The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, November 11, 2015 — 5A

TV NOTEBOOK

Jon Stewart to HBO, 
‘Star Trek’ to CBS

By ALEX INTNER

Daily Arts Writer

Last week, two deals were 

announced within 24 hours that 
each can shift the online stream-
ing landscape. The first involves 
a new “Star Trek” series that 
will air on CBS’s streaming ser-
vice, CBS All Access. The second 
announced that Jon Stewart will 
bring his breaking news com-
mentary to HBO Go and HBO 
Now. If these deals reach their 
maximum potential, they will 
allow each service to establish 
itself as an original content pro-
vider, though each will face stiff 
challenges in the process.

CBS is trying to send the mes-

sage that it’s ready to stand with 
the likes of Netflix, Amazon 
Prime and Hulu Plus with its 
“Star Trek” deal. The series will 
be executive produced by Alex 
Kurtzman, who co-wrote the last 
two movies of the franchise, and 
will premiere in January 2017 
on CBS All Access after airing 
a “special preview episode” on 
CBS. The “Star Trek” franchise 
is one of the largest in the CBS 
library, with six television series 
and a gigantic fanbase. So it’s a 
logical place for CBS to go to try 
to push viewers to its stream-
ing service. Also, this isn’t the 
first time that a Star Trek series 
kicked off a new platform. Back 
in 1995 when Paramount was 
looking for something to support 
the new network UPN, they cre-
ated “Star Trek: Voyager,” which 
aided the fledgling network by 
earning a high viewership during 
its first season.

The Trek deal is the largest 

splash for a streaming content 
provider since the initial two-
season, $100 million pickup of 
“House of Cards” by Netflix in 
2011. But Netflix had more to 
build on than CBS All Access. 
Les Moonves, the head of CBS, 
has refused to say how many are 
currently subscribing to the $5.99 
per month site, only suggesting 
that the number is greater than 
the 100,000 that currently sub-
scribe to Dish Network’s Sling 
service. At the time of the “Cards” 
announcement, Netflix had 20 
million subscribers. CBS is likely 
working from a smaller base than 
Netflix, so it will be more difficult 
to make the Trek show a success.

However, CBS will be using 

their linear audience, which is 
still the highest of any of the 
broadcast 
networks. 
It 
will 

include a season’s worth of NFL 
promotions to try to push view-
ers to their preview showing. The 
key will be making a high-quality 
episode of television with a cliff-
hanger that will help the shove. 

As for Jon Stewart’s HBO 

deal, the details are slim. But we 
do know Stewart signed a four-
year deal with HBO that covers 
new short-form digital content 
for HBO Now and Go, as well 
as a first-look deal for any film 
or television projects Stewart 
might produce during this time 
span. Stewart, who left “The 
Daily Show” earlier this year, 

has the opportunity to make 
new content multiple times per 
day, all of which will be upload-
ed as they’re ready.

In his former role, Stewart was 

one of the preeminent names in 
news, doing 22 minutes of com-
mentary and comedy four times 
a week. This appears to be a part 
of a larger push by HBO to enter 
the news commentary arena, 
which started with “Last Week 
Tonight” and will continue with 
an upcoming nightly newscast 
from VICE. The key difference 
between HBO’s prior news proj-
ects and Stewart’s videos are 
that Stewart’s will be exclusively 
online, on the subscriber-only 
streaming sites. Given the suc-
cess that Oliver has enjoyed in 
his time at HBO, it’s only natu-
ral that his mentor, Stewart, will 

have a similar level of triumph 
creatively. Still, the big question 
is whether Stewart is enough of 
a name to guide people to HBO’s 
online presence. HBO is probably 
shelling out a great deal of money 
to Stewart for this deal, and they 
need the viewership to make it 
worthwhile.

Ultimately, 
the 
subscriber 

numbers will decide whether or 
not these deals will be valuable 
to the networks. HBO has a sub-
scriber base that will make it eas-
ier for them than CBS, but CBS 
has the NFL as a launching pad, 
which is larger than anything 
HBO has. However, if both deals 
bring the ideal number of view-
ers, they will open up both CBS 
All Access and HBO Now and Go 
as original programmers in the 
online space.

COMEDY CENTRAL

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

Social media 

celebrity stuns fans 

with departure

By HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK

Daily Arts Writer

First, a picture: Tall and blond, 

tan skin framed in a backless white 
dress, hands scrunching perfect 
beach hair. She’s laughing — her 
profile crinkling — while her toes, 
curled on the edge of a dock, point 
out to the shimmery water.

We, the Instagram stalkers, 

soak it in, and try to replicate 
it. We change out of sweats and 
into season-appropriate casu-
al wear (i.e. what we weren’t 
casually wearing before), find 
an inspiring (yet still natural) 
backdrop for our spontaneous 
adventure. We copy the angle of 
the camera, capturing our own 
curved silhouettes and side-
grins; we hook a finger strategi-
cally behind our ear, taming an 
imaginary lock of hair. We wait 
until dusk for the perfect light 
and the “prime time” to post on 
Instagram (roughly 7 to 9 p.m., 
according to my 18-year-old sis-
ter). We laugh 100 times. We get 
super annoyed that we still don’t 
look candid enough.

And we wish our lives were as 

cool as Essena O’Neill’s. 

Over the past four years, 

O’Neill, a 19-year-old from the 
Sunshine Coast of Australia, has 
become a social media celebrity 
— followed by half a million on 
Instagram, nearly 250,000 on her 
YouTube channel. On her IMG 
modeling profile, O’Neill claims 
to be “committed to inspiring 
young women to love their bodies 
and to make good lifestyle choic-
es.” Her Instagram feed proves it: 
she laughs on the beach, makes 
açai breakfast bowls, unwinds 

with yoga. On YouTube, she 
reveals beauty tips and vegan 
recipes, giving followers insight 
to her perfectly zen, perfectly 
candid life in the sun.

So when O’Neill changed her 

Instagram name to “Social Media 
Is Not Real Life” last week, the 
Internet blew up. Without warn-
ing, she re-captioned her photos 
— the ones hundreds of thou-
sands of us had pinned as “goals” 
— to tell the real story behind 
them. For the photo of her in the 
backless white dress, she wrote: 
“NOT REAL LIFE — I didn’t 
pay for the dress, took countless 
photos trying to look hot for Ins-
tagram, the formal made me feel 
incredibly alone.” She revealed 
the 
advertising 
deals 
made 

covertly, writing on another, 
“Was paid $400 to post a dress.” 
She said that with her number of 
followers, online brands now pay 
up to $2,000 per Instagram.

Promotional 
photos 
aside, 

the real shock was the inten-
tion behind O’Neill’s personal 
pictures. Because when there 
wasn’t a brand — just a natural, 
laughing picture of O’Neill — we 
felt connected, like we were in 
on her secret. But what social 
media users don’t see (or choose 
to ignore) is what’s really being 
sold: not a brand, but the Insta-
grammer (or blogger, YouTuber, 
etc.) herself.

O’Neill 
uncovered 
pictures 

of herself on the beach, writing, 
“Nothing is candid.” On anoth-
er: “A 15-year-old that calorie 
restricts and excessively exercis-
es is not goals” — a message that’s 
dangerously ignored by masses of 
“fitspiration” boards and blogs.

Consumed by numbers — 

views, likes, followers — O’Neill 
deleted her Instagram and You-
Tube, calling it quits on her 
“perfect life” as we knew it. She 
opened a Vimeo account, where 

she recently posted a 12-min-
ute video on “Why I think social 
media sucks,” in which she 
demands of future social media: 
“Would someone please make 
something that isn’t based on 
views, likes and followers?”

She continues on the video, 

“If I had no likes or follows, I 
thought I meant nothing.” But (as 
we all know) feeling validation 
from likes or views isn’t anything 
new; O’Neill firmly states that she 
doesn’t blame social media itself 
for her unhappiness, but rather 
her own addiction to it. Her aim 
for Vimeo is to post three videos 
a week, sharing her thoughts on 
social media, body image and 
what it means to live a (real) 
healthy lifestyle, free from com-
ments or approval from YouTube.

Since 
the 
fallout, 
O’Neill 

has posted three more videos 
to her site. Despite her youth, 
despite how trivial the topic of 
social media seems, they watch 
strangely like a documentary: 
a behind-the-scenes look at a 
fallen celebrity. O’Neill is giddy 
and aspirational, inviting us all 
to be “game changers” by talk-
ing about ideas instead of Ins-
tagrams, reading books instead 
of counting likes. She promotes 
a movement for authenticity: 
“Go outside, go to a park, go to a 
beach, go somewhere there are 
people around you.”

She ends solemnly, “You don’t 

have to appreciate what I’m 
doing, but I hope it feels some-
what real ... What I’m doing here 
is a statement that real life isn’t 
through screens.”

It’s a sweet sentiment, but 

there’s something not quite right 
about it. Though her makeup is 
gone, her hair stuffed in a bun, 
O’Neill is still blinking up from 
a screen. An unsettling question 
remains: Didn’t her Instagram 
feel somewhat real to us as well? 

NEW MEDIA NOTEBOOK
Essena O’Neill 
drops Instagram

James Bond and the 
endless franchise

By MADELEINE GAUDIN

Daily Arts Writer

I remember dressing up with a 

cape and a wand to see the mid-
night premiere of “Harry Potter 
and the Order of the Phoenix.” 
I bought my ticket weeks in 
advance, waited in line with 100 
other wizards for spooky-themed 
snacks. Most importantly, I got to 
the theater early to pick the best 
seat (right behind the railing so I 
could put my feet up).

 I was excited to see the movie 

because I’d read all the books. The 
evening oozed anticipation more 
than surprise. I, along with every-
one else in the theater, already 
knew what would happen, and 
that’s exactly why we were there. 
That’s the case for fans of any book 
series-turned-film franchise. I’m 
sure (though I don’t have any first-
hand experience) that the “Twi-
light” movies brought out just as 
passionate a crowd. 

 However, James Bond is dif-

ferent. No one dresses up in 
white tuxes and sips martinis in 
the movie theater to celebrate 
the next 007 addition. Although 
that would be pretty suave, 
James Bond is a different kind 
of series, if you can even call it 
that. “Harry Potter” and “The 
Hunger Games” have a begin-
ning and an end. Everybody (and 
I mean everybody) cries at the 
end of “Harry Potter and the 
Deathly Hallows” because they 
know it’s over. I’m assuming no 
one cried at the end of “Spectre,” 
the latest episode in the adven-
tures of James Bond, even if they 
thought it was the finale of 007. 
An air of possibility hangs over 
the ending of a Bond movie — 
the possibility of another film or 
another Bond somewhere in the 
not-so-distant future.

 This begs the question: Will 

James Bond ever be over? I 
don’t think so, or at least not in 

my lifetime. As long as a Dan-
iel Craig look-alike (though it’s 
about time for some diversity) 
can throw on a tux and shoot a 
gun, there will be more movies. 
And that’s interesting, seeing 
as James Bond was originally 
a book series. It would, there-
fore, make sense to have a set 
beginning and end. But the sto-
ryline has spiraled off from the 
novels completely, drawing on 
elements from all the books in 
each film rather than following 
their plots exactly.

 Bond is a bit like Sherlock 

Holmes in the way the stories, 
both stemming from books, 
are malleable — actors, time 
periods 
and 
plotlines 
can 

be adjusted to fit popular 
demand. In the past 10 years, 
both Robert Downey Jr. and 
Benedict 
Cumberbatch 
have 

played Sherlock, the former in 
a ho-hum film adaptation and 
the latter in a brilliant BBC TV 
series. Bond has been played by 
seven men, ranging from the 
mediocre Pierce Brosnan to the 

classic Sean Connery. Anyone 
can play Bond or Sherlock, in a 
way that doesn’t exist in other 
series. Only Daniel Radcliffe 
can play Harry Potter (and 
that’s a fact). But, like Sherlock, 
Bond can embody different 
representations; many different 
actors (who all look eerily 
similar) can take on the role.

 Maybe Bond films are just 

too profitable to give up on. 
The 2012 installment “Skyfall” 
made 
over 
$1,000,000,000. 

That’s not too surprising, con-
sidering these films are full of 
everything the public loves: 
sex, guns and unnecessary 
explosions. Bond lives adjacent 
to Marvel Comics’ superheroes 
(another series of sorts that will 
never die) and down the street 
from more sophisticated spy 
thrillers, making the franchise 
a unique blend of artistry and 
mass market appeal. 

 Maybe one day our hero will 

meet his fateful end, but perhaps 
the allure of sex, guns and fast 
cars is just too good to pass up. 

20TH CENTURY FOX

Where are the shirtless Instagram pics?

FILM NOTEBOOK

