The questions I ask here may not be very relevant to people but I wanted to highlight the type of amazing people we get to contact through various projects. This is an interview for my dissertation with the infamous 'Cassetteboy', 04/01/12. The title of my essay was 'YouTube Poop; A new form of Cultural Capital?' (see YTP post for more details)
Have you heard of 'Youtube Poops'?
would you consider your mashups one / Why?
I first heard of youtube poops
this year I think, when someone referred to one of our videos as one.
It's not a term I like and would never use it myself. I thought I hated
the term Mash Up until I heard youtube poop, it's so dismissive and belittling
- I mean it's got the word Poop in it.
Your work originated from audio
mashups, do you feel the visual remix is just a manifestation of the audio
mashup? What inspired you to start remixing?
When constructing a video, we
still start with the audio, collecting words and phrases that might be
useful. So the audio is the most important element, because most of our
jokes are still verbal. often it's a case of "patching up" the
visuals as best we can, trying to hide the edits in the soundtrack with
reaction shots and so on, although of course this does give rise to some
additional jokes.
We started cutting up audio
when we used to make compilation tapes for our friends with funny little bits
of dialogue between the music. Eventually the funny little bits got more
complicated and took over. The move from there into video was a natural
progression, a new challenge after years of audio-only work.
Why do you think Remixes are so
successful these days?
I think there are various
reasons. Our type of remix has only become widely available recently -
before the internet there was no real outlet for an artform that infringed
copyright so blatantly, so there's still an air of novelty to the whole
thing. Because of the copyright issues, they feel a bit 'naughty', which
is always popular. Also, I think there's nice 'David vs. Goliath' aspect
to them - people like the idea that a massive Hollywood franchise like Harry
Potter can be taken apart by a normal person on their home computer.
Clearly your Nick Griffin
mashup had an element of political drive in addition to humour. Do you aim to
communicate anything with your other subject choices ie. Harry Potter/ Dragon's
Den? and why do you think these characters work so well?
With our non-political work
we're mainly celebrating celebrities we enjoy, or attacking those we
don't. We don't necessarily have an agenda, we focus on the jokes first
and foremost. As a whole though I guess there's an attempt to prick the
pomposity of the rich and famous. The people who take themselves too
seriously are often the best targets, and the Dragons are a good example of
that.
You've progressed from 'mates just having
a laugh' to owning a fan-base of over a million. As with many internet
phenomena's it begins with a degree of rebellion & anti- commercialism. Do
you feel collaborating with the BBC has taken away an element of this?
It is strange when something
that started as a hobby becomes something approaching a job. It's true
that some creative compromises need to be made, although often limits can be
good for creativity. For example there used to be much less swearing in
TV comedy, so the writers had to be far more creative and imaginative with
their use of language than they are now, when they can just say
"fuck" as much as they want. Ultimately the commissioned pieces
are a chance for our work to find a larger audience, and money that we earn this
way can support us while we're making our own material, so i don't really see
it as a bad thing.
Viral techniques, remixes & use
of memes (created by the public) are used a lot in marketing tactics today. Do
you feel there's a switch from a 'top-down' cultural production, or will it
ultimately always be dictated to by higher powers?
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