A few weeks ago it was Canadian Thanksgiving. We spent it over on Vancouver Island with Rose's parents and her brother, James. They don't have cable so if we're all boardgame'd out, we'll usually watch a movie or often a couple of episodes of TV that they have on DVD (the Vicar of Dibley is a favourite!).
But this year, we spent some turkey-filled downtime in front of the warming glow of the laptop watching various online videos. We started with the ones that were top of mind with James, Rose and myself:
- Sarah Silverman's The Great Schlep which of course led to ...
- I'm f&*#ing Matt Damon which led to ...
- I'm f%$*ing Ben Affleck
Then, switched back to politics with ...
- Betty White's appearance (as speech writer for John McCain) on The Late Late Show
- Obama prepping for the second debate by AlphaCat
- Tina Fey and Amy Poehler recreating one of the Palin/Couric interview segments
And we ended our viewing with another round of the Great Schlep because Sarah is so funny.
A few things I observed:
- We have a 42" LCD TV at home. I am a sucker for pretty HD (CSI Miami is so PRETTY in HD). But watching these videos in "full screen mode" on a laptop was still an enjoyable experience.
- 66% of the content we watched we could have seen on TV (if we'd been tuned in at the right time) and it was produced by traditional media.
- Somewhat lower production values from independent producers don't lower a group's enjoyment of the content.
- Production values of independent producers are continually being raised as tools get more affordable/widespread and producers get better at using them.
- The Silverman/Damon/Affleck/Kimmel content is 8 months old, but some people still haven't seen it - it's nice to have an archive.
Rose and I had certainly watched online video as our central entertainment before, but this was the first time we had done so in at a family holiday or vacation. It will be interesting to see if it continues and if we all start bookmarking things to share at these gatherings. I've certainly become much more conscious of my own entertainment media consumption habits now - as well as the continual blurring of lines between "entertainment time" and "work time".
Photo Credit: Mike Warren