Chad Vader

The use of video cameras, the Internet and even cell phone cameras in today’s society has allowed for a creative process to evolve unlike the typical national television programming.  People are now able to produce their own videos or video series and show it to the public without having to be in the actual entertainment business. With the use of the Internet and web sites like YouTube, it is easy to upload and share their creativity and content to everyone in the world for free. In the 1990’s, the first web series was produced and from there, it launched different viral videos and web series of every kind and there are now hundreds of different web series. You Tube alone reported over 2 billion viewers a day after existing for just 5 years.

Web series are a very different type of media expression compared to the traditional television series. They don’t have the same sound and vision quality as formal produced series. These web series are created by people that are not looking to make lots of profit off of their series that are free online and it would be almost impossible to compete with the sophisticated equipment used in television. Normally web series are short episodes that last about five to ten minutes long. These series are not made to engage as many people as possible, but are made for a specific group of people who might be interested and understand what the creator is trying to convey. This makes it easier for the creator to connect with their audiences and make their episodes short and comprehendible. For example, I watched the first session of Chad Vader. You can tell that it is created for Star Wars fanatics and people that like TV shows like The Office. Web series like Chad Vader are getting to be so popular that the creators are making some profit off advertising. At the beginning of each episode on YouTube you will see a commercial and various pop-ups during the video.

I believe that web series could not be made into our traditional television series because they do not sell enough “eyeballs”. Our traditional series are made for entertainment and to sell products to as many people as possible. If we made web series into a traditional series it would not be able to generate enough profit because it appeals to only a certain type of person and it wouldn’t be enough to keep the program running. The only way that the web series could become traditional series is if the series attracted more than just one type of audience and as well as making the episodes longer. If viral videos did become part of the traditional entertainment industry, a great deal of freedom and creativity would be lost. As of now, almost anything is allowed on the Internet as long it isn’t offensive to the general public or harmful to minors. This liberty of creating what the artists wants would be compromised. 

source: chad, success, creating, how, PBS, five years