Here's an idea: Unboxing Videos make objects more sensual... Not that kind of sensual though.
Ok so the new thing is coming out, the new video game thing, or apple thing, or phone... thing
And days or weeks before, or maybe even on the eve of the release, a lucky few in possession
of said Coveted Thing record and upload ... an UNBOXING VIDEO.
Y'know: someone. An object. The object's in the box. The someone takes the object out of the box
On video. VIOLA! UNBOXING VIDEO.
Unboxing vids are kind of like the ballpark frank of internet videos: they exist
most naturally in a very specific context.
Outside of which they're not widely known or well regarded, but inside of which they
are a STAPLE. Unboxing videos are POPULAR, but never go VIRAL. They are EXPECTED but
not really NEEDED.
Like death, taxes and I guess at this particular point in history Justin Beiber getting arrested,
you can COUNT ON THEM. Also Justin, what are you doing?
The unboxing video provides a very strange... service. Because it's not normally
during the UNBOXING vid that we're getting our first look at whatever the thing is.
Be it an ipad, xbone, ps or phone -- we've normally seen the Thing a thousand times
on billboards and commercials and banners and here's the thing look at the thing it's EVERYWHERE!
And while the marketing video does show us what these things LOOK LIKE, weirdly it's the unboxing that
shows us what they ARE.
The unbox shows us A real person with A real object. And though, yes, it is another
piece of media like the marketing materials are...
It depicts the thing, ostensibly NOT photoshopped, not massaged, unfooled-around-with, in all of
its glorious vestments.
The unboxing video is the process of presenting the object of desire in a state of undress. To
describe, the unboxing video as partially erotic wouldn't be entirely inaccurate, I don't think.
While there are some companies who in their advertising make the connection between eroticized
human body and their product more explicit than others--
our current, particularly commercialized epoch tends to turn MANY or most products
into objects of desire.
In the undressing of the object what is being removed is just as much its
its garb as it is its HYPE or lofty productized image.
And sometimes if the object itself is not eroticized then the act of acquiring it IS. And on a
related but unrelated note, I also think of this as accounting for the existence of certain
kinds of ASMR videos, too. But that's... another conversation for later.
It could also be about the REALNESS of those objects. Beyond on a
small scale communicating our distrust of advertising and marketing images...
the unbox does show us THE real object, and not just in the moment it is revealed... but
in all the pageantry that is required to do so.
You know, like digging through all the plastic bits and bags and stuff.
Or maybe not REAL but SENSUAL. Philosopher Graham Harman talks about a distinction between
"real" and "sensual" objects-and-qualities. Realness, he says, cannot be experienced. And
sensuality can ONLY be experienced. Most things which must or do exist in the world
as a singular object--
this horse, my pickup truck, our calzone, Seemingly all Around
Nice Guy Dave Coulier--
are REAL objects with SENSUAL qualities. Meaning, if I were to just disappear, my truck would still be a truck.
To others, it would still be a specific truck.
Realness here doesn't mean what it normally does; REALNESS here is a kind of ... reference
You can THINK about REAL objects but you can never have ANY experience of them - like TRUCKNESS
helps you understand what a truck is, but doesn't reference one, specific truck.
There ARE, in addition, the reverse: Sensual Objects with Real Qualities.
e.g. minotaurs, flying cars, perfectly toroidal pizza, North Korean Dictator Dave Coulier
and snow which falls up.
These things can be EXPERIENCED but only by virtue of qualities which are assembled intellectually.
They depend upon our presence. If we disappear, MINOTAURS disappear.
My truck, however, would remain.
So then maybe it's that the unboxing video defeats some of the REALNESS of the marketing material which
are full of emphemerality and non-sensical ad speak and makes the consumer object more
SENSUAL--more open to our experiences, or at the very least imparts more SENSUAL
QUALITIES where it previously was mainly an idea.
And though it is ANOTHER image or set of images, the context is completely different
from the billboard or the product launch at CES or whatever.
The unboxing is usually a citizen consumer, an informal setting, and a singular object-- not
like in most advertising, an ideal of the object.
Of course, there is a necessary precondition to this whole arrangement and that is an infatuation with
the thing to begin with.
The unboxing video, except for its bizzare pageantry, might not be a draw for someone
who is otherwise uninterested in next gen gaming consoles, phones, or whatever... this... is.
To be concerned with the appearance and packaging of a product one must think of appearance
and packaging as things worthy of concern.
And even a lot of us who are invested in product lines, technology, and product design
have no problem waiting for The Thing Itself to be properly released.
Before digging through all the stuff with our own hands.
Perhaps it's that the unboxing video is a kind of "leak", a production still or trailer for
the Object fandom.
It shows some, but doesn't ruin the personal and complete experience of, the real thing.
It is a hint, a teaser.
It sexes up the thing, in a novel way, without spoiling its entirety. Unless...you buy things
just to unbox them. And here we are back at ASMR again!
What do you guys think? Why do people make and watch unboxing videos?
Let us know in the comments and the best and worst thing about subscribing to Idea
Channel is that it comes with no packaging.
To thine own selfie be true. Let's see what you had to say about selfies as speech acts.
gennyloves points out some feminist arguments for the attitude to that people have
towards selfies and talks about how maybe this is
troubling to some people because women, in turning the camera on
themselves, are sort of taking
agency over their objectification which is, I think, really interesting.
Some people also sent me some links to some things that were written in Jezebel, xojane a couple
other places. We'll put some links
in the description. I think this is, I think this is a really interesting reading on selfies.
Iman Behzadian says that the selfie is an annoying thing because it causes you to
compare your life
to that of the selfie-taker and I wonder if people who have this attitude which is
one that I saw a couple times
if they feel this way about all forms of art:
painting and music and photography because I would say that that is true
in almost all creative endeavors. I don't know. What do you guys think about this, this attitude?
Yayitsscarlett kind of gets to the heart of the matter and says that people don't like
selfies because it is an example of how self-obsessed we have all become to
which I would say
I'm pretty sure we've always been self-obsessed and this goes back
I think to my argument that you can really dislike
the people who take selfies for all different kinds of reasons, but
the selfie itself: totally innocent.
Standing by it. Selfie, innocent. Matt Crowell and getdownliberty wrote
really insightful comments about the selfie being a thing for
the picture taker and that the audience than having to reorient themselves in a confusing way
towards that, so we'll just put links to these comments in the description. They're
super-good. Olaseni, for the record that is exactly what I meant I did
mean that. Natchy describes the most common criticism leveled against selfies
and selfie-takers and then
clues us into a piece of Brazilian slang for describing
what a person is when they are criticizing someone for seemingly
no reason. I might start using this
if it's not also secretly a very dirty word. To Harry D, I want to just make
this incredibly clear: Not a fan
of Sherry Turkle. Was being very sarcastic,
maybe we'll put up big sarcasm
lights the next time, because I should be very clear about that.
Not a fan. When I said favorite person, I meant the opposite of that.
Cat MacEachern talks about selfies as a kind of method of self-care which is really
really interesting and then
also says that some of the hate could come from the fact that selfies are
thought of by many people as being a domain of
young girls and that there is not a great general cultural attitude towards
young women, so yeah.
Erin Merriman Zenor writes a comment which, after reading,
you can never again complain about the utility of selfless.
You're done. Your argument is now invalid. Giascle makes a really great comment about
the utility of certain bits of social media and make me think of this attitude that I
see a lot of which is people feeling like they are owed something by
the folks that they follow on social media and that
the selfie is one very particular and egregious transgression of some kind of
contract that they've signed into, so
yeah, it's a very complex attitude about what kinds of media you
willingly subject yourself to, and who has the,
who has the responsibility. Your bi-monthly reminder that there is no such thing as
over thinking and anything made by a person is important and interesting is
brought to you by someone called
thedaygamers. Thank you, thedaygamers, I disagree.
This week's episode was brought to you by the hard work of these sensual objects.
if you haven't seen it already I guest starred on Mashable's 5 Facts with Matt and Annie.
It's an episode about the iPhone. It was super-fun. We'll put a link to that
in the description and you should definitely watch it. We have a facebook, an IRC
and a subreddit and the Tweet of the Week comes from Nick McLaughlin who points us towards
a linguistic analysis of Doge. Yes,
that's right. Doge
And for our record change this week we replace John Vanderslice with
Tomita playing Holst's The Planets.
Goodbye John Vanderslice, welcome Tomita