So last week I got mixed up and blogged about facebook and myspace, and so this week I will be blogging about the media assignment from last week
So for this week I watched the Brad Paisley music video for his song “So Much cooler Online” I had seen the video before and I love this song. It is one of his best songs he has recorded. I like that he creates songs that are meant to be funny and give you something to laugh at. That is a great change of pace for country music.
The characters Brad creates in his music videos are often the unpopular people who are craving the attention and acceptance of other people. In “Cooler” the main character is an overweight, balding, asthmatic pizza delivery guy who lives at home in his parents basement in his offline persona. He is very shy and not good at talking to girls, even ones that do seem interested in him. In his online persona he goes from being 5′ 3″ to 6′ 5″, driving a hundai to driving a mazarati and has a fine taste for wine. He changes instantly when he turns on his computer, he grows a couple inches and sheds a few pounds.
This is most likely the way that many people feel about themselves and they create a new persona online where they are free to express themselves and are not held back by their own personal anxiety. There are many ways to express yourself online; in chat rooms, blogs, facebook, myspace and instant messaging. As stated in chapter 3 of Wood and Smith, some people take it personal when their “friends” online are untruthful, you expect people to be honest and tell the truth. Such as “Julie” wasn’t really a mute, paraplegic who was housebound. Actually “Julie” was a full-time professional male psychologist. That is a great example of people creating an alternate persona online or a pseudonym, it could be you disguised by a name. In some ways the internet is a great way to express who you are, show people how creative you are, the type of music you listen to, the types of movies you watch or the books you like to read. Some people feel that they cant be their true selves around their friends. Lets say there is football player and he is expected to be into sports and guy stuff, but really he is into reading books and poetry. How can he feel free to be himself around other jocks when their image is to be the tough guys. But he could be online under a fake name and get to talk to other people about his interest in these things. Some people use the internet in the way that allows them to explore a part of themselves that they are too embarrassed to show people face to face.
With the overall video I think that Brad was just having a good time and trying to be kitchy, same thing with his other songs such as “celebrity, Im gonna miss her and alcohol.” I dont think that he was trying to show how society views people who make up alternate persona on the internet, I think he just thought it was a funny story line. I thought it was great that he made it so the offline personality found someone to love and someone that had similar interest as he did. Offline guy was the underdog that everyone roots for, the type of guy that deserves to find his other half and in his case it just happened to be Marcia Brady.
