StickAid

StickAid is a 24 hour telethon of sorts that was started by youtube vlogger Myles Dyer about five years ago. Last year, another youtube vlogger, Charlie McDonnell, joined Myles. StickAid raises money for the charity UNICEF. This really is the heart of my project because I immediately thought of this instance and video where Charlie does a challenge live at StickAid and how they use the power of the internet and their followers on youtube to help spread the word about StickAid and to help raise money for UNICEF. My argument or thesis is how charities are utilizing the internet, and youtube specifically, to help raise more awareness about their cause and to help raise money for it. StickAid involves a lot of people and they all do different things to help raise money, Myles is a vlogger, so he and Charlie had a 24 hour live feed on the StickAid site that you could watch and then donate money if you were able to. I think this really exemplifies my project because this shows how charities are willing to use 'famous' youtubers to help gain more notoriety and awareness of their cause and to show that they are willing to let the viewers of the internet gain access to their website and just be able to make a difference by being able to donate and help the world. Vlog for charity; vlog for change.

Abstract

My topic is about vlogging and charity. My favorite vlogger did a 24 hour vlog to raise money for UNICEF, the vlog was entitled StickAid. His vlogging friend has done StickAid for five years and I think this idea of using vlogging to help charities is interesting and needs to become more mainstream. I think that using vlogging to raise money for charities just like using any other type of multimedia outlet to help raise money for charity is great. I think vlogging would be better because it's taking 'normal, real people' and having them helping a charity that needs money. It's kind of like the whole, "If they can do it, so can I thing" and people will want to give money if it's a person they follow and enjoy, like I did for StickAid. I'll look to see if there are any other vloggers besides Charlie and Myles and Alex, that have one the same thing or to see if any other charities have utilized vloggers to help them out. We see charities embracing vlogging and using it to help get their topic heard and to help other people want to help the charity out by using their favorite vloggers.


EDIT:

I love my project because it's something that I'm interested in and I think that it is something that can really be beneficial to the charities and vloggers involved by giving them more recognition. I think the main issue or stumbling block that I'll have is finding enough resources to write my paper and do my annotated bibliography. For some reason I think that I'm limited with resources, but I'm probably wrong about that.

Blog Post

Since I've changed my project around a bit, I'm not quite sure how I want to go about writing the paper so it will make sense. I'm still trying to figure out all of the logistics of my project. I guess you could say that a 'key' question would be 'how are vloggers helping charities?' and 'are charities utilizing well known vloggers to help out with their causes?' Some evidence that I have found would be focusing on Charlie McDonnell and Myles Dyer who on September 4th, 2010 did a 24 hour live vlog for the charity StickAid which raised money for UNICEF. I was going to focus on those types of things to help move my topic along and try to incorporate other charities as well.

I'm not quite sure how to relate the Lessig reading for today to my project anymore. I don't think he really talks about vlogging or charities in detail or at all. I didn't really think of my project when I read it either. I did like this quote though:

"There’s a part of culture that we simply consume. We listen to music. We watch a movie. We read a book. With each, we’re not expected to do much more than simply consume.* We might hum
along with the music. We might reenact a dance from a movie. Or we might quote a passage from the book in a letter to a friend. But in the main, this kind of culture is experienced through the act of
consumption. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end to that consumption. Once we’ve finished it, we put the work away."

I think this quote deals with my topic slightly because if you're watching a vlog post, you're consuming it and taking in all of the language, details, intonations, tone, and many other things. I also think that if a vlogger is discussing a specific charity, not only are you watching the vlogger (person) but you're also consuming the information about the charity itself and hopefully you become interested and check out the charity.

"As these businesses grow, they change not only business. They also change us. They change how we think about access to culture. They change what we take for granted."

I just really liked this quote. I thought it was a great statement. I guess I could stretch it to fit my topic because the internet really has changed the way we think, talk, and act and when you bring in the fact that you can watch people as they do crazy, wild, stupid, or interesting things like vloggers do, you can really see that some people don't like watching movies that have characters in their free time. They'd rather watch a real person be themselves and just see what they do on a day to day basis.

Trailer

So, I've sort of changed the idea behind my blog. On my way home after class today, I thought about my favorite youtubers and how they do a bunch of stuff to help out with charities and things like that. I got to thinking about how useful vlogging can be to helping various charities and events and such. So, that's what my blog is going to be about, as you'll see in my trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jujheI0-Wuo

Prompt

1. The title of my project is "Vlogging vs. Blogging". It's not that cool of a title, but I like it and it really sums up my project. I'm really trying to see why people prefer one to the other or if they like both.

2. I think my guiding question is basically why is vlogging better than blogging? Obviously, this is based on my own opinion because I prefer vlogging to blogging, but I honestly believe that vlogging is more popular to do and to be a part of by watching the videos that people make.

3. I don't really know what Lessig would think of my project. I don't think he'd particularly care about it though. But, I think if he did care about it, he would probably say something like none if it my original idea because I'm sure someone has already thought about the whole vlogs vs. blogs thing before me and, obviously, I didn't make the videos that I'm using in my trailer, so they aren't my original idea, yes, I agree with them, but I didn't think of it first.