An innocent unicorn misled by his friends into an unwilling organ donation. A comedian fondling fruit in the grocery store while singing about his dating problems. An actor screaming obscenities at his director of photography. While for most students these YouTube videos are mere tools for procrastination, students in the new Radio-TV-Film class “Viral Videos,” follow and even create such videos for their grade.
The School of Communication class is likely the first of its kind, said Prof. Eric Patrick, who teaches the course.
Although he said the Northwestern course is the only one he knows of, due to the changing nature of the concept of film, it will likely be “only a matter of time” until the idea gains popularity.
“At this point, it’s all become mixed up,” Patrick said. “There’s so many things going on on YouTube that it’s almost like its own universe.”
Students in the class create and post videos on YouTube every week, and their grades are based mostly on their creations. The group meets for three hours each week, much of the time is used to watch and discuss videos, said Communication junior Lauren Bergman. Each class includes student presentations and discussions, as well as academic readings.
“It goes beyond the silver screen and TV set,” Bergman said. “People might scoff, ‘Oh it’s just YouTube,’ but it’s gaining momentum as an outlet for creativity.”
Themes for the videos can range from social commentary to politics and even to practical jokes.
Some of the videos created for class have achieved success beyond the confines of the course, Patrick said. The most popular so far is “Funny Super Bowl 2009 Commercial Mashup,” with nearly 7,000 views.
The video’s creator, Sean McCormick, said it is important for videos to stay short and be culturally relevant. His own video premiere coincided with the Super Bowl, which McCormick said increased its popularity.
“Going viral means you reach this level where people are spreading your videos for you,” the Communication senior said. “If I’d put (the video) up one day later I wouldn’t have gotten as many views.”
Two videos parodying the E*Trade talking baby Super Bowl commercials, in which student Sara Katz-Scher replaced the children with rabbits, have also gained more than 1,000 views each.
“You can get people to watch things they wouldn’t usually put time into … putting an animal in a Web video is one of the cheapest tricks” said Katz-Scher, a Communication junior.
The class also reviews techniques that can help a video reach “viral” status, Bergman said. Common methods include tagging a video with commonly searched keywords or making a video look more popular by creating fake user names and commenting on one’s own work, a practice called “AstroTurfing.”
The class structure makes sure this isn’t a “stodgy academic course,” which allows both students and the professor the flexibility needed to explore the new topic, McCormick said.
“You get out of it what you put into it,” he said.
