2B — Thursday, February 25, 2016
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

My 
digital 
footprint 

expanded as I moved from 
90-pound 
“Doctor 
Who” 

fanatics to a 30-year-old nerd 
sitting at home building a brand 
off of the blind devotion of 
13-year-old kids.

And I was one of those 

13-year-olds. I couldn’t help it 
— the community made me feel 
superior. Looking back, it may 
have been the first time I felt a 
sense of culture and belonging. 
Never before had I been a part of 
such an expansive community 
of shared interests. I never 
commented on a video and I 
never attended any gatherings, 
but somehow I still felt a part of 
a larger movement, and that’s 
what made it special. I was a 
small part of a community that 
mattered.

It’s too bad though that it 

took me. Young and easily 
manipulated, I adapted aspects 
of these clever entrepreneurs’ 
personalities 
and 
opinions, 

proudly 
declaring 
myself 
a 

nerd because a 35-year-old man 
told me I was “awesome.” And 
maybe, just maybe, I was right to 
be full of awe as I stared at these 
great figures looming before 
me. Gazing up at their carefully 
cultivated backdrops, wardrobes 
and makeup, I laughed as they 
divulged dark secrets, instructed 
how to make the perfect cup of 
tea and reacted to a reaction of 
a reaction video of a cat. I knew 
them, and though they didn’t 
know me, that didn’t matter — I 
was still a part of a community 
that cared.

I never commented on a 

video and I never attended a 
gathering, and that made all the 
difference. Because when the 
realization of this toxic culture 
began to dawn on me, I was 
able to escape with a shred of 
dignity. As I scrolled through 
comment sections of videos, 
I would stop and stare at the 
Arial font that scrawled either 
love letters or death threats. 
Disagreement 
and 
conflict 

guaranteedly spiraled out of 
control under each video as I 
watched my heroes, astonished, 
react to the backlash against 
their carefully scripted words.

Words are words, but on the 

Internet, especially YouTube, 
they 
become 
battle 
cries, 

tabloid magazine headlines and 
national crises in a matter of 
seconds. I watched helplessly as 
videos were torn apart because 
a well-meaning girl stumbled 
over her words for a split 
second and lost half of her fans. 

I watched, seething, as a loud-
mouthed boy encouraged hatred 
and spats within his audience 
because their fierce beliefs were 
their own problem and they 
should know better than to take 
him seriously.

This deniability and failure to 

take responsibility was rampant 
in 
these 
videos. 
From 
Ben 

Cook to Alex Day to even poor 
Dan Howell, all I began to see 
were young boys in tight pants 
claiming it was the viewer’s fault 
for taking their words seriously. 
It was the 10-year-old girl’s fault 
for thinking her hero was serious 
when he said fat girls couldn’t be 
superheroes.

And then came the sexual 

assaults. Lack of accountability 
couldn’t have been more evident 
when the stories came out back 
to back about how these glorified 
celebrities had taken advantage 
of young girls and boys who 
trusted them, idolized them, 
would do anything for them. How 
these 20-somethings with their 
inflated egos took advantage of 
children because a video that got 
a million views made them feel 
justified in doing so.

Not all the YouTubers I 

watched 
and 
romanticized 

were criminals, but like any 
community, it is defined by the 
few mistakes, not the many “My 
Morning Routine” tags. There 
are, of course, the shining 
figures that rise above the 
grime and filth, but even they 
still hold unfathomable power 
that no young adult sitting in 
their bedroom with a camera 
should have.

My 
education 
in 
the 

scandalous, 
nerdy 
and 

unprecedented was completed 
by YouTube. I learned most 
swear words, entered a dark 
phase defined by time travel 
and realized what true human 
incompetence looked like. I 
feel obliged to thank it for my 
introduction 
to 
far-fetched 

worlds and ideas, but nothing 
more than obliged. There is a 
perpetual pit in my stomach 
when I think of the pedestal 
on which I once placed these 
average individuals.

The pedestal came crashing 

down my freshman year of 
high school, and I narrowly 
escaped gasping for air. Now, 

in retrospect, all I want back 
is the 99 cents I spent on each 
of these monstrosities’ music 
singles. Sadly though, youthful 
naivety has its cost and mine 
was heavily invested in the 
repeated failed attempts to get 
a tone-deaf teen to number one. 
My iTunes library is scarred by 
their poppy, overly produced 
tracks and maybe that’s why 
I find myself dependent on 
Spotify these days, immediately 
X-ing out of iTunes when it 
dares to show its face. 

“YouTube’s mission is to 

provide fast and easy video 
access and the ability to share 
videos frequently,” it says on 
their homepage. And that’s 
exactly what it achieves. It is 
a platform for creativity and 
innovation in a digital age. It is 
a platform for talent and humor 
to be shared and advertised. 
It is a platform for abuse and 
manipulation. Careers can be 
made or destroyed over the 
course of one YouTube video, 
and a life can hang in the balance 
of one YouTube comment. It is 
concurrently a collaborative, 
multi-platform video database 
of innovation and a cesspool 
for toxic behavior. It’s up to 
the owners, the users and 
the viewers to find a balance 
between the two.

As I scroll through the pages 

of my old YouTube stars, I can’t 
help but wonder after the book 
deals, short films and viral 
video clips, what remains of 
the person behind the camera. 
What inspires them, drives 
them to turn on that camera 
every day and address the 
adoring eyes of strangers that 
hang on their every word? And 
above all, what is life after 
YouTube? Do they just cease to 
exist? And did we ever find out 
where the hell Matt is?

I have nothing against the use 

of YouTube as a place to exhibit 
one’s talent and skill, but it’s 
the cult followings that arise 
from the especially talented 
or vivacious that unsettle me. 
There’s an air of entitlement 
and 
anonymity 
surrounding 

all partakers in the YouTube 
community; individuals on both 
sides of the screen develop the 
idea that they deserve views and 
videos, while maintaining the 
presence of half a person. The 
people we see on screen are as 
authentic as editing tools allow 
them to be — a hollowed out 
projection of fame. But 11-year-
old girls don’t know what editing 
software or authenticity is; all 
they know is the cute, sardonic 
boy on screen makes them 
laugh when he makes fun of 
“Twilight.”

YOUTUBE
From Page 1B

By ERIKA SHEVCHEK

Daily Arts Writer

While the world awaits 

the 88th Annual Oscars this 
Sunday, nostalgia crept up on 
me the other night as I thought 
about the first time I watched 
the Oscars.

It was February 29th 2004, 

and I sat on the couch with my 
dad. Being seven years old and 
raised by a film and television 
producer, I felt that a career 
in the film business would be 
appropriate. Before I learned 
cursive or multiplication, I was 
planning my profession.

That night had been 

confusing for me. I hadn’t seen 
any of the movies, but I was 
in awe of the celebrities: their 
beauty, their glamour, their 
success. I watched Ben Stiller 
and Owen Wilson present 
their hilarious introduction 
for the Short Film category 
and Charlize Theron win for 
Best Actress as she joyfully 
cried (as a majority of the 
Oscar winners do.) Despite my 
fuzzy, intangible memory, I 
would never forget watching 
the category for Best Original 
Screenplay: Sofia Coppola won 
her first ever Oscar award.

I sat wide-eyed and giddy 

when I witnessed this, though 
it was nothing ground-
breaking. But what I saw in my 
mind changed my motives and 
paved the way. Looking over 

at my dad I said, “Dad, I want 
to be like her. I want to win for 
Best Original Screenplay.” My 
dad smiled and told me I could 
do anything I put my mind to, 
and I soon found out that he 
was definitely right.

In the third grade, my class 

and I made a “life” chart, in 
which each student had to 
write about their interests — 
including what they wanted 
to be when they grow up. 
The other nine year olds had 
similar passions ranging from 
“I want to be a doctor,” or 
“the president,” etc. Then I 
presented mine.

“Erika, what do you want 

to be when you grow up?” my 
teacher asked. 

I showed the class my chart 

with a poorly drawn picture of 
camera and a typewriter.

“A screenwriter, and 

probably a director,” I 
answered. Nothing but blank 
stares greeted me.

Fifth grade came along, and 

we were learning fractions. 
While the other students took 
notes that would eventually 
lead them to be engineers or 
mathematicians, I was writing 
a 98-page screenplay about 
pirates. In other words, I was 
slowly but surely failing math.

Meeting with my fifth grade 

math teacher, she asked me 
why I was struggling with 
fractions. I was embarrassed, 
but I was also an innocent 

fifth grader who didn’t want 
to lie to my teacher. Ashamed 
and trembling, I opened my 
math notebook and showed her 
pages filled with indentations 
and words that were the 
beginnings of an amateur, 
handwritten screenplay. My 
teacher wasn’t all that upset — 
in fact, she smiled.

Since then, I have realized 

I should just do what I am 
good at. Clearly fractions 
were an essential compound 
to elementary education. 
However, I was more 
passionate writing about 
pirates fighting each other. 
I’ve learned from Sofia 
Coppola that even if you are 
a young neophyte, success is 
achievable, yet unmeasurable. 
I’ve learned that it’s OK to not 
follow the norm and to say 
that my dream is to win an 
Oscar award. I’ve learned that 
if I never watched the 2004 
Oscars, I don’t think I would 
have chosen to study a liberal 
arts major or a career path as 
a writer.

So here, I indirectly thank 

the Oscars for not only 
entertaining me for 13 years, 
but for also introducing me 
to the art of writing and film. 
This week, I’m sure to dig up 
my old screenplays, although 
they are so far from being 
finished. And just maybe, 
I will make it by the 100th 
anniversary of the Oscars. 

Meet your 2030 Best 
Screenplay winner

FILM NOTEBOOK

By MADELEINE GAUDIN

Daily Arts Writer

You would be hard pressed to 

find someone with an Internet 
connection that hasn’t heard that 
something is up with the Oscars. 
They’re white. Really, really 
white. The source and extent of 
the underrepresentation has been 
debated in think pieces from the 
New York Times to whatever “The 
Odyssey Online” is.

The Oscars disproportion-

ately favor white actors. That’s 
not really up for debate. But why 
are the Oscars the center of this 
conversation? Other award shows 
(namely the SAG Awards) award 
the actors of color that the Oscars 
snub. People are making movies 
about women and people of color, 
and the American public is paying 
to see them. Hollywood itself is 
pretty white, but not to the same 
extent as the 2016 Oscar nomi-
nees.

So, the question isn’t are the 

Oscars whitewashed, the question 
is do the Oscars even matter any-
more? Do award shows accurately 
reflect the culture of American 
moviegoers, or is the Academy 
detached enough from the box 
office to render itself insignifi-
cant?

There is an intense desire for 

representation in movies, and 
that has been made clear with 
the box office successes of movies 
like “Straight Outta Compton” 
and “Creed.” “The Force Awak-
ens,” far and away the highest 
grossing movie of the year, was 
led by Daisy Ridley (a woman!) 
and John Boyega (a Black actor!). 
Diversity exists onscreen. Movies 
can make money even when they 
aren’t about white men. But what 
separates these movies from their 
Oscar-nominated peers is their 

failure to live up to a certain old-
fashioned ideal of quality. They’re 
popular; they’re entertaining; 
they’re easy to watch. Therefore, 
they can’t be anything more than 
entertainment. They can’t be art.

Studios make a movie like “The 

Force Awakens” for very different 
reason than they make a movie 
like “Carol.” Both are great mov-
ies. “Carol” was made, more or 
less, to be placed on the podium 
alongside the other Oscar-nomi-
nated movies. “Carol” was made 
because it’s sad and it’s beautiful 
and the Academy eats that up. 
“The Force Awakens” was made to 
make money, and lots of it. It was 
made to entertain and engross 
the public. It was made to inspire 
the sales of merchandise. “The 
Force Awakens” and most of the 
racially diverse big studio movies 
of 2015 were made because they 
make money. They weren’t made 
to be “prestige pieces.” They 
weren’t made to be art.

Oscar nominations can be box 

office pushes for low-grossing 
movies. They steer movie snobs 
(like myself) toward films prom-
ised to be the crème de la crème. 
The Academy loves heavy period 
pieces, family dramas and any-
thing with a lone male hero who 
survives against all odds. Like the 
American public, the Academy 
likes to see itself in movies (see: 
“Birdman” or “The Artist”). The 
problem here is that, unlike the 
American public, the Academy is 
overwhelmingly white and male.

The makeup of the Academy 

clearly does not represent the 
American public, but perhaps 
it doesn’t want to. Perhaps, the 
Academy exists to represent Hol-
lywood. Demographically, the 
Academy represents the makeup 
of the writers, directors and pro-
ducers who make Oscar-winning 

movies. White men decide movies 
made by white men are the height 
of cinema. If the movies nomi-
nated for Oscars have a diversity 
problem, the people that made 
them have an even bigger one.

So why do people still care 

about the Oscars? Isn’t it enough 
that studios are making more and 
more movies with women and 
actors of color?

The Oscars do matter. Not 

because a golden statue can actu-
ally decide the “best” movie, 
actor, director, etc. of the year. 
Not because it matters if any one 
film or performance is better 
than another. The Oscars matter 
because they represent movie-
making on a larger scale. They 
stand as a symbol for what it 
means for a movie to be great, 
what it means for a movie to 
transcend commercial success 
and become something worth 
remembering.

So go ahead and get mad at the 

Oscars, but stay mad on February 
29. Stay mad on June 29 when 
the few diverse summer block-
busters are heralded as the end 
of underrepresentation in Hol-
lywood. Stay mad on November 
29th when studios roll out their 
next slew of whitewashed Oscar 
hopefuls. 

I’ll be watching the Oscars next 

Sunday. They’re going to be tense 
and they’re going to be awkward, 
but I’m hopeful that that ten-
sion and awkwardness will push 
moviemakers in the right direc-
tion. Normally I wouldn’t argue 
that award shows matter, but this 
year they do. Because this year 
they hold the potential to become 
more than just Hollywood patting 
itself on the back. This year the 
Oscars have the potential to be the 
springboard for real, necessary 
social change.

The all-white Oscars

T

he 
starving 
artist: 

one who sacrifices a 
comfortable 
lifestyle 

to 
invest 

their 
limited 
resources 
towards 
their art.

This 

could 
be 

anyone: 
visual art-
ists, liter-
ary artists, 
musicians, 
actors. People who trade mate-
rial comfort for a life devoted to 
their art.

This idea has got me thinking: 

How many artists or potential 
artists are out there who simply 
don’t create? Because they can’t. 
Because life with its stresses and 
burdens, has deprived them of the 
ability to design and shape art.

Or maybe life just deprived 

them of the incentive. I think 
there are plenty of people who 
have the talent, but have lost the 
motivation to share it.

On the flip side, how many 

people are out there who can-
not fathom giving up their art? 
Though by pursuing it, they may 
be signing off on a life of minimal 
income and minimal luxury, they 
cannot give it up.

The idea of the “starving artist” 

dates back to the mid-19th cen-
tury, when Henri Murger wrote 
a book titled: “Scenes de La Vie 
de Boheme” that discussed the 
lives of a group of French artists 
he lived among. Bohemians and 

their artistry became famous —
people wanted to dress like them 
and behave like them. In many 
ways, the life of an artist is still 
romanticized. But it isn’t neces-
sarily respected. 

Last year in one of my semi-

nars, one of our discussions led 
people to admit why they were 
studying their respective major. 
I remember one student bluntly 
admitted he was studying busi-
ness simply because he had no 
other choice. “My mom said it’s 
this, or I’m coming home and 
U of M is no longer in the pic-
ture.” I’m not entirely sure he has 
dreams of becoming an artist, 
and the life of business has led 
him astray. However, I do think 
there is something he loves more 
than what he is setting himself 
up to do for the remainder of his 
life. And for that, I think this 
problem is a relevant one.

The notion of the starving art-

ist highlights the divide between 
a life of limitations and a life of 
practicality. We are all set on this 
career-oriented way of thinking 
that drives us to see an appeal — 
and maybe even develop an obses-
sion — toward a life with security 
and purpose. As a result, we are 
left with this thought: art can’t get 
us there. Or at least, the chances 
of “making it” are low.

For those who choose to dis-

miss these worries and follow 
their art, they often face judg-
ment, which results in two very 
different reactions. They either 
1) reevaluate their art or 2) are 
even more encouraged to pur-
sue it, after seeing others’ doubt. 

Many become really fired up 
when someone questions some-
thing they love. Others take it as 
an indication that a life of security 
awaits them elsewhere and the 
best choice is to go find it.

Of course, there are artists who 

make it big. They are successful. 
They are admirable. They are 
the musicians who sell millions 
of albums, but admit their music 
started in their bedroom with an 
old guitar. Or the New York Times 
Bestsellers, who heard “NO” from 
so many publishers, until that one, 
wonderful “yes.” For the artists 
who aren’t sure whether or not 
it’s worth going on, they look to 
those who made it and they think, 
“They did it and so can I.” There 
it is. The life of the starving artist 
can’t die out — too many have sus-
tained their hope because of these 
examples.

So, do the people who show us 

the ideal product of our art fuel 
us? Or are we hindered by the 
people who question it?

Starving artists are every-

where. But I’d say there is an 
incredibly greater number of 
people who have given up and 
succumbed to the pressures of 
society because someone con-
vinced them that a life of stability 
is found elsewhere.

To you people out there who 

have lost the motivation to share 
your art — you should know that 
there are many of us in the world 
just starving to see it. 

Kadian is hungry for 

creativity. To feed her, email 

bkadian@umich.edu. 

COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

The starving artist

BAILEY 

KADIAN

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY

Don’t you just hate when there’s a line at Starbucks?

FILM NOTEBOOK

I was one of 
those 13-year-

olds.

