Bookmark Vlog Blog
Feb
19
What is a Vlog?
Filed Under What is a Vlog?, Vlogalism
What is a vlog? That’s a good question for a first post, I would think. But I have a feeling that the answer isn’t so simple, and that as long as I write this blog, it’ll be a question I come back to again and again. In fact, I’ve created a whole category for that question so I can dump any ramblings I might have there.
Of course on the most basic level, the question “What is a vlog?” can be answered quite easily. “V” stands for video, and “log” stands for, well, log. So a vlog is a video log - a video record, or journal, or progress report. And, of course, the term vlog has its origins in the term blog.
But when you get into the different possible definitions of what a journal or a progress report or a record can contain, you begin to get into murky waters. Vlogs, I believe, will be a very different animal than simply blogs (web logs) with video. Although a blog can be technically any type of media posted to a web log (including, of course, video), it’s my guess that blogs and vlogs will one day part ways and be considered two very different types of outlets. Some people will put video onto their mostly text blogs, and some people will put text on their vlog sites, and some will marry the two almost equally, but it’s my guess that when the general public begins to discover vlogs, and more and more people begin putting their latent visual sophistication to work in the form of video logs, the world will begin to look at vlogs and blogs as very different entities.
Without the debate even having started (that I know of), I’m sure one day soon this question of “What is a vlog?” will inflame many a good people (mostly snobs vs. non-snobs … snobs can be good people too … in their own way). Trying to answer the question “What is a vlog?” will be like trying to answer the question “What is art?” There will be those who insist that to be a vlog, it has to follow a set of pre-defined criteria. Some will argue that in order to define something there has to be, well, definition, i.e. specific qualities ascribed to the thing being defined. And, of course, that’s so. But the problem they will run in to, in my opinion, is that the specific qualities they will use to define what a vlog is will be “pre-defined.” An important aspect of definitions is that they are actually “after the fact” labeling devices. Definitions are contextually dependent. They not only label, they evolve as the animal being labeled evolves. If they don’t, they become useless.
I’m afraid I can see it coming already. There will be vlog snobs who will insist that video a, b, or c isn’t a “vlog” because it doesn’t do x, y, or z. “It might be a video,” they’ll say, “and it might be posted on something that looks like a blog, but it isn’t a vlog. I know, because I vlog and my vlogs do x,y, and z .” And, of course, they’ll be wrong.
But just as wrong-headed will be those who consider themselves non-vlog snobs and who maintain that anything they put into a video form and post to the internet is a vlog. The problem there is that if you begin to stretch definitions so much that they’ll cover almost anything, well, they lose their definition. But it’s my guess that the non vlog snobs will be more right than the vlog snobs. If a vlog is a video “log,” then we have to look a little deeper into the question of what a “log” actually is.
According to the American Heritage dictionary, the definitions of “log” that most apply in this case (allowing for interpretation) are the following:
2. b. A record of a ship’s speed, its progress, and any shipboard events of navigational importance. c. The book in which this record is kept. 3. A record of a vehicle’s performance, as the flight record of an aircraft. 4. A record, as of the performance of a machine or the progress of an undertaking: a computer log; a trip log.
How are you going to define how someone might most effectively express the “progress” or the “events” of their internal lives, for example? I can predict many vlog snobs from the beginning insisting that a vlog will have to take on an air of nonfiction. But doesn’t a fictional story or an imaginative poem often reflect the truth better than the facts? It’s an ironic twist, of course, that it’s the artists, in this case vlogartists, who will be on the receiving end of the snobs’ disdain.
There will be many vloggers who point their cameras at their faces and either read an opinion they’ve written out, or ramble on about things they’ve been thinking about (or not, as the case may be). This is most definitely a vlog, but only one kind. I can foresee many of these straight-shooting vloggers scoffing at interpretive, though no less revealing, vlogs.
I’m sure we will also see a rise in the phenomenon of what I’ll call vlogalism practiced by vlogalists — that is, vlog journalism practiced by vlog journalists. And make no mistake, these vlogalists will change our world. Some will happen upon an event quite by accident, as in the case of the vlogalists in the middle of the recent tsunami in Asia. But there will be others who actively and aggressively pursue vlogalism, either as a means to advance their careers as mainstream journalists, or simply as a demanding “hobby,” if you will; however many who do it as something other than a career climbing maneuver may have untold hidden objectives and agendas.
The rise of vlogalists and vlogalism will be interesting to watch, but there are easily-spotted problems on the horizon – not the least of which is credibility. That “professional” news organizations are, in fact, corporate money-making machines can actually be beneficial in some respects. They are dependent on advertising, and their reputations are dependent on their credibility. People like to squawk about how News Organization A is simply a mouthpiece for Political View X, but everyone knows that when reporting the “news” they can’t outright lie time after time. Even their own choir would eventually turn on them. Their credibility is what makes them attractive to corporate money. Independent vlogalists with an axe to grind and no aspirations for a professional journalism career, however, are beholden to no one. To be sure, their vlogs, being video, will have an air of authenticity, more so than any written blog could ever hope for. And this is one of the important differences between writing a text blog and producing a video.
For the most part, with a few notable exceptions, text blogs have taken on the role of commentaries, not news stories. Vlogs will also occupy this space, but the unique power that video offers will make them more attractive to the independent journalists. With text, you can simply sit at home with a computer and make things up, but staging or manipulating video is a little more involved. That fact alone gives video its added credibility. Of course manipulating video is possible already, and it will only get easier as more people become more sophisticated with video, but for a while anyway, some disingenuous vlogalists will wreak havoc in more than one person’s life as most people still want to believe what their eyes see, or at the very least, what their brains are telling their eyes to see. What exactly will happen, who it will happen to, when it will happen, where it will happen, why it will happen, and how it will happen are all questions we’ll probably have the answers to sooner than we think.
But more on all that later. Fortunately, I believe, there’s more benefit to come from vlogs than harm. It’s an exciting time. Although vlogs have actually been around for a few years now, they’re on the cusp of an explosion. We haven’t even begun to see what vlogs will do or what they can be.