Have you seen this "viral" yotube "video"?

When a print journalist, or, in this case, columnist, writes about a youtube video -- 3 weeks after it's already gone viral.

See:
Kathleen Parker's column in today's post. The video in question is local news footage of a man called Antoine Dodson having a nervous outburst following the attempted rape of his sister. He has a funny voice, funny lookin face, and a 'fro so the whole video sounds weirdly ripped from a Dave Chappelle skit.

Attempted rape = ROFL

Anyway, here's my twitter reinterpretation of Parker's column. "Totally don't have anything to write for 2days column BC been on utube watching THIS HILARIOUS MOFO! OMFG black people are funny!"



INvariably, when a print journalist writes about a youtube video -- first of all, the article runs two weeks to up to several months after everyone has watched and forgotten the video.

The subtext seems to be: "If you're reading this you are either old and senile and need to read about youtube in the newspaper because you don't know what a computer is. OR, you are young and hip and therefore me telling you about this youtube video will demonstrate my awareness of what the kids these days are into!" For example.

This pretense of hipness just reinforces the following perceptions:


1) Journalists are losers so their friends don't send them links to youtube videos until 3 weeks after everyone else has already seen it. Which is why you can only read about a youtube video in the newspaper 3 weeks after you've already seen it online.

2) Since journalists spend their days looking at crap online, there's really no difference between you and a journalist, so who the hell needs them.

3) Buying a newspaper is exactly the same as spending 75 cents to read a second-hand account of something you already saw with your own eyes, for free, 3 weeks ago.



Proposed solution:

> Universal ban on articles about 3-weeks-old youtube videos unless the video has actually caused something newsworthy to happen. (I know, I know 'newsworthy' is itself a vague and lame term ... to be scrutinized another day). AKA Shirley Sherrod firing.