D.I.Y.: MuchMusic announced a contest yesterday, inviting fans of Canadian Idol offshoot pseudo-indie band Hedley to submit their homemade videos for the band’s song, Street Fight. Fans – and perhaps, not-fans – can download a 60-second clip of the song fromshop.muchmusic.com, which they can upload back to the Much servers when they’re done. “All submissions,” Much promises, “will be viewable in near real time, at muchmusic.com” – or at least the ones that don’t involve naked wee-wees and poo-poos.
“Once uploaded, the band will determine their favourites,” read the press release, “with the best creations broadcast across the country on December 4th on MuchMusic’s daily fan-and-celebrity showcase, MuchOnDemand. To top it off, the winner will see their footage cut into the official Universal video – the resulting fan/artist hybrid will then be viewable as a MuchExclusive onmuchmusic.com.”
It’s a YouTube world, at least this week, and this is the sort of thing that makes me feel good about the early 21st century. Thanks to cheap digital technology, cell phones and cameras, junior boffins can put together their fast, nasty, and possibly even inspired little clips for virtually nothing; even five years ago, you couldn’t say this, and ten years ago, when film and analog technology was still the consumer standard, this would have cost at least a few hundred bucks, even if a forum remotely like this existed. Now if only we could do something about those unevolved remnants from the music channel’s Stone Age past – the VJs.
BECAUSE THE TV TOLD ME TO: Lindsay Lohan says that Sex In The City was her inspiration for leading a sexually promiscuous lifestyle, according to an item run by BANG Showbiz. In an interview with Elle magazine, Lohan said that “I don’t want to put myself in the position where I’m in a monogamous relationship right now. I’m not dating just one person. Sex and the City changed everything for me because those girls would sleep with so many people.”
Bravo to Lindsay for digging deep into herself and finding the root cause of what she acknowledges elsewhere in the interview has been a problem for her, personally and professionally – her advice to her little sister, Ali, who’s contemplating an acting career is to “stay away from boys and watch who she associates with publicly, especially if someone has a certain reputation.” I mean, what does modesty and personal responsibility mean against the overbearing, persuasive power of a TV show?
Inspired by Lindsay, I’ve gone over my own life, and have compiled a list of the shows that led me astray. Thanks to Peanuts cartoons, for instance, I became a depressive with a crippling reliance on pop existentialism. I blame Kolchak: The Night Stalker for my love of seersucker jackets and digging up dead people, The A-Team for an expensive gold chain habit, and The Ropers have ruined more relationships than I can count. I’m with you, Lindsay – the time for healing has begun.
