TV is the New Reading

‘i-Caught’ something ... but what?

ABC’s Tuesday night “i-Caught” production describes itself like this:

“’i-Caught’ is an original newsmagazine that examines the plethora of video images generated by cell phones, Web cams, surveillance cams, downloads and uploads. The show is anchored by Bill Weir and will look at the stories and people behind the videos.”

In reality, it’s not entirely unlike VH1’s occasional production of “Web Junk 20,” which features comedian Patrice O’Neal standing in front of a green screen hosting a half-hour look at the latest weirdness a pack of underpaid VH1 staffers passed very quickly by standards and practices from YouTube onto the airwaves.

The VH1 production is played entirely for laughs. “i-Caught” is played for social comment – and some laughs.

This might explain why Weir looks so uncomfortable, standing alone in his computer-generated white room – he himself isn’t entirely sure if he’s hosting a newsmagazine or some yowza gadfly “lookit that!” spectacle.

The program is allotted an hour, which might actually be too long for its hyperactive lack of focus. It is reasonably well conceived and written, but I couldn’t say how well researched it is, and it seems to be the ultimate definition of media spotlighting.

Spotlighting

See, I’ve had a YouTube account for a year. In that year, I have never seen anything more destructive than kids tipping a packet of Mentos into a two-liter bottle of diet Coke.

Then “i-Caught” comes along and tells me there are “thousands” of videos documenting the breaking into of vehicles and of people’s homes, the cracking of safes, the disabling of gun safeties and all sorts of household chemicals being flung at people and made to explode.

Now, I wonder if this kind of activity is really on the rise, or if it’s akin to the crime wave that swept Chicago in the early 1900s because newspapers decided to start reporting on it. There’s an argument to be made that they made the decision to do so because criminal activity was on the rise, but in reality, it might have been the exact same amount of crime – just more people being aware of it.

In this case, is teenage hooliganism actually on the rise or increasingly violent or out of hand, or are there just more cell phones with video cameras in the hands of more and more people and more opportunities to share those images with everyone?

Also, in the past, if 14-year-olds wanted to see an explosion (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?) their only option was to blow something up themselves. Now they can log in and, apparently, see “thousands.”

Wide range

Beyond making its audience frightened of the Internet, “i-Caught” also talked this week about people going to elaborate lengths to propose to one another and how more of that sort of video is making it online. And – wow, really? Only three episodes in? Only three episodes in they talked to the kid who made up the “Numa Numa” dance, as well as the Romanian band who sang the song and ... oh, just type “numa numa” into a search engine and you can see for yourself.

On the other hand, the “three words” segment that closed the show was incredibly moving and very nicely put together. Viewers were asked to come up with three words that described their life that week and the things people came up with were just ... wow. That’s available on the “i-Caught” site and it’s absolutely worth a look.

Personally, I thought the best news segment was on a real-sports discipline called “parkour” in which participants, called “traceurs,” move through their environment as beautifully and efficiently as they can, leaping, sprinting, rolling and ...

Again, there’s so much more online than can really be organized into a show like this.

But even National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” recently included a topic on people who cobble anime into music videos, so the social impact of interactive video is clearly being drawn before a mass audience.

Maybe that’s the disconnect. Watching New Jersey teen Gary Brolsma rock out to Romanian pop song “Dragostea Din Tei” online is one thing. Watching him talk about it on national television – and about how it’s so weird that he’s on national television talking about it – is quite another.

The whole thing just gets really meta.

Especially since no one’s giving equal time to Jorg’s dance at (BrettNovak.com).

“i-Caught” naturally has a Web presence linking to practically everything at (ugv.abcnews.go.com).

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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