In Praise of Short Videos: There's Too Much Good Content to Watch
I saw the saddest thing the other day. TiVo推出了一个 新的DVR叫Bolt. 这不是悲哀的事情. One of the Bolt’s new features is that the users can use QuickMode to speed through recorded shows more quickly.
“新的快速模式, which allows for 30 percent faster viewing of recorded shows while maintaining perfect audio, enables the average viewer to potentially recapture a month of time in one’s life each year,新闻稿中写道.
The press release talks about skimming through news, 体育, 或者冗长的颁奖典礼, but we know why TiVo really created the feature: So people can speed through the series they’re binge watching.
这很可悲. This is the new golden age of TV, full of fantastic shows on broadcast, 电缆, 还有高级有线电视, 和 we’re all trying to zoom through as quickly as we can so we can discuss them with friends who have already seen them.
It’s been conventional wisdom for a while now that there’s too much quality TV around. As someone who grew up with 霹雳游侠 和 阿尔夫, I never thought I’d be saying that, but it’s true. 9月下旬 纽约时报 opinion pages held a discussion called “Is There Too Much TV to Choose From?” When Andy Samberg hosted this year’s Emmys he kicked it off with a filmed musical number about how he managed to watch all the TV he needed to see—by locking himself in a backyard bunker for a year.
This is the environment in which online video is trying to compete. It seems like every day I get a press release about online-only shows or networks that sound fantastic. The quality glut extends to the internet. I don’t have time to clear off my DVR, so when am I going to find time to watch these online shows? 我创办了美国在线 连接，但没有完成. 我很想看看 的Hotwives 和 的太棒了 on Hulu, but I don’t have time. I’ve never seen Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee 在裂纹. I report on these shows; I wish I had time to watch them.
With all the pressure about video viewing, I started thinking about the online videos I do watch, the ones that call to me 和 that I return to watch over 和 over. 有时,一个 格雷戈里的兄弟s song will get stuck in my head 和 I’ll have to go back 和 rewatch it. Sometimes it’s a favorite from 孤岛.
I wondered if other people have favorite videos they return to often, so I asked around. Some people told me about music performances on YouTube they liked to rewatch, such as a clip of Heart covering Led Zeppelin. Some said they rewatch comedy clips such as the classic 猴子手指嗅 video, or the hilariously crass 史诗猫之歌.
有些答案是私人的. A marketing exec told me he liked to rewatch a YouTube video of his son kicking ass on a Rubik’s Cube. A video encoding exec told me his favorite videos were too personal to share.
A couple people told me that they never rewatch online videos. Both of them like to watch how-to videos when mastering a chore, 和 only rewatch them if they didn’t absorb the lesson the first time.
While these much-loved 和 rewatched videos differ in many ways, they have something in common: They’re short. As online video creators try to compete with TV for attention, I think they should remember why we fell in love with online video in the first place. We like short poignant or funny or catchy videos. They power us through our day. 这是点心休息时间. 不要给我们一顿饱饭. What we need are more really great snacks.
This article appears in the November/December 2015 issue of 流媒体杂志 as “Too Much to Watch, Too Much to Enjoy.”
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