking zoo" is ironic or sarcastic, or both. But a zoo of humans is a helpful and useful thing. Aristotle said that the highest form of study is the study of ourselves.

What causes failed ideologies to fail is this: they ignore the facts. Ideologues come up with some story about how humans "ought" to be, and insist on it, often very, very hard. Of course, humans aren't reverent of sacred things, or happy to be fixed in a social role forever, or willing to take only a little bit of profit because taking more will ruin the whole thing for everybody, or willing to contribute to their full ability and take only according to their actual need, or willing to accept being considered second-class humans due to not having been born in a certain geographical location, or ... and so on.

So, a human zoo, that shows humans as we are: stupid, venal, selfish, vain, funny, insightful, caring, individually and collectively capable of producing inspired excellence or brutal horror; surely that is a good thing to have?

Here in the human zoo, when we poke bananas through the bars, we poke them to each other.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 10:36 PM on July 18, 2007

Ooh! This is perhaps my favorite response to Ian thus far. TyaKelly painting for five minutes. No speed painting. No special effects, but some very nice lowkey jazz in the background that reminds me of Ken Nordine. This is the kinda thing why I like YouTube. If Ian finds that worthless and a waste of time, he needs to get a new brainstem.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:39 PM on July 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

davejay - And more importantly, how does huge hit numbers on your video make you money on YouTube? Seriously, I'm asking. Because I can talk forever about fake stuff.

I don't think the idea is to make money directly off huge traffic on your videos, but rather to then get some sort of TV/development deal based on having a large audience (see lonelygirl15).
posted by Poolio at 10:43 PM on July 18, 2007

Dear Ian Crossland and Everyone Who Cares About This,

This doesn't matter.

Sincerely,

The World
posted by shmegegge at 10:45 PM on July 18, 2007

Mmmmm! Bananas! I loves me some bananas! Chock full of potassium! Yum! =)
posted by ZachsMind at 10:47 PM on July 18, 2007

Meh. He's no Daxflame. Daxflame wears very short shorts. Ian Crossland doesn't tell us anything about what he's wearing at all.

Daxflame wins, obviously.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:06 PM on July 18, 2007

posted by aeschenkarnos Here in the human zoo, when we poke bananas through the bars, we poke them to each other.

KOKO LIKE GLORY HOLE
posted by fandango_matt at 11:10 PM on July 18, 2007 [5 favorites]

KOKO LIKE GLORY HOLE

Semen is a hell of a drug.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:25 PM on July 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you aren't famous, what is the point of posting a video of yourself saying that people aren't changing the world enough for you?

And what's wrong with shoes? I like my shoes. They're good shoes. Has he tried telling his shoes how he feels?

YouTube didn't become a zoo, YouTube was born a zoo. The *point* of YouTube is the zoo. It's everyone's high-school notebook but publicly accessible. There's nothing wrong with that.

Some people get an audience, and some people post whiny videos on YouTube that people mainly watch to make fun of. Welcome to the world. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
posted by zerolives at 11:29 PM on July 18, 2007

Thanks for the stimulating post ZachsMind.

Ian needs to listen to some Byrds lyrics.

I don't think Ian had an Eleanor Rigby moment but one of being fed up with frivolousness. It seems like the movie he saw inspired empathy and wanting more mature direction expressed in his online community. He's asking his online friends for more depth, social awareness, well-thought out content.

Not a bad thing to ask for. But...in seeking depth and meaning, he's denigrating fun and playful creativity. Mistake.

It's interesting to discover the YouTube community, mini-conversations or performances on video. I wanted to see the Daxflame video that inspired Ian's rant:
Daxflame interviews LisaNova!

And yeah, it's lame and kind of nihilistic but I can't help liking his mischief. That Daxflame is one geeky and wryly funny rascal.

Maybe it's time for Ian to do some volunteer work and better balance his fun rather than put-down his friends for enjoying themselves.
posted by nickyskye at 11:31 PM on July 18, 2007

I don't know who Ian Crossland is, but I think Greg Kinnear should play him in a movie. Separated at birth?

Also, I don't know who Daxflame and LisaNova are, either, but they're much more entertaining than Ian Crossland.

BTW, was this the film he saw that so filled his heart with teenag-y angst?
posted by zardoz at 11:36 PM on July 18, 2007

It would seem to me that some of the reactions here prove Mr. Crossland's point, which seems to be me less about dissing the YouTube community and more about wanting to increase the level of discourse:

EXHIBIT A: "I Have Enough Reality," in which we are regaled by a woman who has too much reality and wants to be entertained. She offers us a story -- perhaps as self-serving as Crossland's -- of how her father wouldn't hand her the remote to switch the television away from the news to comedy.

EXHIBIT B: A psychic nurse who can't even be bothered to get the "motherfucker"'s points right.

EXHIBIT C: A large man who claims that Crossland is "dictating," when he is just raising a point.

The list goes on.

Badmouthing YouTube users may not have been a smart move on Crossland's part and this is not to suggest that the whole of these YouTube channels is worthless, but Crossland's post certainly had more substance than the nonsense contained in these responses.
posted by ed at 11:46 PM on July 18, 2007

Okay, investigating Mr. Crossland's archives, I find this entry, in which he comes across more as a very frustrated young man. He apparently just watched Sicko, which is what seems to have spurned his anger. Understandable. Too bad that so many people here at Metafilter and at YouTube are prepared to not cut the guy some slack. (And, no, I've never heard of this guy before.)
posted by ed at 11:52 PM on July 18, 2007

Sometimes I do the coffee. (1:52)
posted by ZachsMind at 12:13 AM on July 19, 2007

Well, he acts reasonably well, in a sort of moodily angry Robert Downey Junior esque sort of a way, but it just seems so...affected...the constant pushing back of the hair, the dramatic exhales, the posing, the long, pregnant pauses, the slow,gradual eyelid drops.... I can sympathise with his points of view ( perhaps not the one about his suffering due to inappropriate afternoon leafblower usage ), but it just seems so stagy, and, as a result, less convincing than it might. I can't help, cynically, but feel that Ian may well secretly want a slice of the vapid fame he's railing against. Maybe I'm wrong, though.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:53 AM on July 19, 2007

nickyskye writes 'And yeah, it's lame and kind of nihilistic but I can't help liking his mischief. That Daxflame is one geeky and wryly funny rascal.'

I dunno whether it's nihilistic or not, but I think Daxflame is incredibly sophisticated. His whole schtick seems to me to hinge around the question of whether he is *really* that geeky, or whether it's a constructed identity. If he really is that geeky, then there's something quite remarkable about his ability to make fun of himself and his geeky qualities.

But watching LisaNova in that video, she appears to be genuinely cracking up -- which makes me think that it's not fake at all, but I genuinely don't know.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:59 AM on July 19, 2007

Badmouthing YouTube users may not have been a smart move on Crossland's part and this is not to suggest that the whole of these YouTube channels is worthless, but Crossland's post certainly had more substance than the nonsense contained in these responses.

Oh wait. We're talking about people who post comments on Youtube? Crossland is trying to motivate that base? He'd be better off on Fark. Seriously, far better off.
posted by dreamsign at 1:20 AM on July 19, 2007

ed writes 'He apparently just watched Sicko, which is what seems to have spurned his anger. Understandable.'

Ian Crossland's revolutionary manifesto.

1.) Identify the role of the Ideological State Apparatuses in manufacturing consent.
2.) Develop a programme of work to expose and therefore smash the dominant ideology
3.) Mass movement from false consciousness to true class consciousness.
4.) Revolution.

Step one.
a) Using structuralist theory and content analysis, identify the counterrevolutionary tendencies in the work of Daxflame and LisaNova.
b) Create an agit-prop video using our very best didactic tools, drawing on the grand history of radical cinema, from Preston Sturges to Jean Luc Godard.
c) Post video to YouTube
d) ????
e) Fame/profit!

Damn! Capitalism is *always* co-opting the revolution, by packaging our radicalism and selling back as fashion and rebellion. Ian Crossland is absolutely right to make a stand on this issue.

The Man Can't Take Our YouTube!!!
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:37 AM on July 19, 2007 [2 favorites]

Newsflash!!! ZOMG! They've done it again!

YouTube has just been bought by Google. Not only have they got all our porn browsing data, now they've got televisions, directly into our houses, watching our every move!

I bet these people working at EasyJet customer enquiries don't know that they are under observation.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:54 AM on July 19, 2007

i've looked and looked and i still don't see the bare witness?
posted by quonsar at 4:07 AM on July 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

For a moment, I thought the thread was about one of the other Ian Crosslands.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:19 AM on July 19, 2007

I just surf YouTube for the comments.
posted by psmealey at 5:14 AM on July 19, 2007

Aspiring young actors, please take note:
1. Walking into the salon and asking the stylist for "the same haircut Frodo had in The Lord of the Rings" doesn't help you create a unique, thoughtful and sensitive image. Please stop.
2. On the off chance you do become famous, all of your navelgazing, whining and posturing clips on YouTube will be happily snapped up by VH1 producers so that they can poke fun of you in future "I Love the XX's" episodes.

That is all.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:52 AM on July 19, 2007

truthspeaksfoitself (32 seconds ago): cant believe...DaxFlame and LisaNova, BUNCH OF FAKES!!! Lets Be PRODUCTIVE! EDUCATE HUMANITY! instead of being Bunch of make no sense RETARDS!!!

Indeed the truth spoke for itself.

YouTube without comments is like a medieval minstrel show without the rotten fruit to throw at it.
posted by psmealey at 6:00 AM on July 19, 2007

Wait, you people are aware that Daxflame is a completely fake personality generated by his IRL dad for promotional purposes, right?
posted by brownpau at 7:16 AM on July 19, 2007

Who the fuck is Ian Crossland?
posted by xmutex at 7:41 AM on July 19, 2007

Who is Ian Crossland, and is it OK if I am a clothed witness?
posted by adamrice at 7:56 AM on July 19, 2007

Fake or not, I think he's adorable. A perfect, candid look at naivete and meaningless teen angst.

I thank you for posting this only because I have no patience to sift through Youtube's piles of crap myself.
posted by fungible at 7:58 AM on July 19, 2007

yah, Daxflame, aka Bernice, is a funny, neurotic-twisted YouTube Urkel persona.

And I also like Ian Crossland.
posted by nickyskye at 8:04 AM on July 19, 2007

Dear dude who thinks YouTube is Important,

I have e-mailed you a plate of beans; there are 3 kinds—kidney, black beans, and lima beans—so you should be busy for quite some time. Now fuck off, I want to watch some dorks humping a couch.
posted by Mister_A at 8:41 AM on July 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Lets Be PRODUCTIVE!
EDUCATE HUMANITY!
instead of being Bunch of make no sense RETARDS!!!

Make no sense retards?

On YouTube?

The mind boggles.
posted by jason's_planet at 9:00 AM on July 19, 2007

Surely this must be the most dangerous video on the Internet...
posted by Remy at 9:02 AM on July 19, 2007

brownpau writes 'Wait, you people are aware that Daxflame is a completely fake personality generated by his IRL dad for promotional purposes, right?'

Well, I've watched some of these videos. However, none of them were as interesting as Daxflame's.

And while I'd always assumed that there must be a commercial interest in there somewhere -- even if it's only an over-indulgent set of parents wanting their kid to get an early break in a dog eat dog profession -- I find it almost impossible to assume that the persona is completely fake. It's far too seamless. Over the course of watching his videos, the real, sophisticated Bernice would slip out and the game would be up. If it is totally constructed though, then he's a theatrical genius and will go on to win many, many Oscars.

My guess is that he's simply figured out that his real personality is comedy gold, so has persuaded his old man to bankroll him in the launch of a clown school franchise.

Either that, or he's preying on chickenhawks. Having them buy him gifts from his Amazon wish list in return for a glimpse of him in his short shorts. Either way, I forsee a great future as a talk show host for him.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:36 AM on July 19, 2007

Is it wrong that I'm more interested in the video of the guy hitting the dog then I am in the video that is the main topic of this post? I am what is wrong with the world, for sure.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:41 AM on July 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Maybe my own, just getting here, and talking about it isn't helping humanity, pointing it out, pointing out this crap.

I'm glad you have come to this realization. If only you had had it juuust before you turned on the camera.

You are ranting on YouTube, about the value of self-important posts on YouTube.

Get a grip.
posted by quin at 11:23 AM on July 19, 2007

YouTube is important. Like it or not, it's important.

This guy has passion and conviction and with a little fine-tuning and maturing he'll be an interesting grown-up. Nothing wrong with that.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 11:47 AM on July 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Daxflame reminds me a bit of Andy Kaufmann. In a nice way. Whereas Ian Crossland reminds me of Corey Haim.
posted by ZachsMind at 2:19 PM on July 19, 2007

...The Coreys were funnier tho...
posted by ZachsMind at 2:19 PM on July 19, 2007

ThePinkSuperhero: "Is it wrong that I'm more interested in the video of the guy hitting the dog..."

There's a video of a guy hitting a dog? What's the URL!?? What's he hitting it with? How about videos of a dog hitting a guy?
posted by ZachsMind at 2:54 PM on July 19, 2007

YouTube is important. Like it or not, it's important.

Would you say YouTube is serious business?
posted by Snyder at 4:48 PM on July 19, 2007

Dog getting hit (by bicycle).
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:07 PM on July 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

You Have A Minute Left is seventeen seconds of comic gold that Ian Crossland would probably think is a waste of time, mostly because he hadn't thought of it.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:10 AM on July 21, 2007