Introduction to Entertainment on the Internet

"Culture relates to objects and is a phenomenon of the world; entertainment relates to people and is a phenomenon of life."
-Hannah Arendt

Since the dawn of mankind, we have sought ways to entertain ourselves. We told stories and passed them from village to village, we wrote those stories down into books for all to read, we acted in front of audiences in plays, we act in front of cameras for film, we drew cartoons to both entertain and inform. Before the internet, the only way to get entertainment out was not as accessible. Pirating music used to mean just copying the music onto a another disc, selling that disc, and giving none of the profit to the company.

But now, the Internet can make a star out of almost everybody. People who never would have had the chance to show their stuff are now finding an outlet to gain attention and even fans of their work. Some have even made Internet entertainment their primary source of income.

The Internet Entertainment community is vast and huge. In order to understand the nature of Entertainment on the Internet, it is necessary to understand the appeal of Online Entertainment, The benefits Entertainers gain, and the impact on society as a whole.

Entertainer Benefits

Doug Walker was your average guy. He worked for a graphic design company, but his true passion lied in movies. One day, he came across a rather nostalgic VHS in a video store: Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. Remembering how much he liked it as a kid, he decided to take it home and revisit it. To his shock, what he witnessed was a preachy, whiney half hour PSA about drugs. As Walker mulled it over, he began to realize that alot of movies he watched as a child were like this.

And that's when he got an idea.

Taking cue from the now established "Angry Video Game Nerd," Walker created a small video in that style.

This is that video:



From almost every week since that fateful day, Walkers new show "The Nostalgia Critic" went on to become super popular, spawning the creation of it's own website, spinoffs, and a new career for Walker. Thus, it was time to say goodbye to his old job.



Entertainers such as Walker have found the benefits of using the internet. Walker is unrestricted in his comedy, able to do or say anything without the watchful eye of some studio executive who cares more for ratings than actual entertainment. Plus, they can make money off the advertising on their videos to support their work.

The Appeal of Net-terinment

Online Entertainment's appeal is apparent with the first fact: it's almost always free! Unless your using a service such as Netflix, you can always access sites like YouTube or Hulu at no charge. A person can get on, listen to music, watch a few videos, browse an art gallery, catch that episode of Battlestar Galactica they missed that one time, and then play a game on Shockwave.com, all without spending a single dime.

The second appeal is that its quick. Anyone with a decent internet connection can get fast results. A slower connection can at least load pictures and music.

Net-tertainments Impact on Society and The World

The Internet connects our world in a way that it has never been connected before. We can chat with a person in Australia and text a person in Norway at the same time. We feel as if the Internet is a portal into another world where we can share and re-share anything we want.

So when your friend in Australia sees a cool video or awesome blog post, they can share it with you almost instantly. I believe The Entertainment of the Internet thrives on three key factors: Your Friends, your friend's friends, and the friends of the friends of your friends. In other words; what it boils down to is that the entertainment only spreads so long as people share it. A movie studio has it easy, in order to create awareness for a new movie, they just cut together a trailer to show in theaters. An independent artist, however, must utilize any platform he/she can to attempt to gain awareness of their work.

Lets look at an example: Edd Gould is a Artist and Animator in Southern England. Running his own website, Gould has a Twitter account, a Facebook fan page and a deviantArt account all devoted to spreading the word of a new comic or animation he has completed.

And of course, the watchers on Twitter faithfully retweet updates, Facebook fans are added, and Edd's deviations are seen in the favorites boxes of Deviants everywhere. If it was not for this constant sharing of the content, Gould would have never even had his projects seen by anybody.

Sharing is the constant of Net-tertainment. If no one shares content, no content is seen beyond a few people.

Links

To immerse yourself further into the world of Net-tertainment, here are some sites you may have visited, and some that may prove to be, well, entertaining.

Animation

Edd Gould: http://eddsworld.co.uk/

Arin “Egoraptor” Hansen: http://egoraptor.net/

Mike and Matt Chapman: http://www.homestarrunner.com/

Joshua Palmer: http://zeurel.deviantart.com/

Review/Comedy

Channel Awesome: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/

James Rolfe: http://cinemassacre.com/

Doug and Robert Walker: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses

Lewis Lovhaug: http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/

The Agony Booth: http://www.agonybooth.com/

Art

DeviantArt: http://www.deviantart.com/

SheezyArt: http://sheezyart.com/

Video

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/

Blip.tv: http://blip.tv/

Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/

Netflix: http://www.netflix.com/

Dark Maze Studios: http://www.darkmaze.com/

My Damn Channel: http://www.mydamnchannel.com/

Music

Yahoo! Music: http://new.music.yahoo.com/

OverClocked Remix: http://ocremix.org/

Pandora: http://www.pandora.com/#/stations/create/

Games:

Addicting Games: http://www.addictinggames.com/

Shockwave Games: http://www.shockwave.com/home.jsp

Comics:

Scott Ramsoomair: http://vgcats.com/

Smack Jeeves: http://www.smackjeeves.com/

Explosm: http://www.explosm.net/

Miscellaneous:

Newgrounds: http://www.newgrounds.com/

IGN: http://www.ign.com/