I found out about the film a few months ago while following my all-time favorite internet personality, Mitchell Davis. He's 22, from Ohio and has never had another job...you read that right. Posting videos on YouTube and making money from allllll those online viewers is the only job this kid has had. For the last five years.
What initially got me interested in Mitchell was the fact that here was a guy who actually bothered to have an aesthetic--other than firing up the computer, looking into a crappy camera mounted above a monitor and babbling like a moron in single, God-awful takes, that is. He was clearly using a professional grade camera (currently something in the Canon DSLR line), knew how to put up and use a light and just generally had a handle on good graphic design.
Oh yeah: and the kid could edit.
If you're reading this thing, you know me and you know what have done for money in the past. (Let's not talk about that now.) That said, I have spent more time than I care to remember in edit bays or development pitch sessions with deeply unfunny people, trying like hell to think up ways to be funny...or at minimum: finding ways to not be so egregiously (criminally?) unfunny. The whole exercise was a shame-filled, ego-dashing shamespiral and the only cure for it, I often found, was a Silkwood shower followed by some wood grain alcohol of dubious origin to help further wash away the pain.
It's hard to be funny while also attempting to have/create a personal style, is what I'm saying.
And yet, through the magic of the quick cut, Mitchell pulls it off. And it's not like his material is high concept...if anything, he's mastered the art of KISS—that's, "keep it simple, stupid"—and capitalizes on the low-fi fun of YouTube vlogs...or shows. Or show vlogs. Whatever. (Even the folks in the movie struggle to come up with the words to adequately describe just what they are and what they do...)
This kid routinely makes me laugh. Really.
Whether or not you agree with me is on you, dog. Personally, I give it up to Mitchell and the other YouTubers—creating your own work week in and week out ain't easy, but these guys are doing it and generating some good stuff in the process.
Big hugs, guys! LOL, OMG, etc. etc. etc.
*Ahem*
In sum, if you like keeping up with what the kids are doing on the YouTubes and you like documentaries, then check out Please Subscribe—a digital download will cost you around $10, but you can take pride in knowing that the money goes directly to the filmmaker. (Who, unlike the 'Veronica Mars' Rob Thomas guy, is actually an indie maker of content and not a big studio masquerading behind the pose of an 'indie' project. Whole 'nother post, ya'll.)
"Seems legit," as my niece would say. (And no, her real name is not "Biscuit Bottenhagen." But I give her points for originality.)
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