We love the Internet. Except when we hate it. Every week, Jordan Valinsky bottles the angst of his Millennial generation and finds something to despise about the Web.
You know what we need more of? No, certainly not holograms of deadlebrities. Meaningless award shows, of course!
Let’s all blame Vimeo for creating another award ceremony to not keep track of. It’s appropriately called the “Vimeo Festival + Awards” (Florence—and her machine—were kind enough to let them borrow the +). It contains your standard amount of celebrity tie-ins, slick graphics, and indie music—enough to make you want to slam your face into your laptop because it’s mind-numbingly cute.
First, let’s refresh our memories on what Vimeo is. It’s sort of like YouTube, but only your cool film and graphic-artist friends use it because it’s higher quality and better or whatever. OK, it’s a lot better than YouTube. There are no pre-roll ads, no shitty Google+ integration, and so many cute drawings on its home page. It’s like if Urban Outfitters created a video sharing site, it would be Vimeo.
But, back to the topic at hand! They just opened voting this week (all that it’s missing is YOUR voice, the 30-second introduction video exclaims in all caps) to “honor the best original videos online.” There’s different categories! Prizes! Talks! Screenings! And, surprises! Oh, I love surprises just as much as I love those little Aveda shampoo bottles you get gratis in hotel rooms.
So apart from sounding as self-important as a TED Talk that overstayed its welcome, there are 13 categories YOU can vote in. There’s categories that make sense, like music videos, documentary, and series. Then there’s the ones that don’t make sense—like remix (?), lyrical (??), and the kinky-sounding “experimental” (???) category. So many choices! It’s like a Chili’s menu.
And then there’s those other awards—those important sounding awards that include such weighty-sounding words. There is the “Social Change Award,” and the “Digital Maverick Award.” The “New Creator Award” will be given to someone who impressed the judges the most in the past 18 months—because, you know, you can’t get any newer than a video created in December 2010. (The awards took a breather in 2011.)
Those awards will sure look good—and not meaningless at all—on your resume when you apply for graduate school at NYU or Columbia. And what’s with all this faux-inspirational crap? We’re already ignoring CNN Heroes and TeenNick’s Halo Awards. I mean, we can only fake-care so much. I’m still reeling over Seal and Heidi Klum’s divorce.
Lastly, look at that list of fancy white judges! So fancy. If it wasn’t for Aziz Ansari and few others, you would confuse it for a food co-op board meeting in Brooklyn. And multi-talented, talking frat puppet James Franco will be there judging because it doesn’t look like “Undergrads” is up for anything. Maybe if there were a “WhoSay Festival + Awards,” he’d be nominated—but there isn’t. That’s called every other fucking award show.
Tickets range from $20 to $60, or about half the price of buying Warby Parker glasses so you fit in at the award ceremony. I’m not sure why you would pay for this since you can watch the submissions for free. I guess Vimeo’s owner, IAC, needs to prop up Newsweek somehow.
If you thought democracy was dead, and you can somehow relate to a three-minute time-lapse video of the Los Angeles skyline whirring by, set against somber music because it kinda of reminds you how fast you’re growing up, or how life is short, or whatever, then you’ll love these awards.
Now all we need is a timelapse video set to “Call Me Maybe.” Then the circle of best original videos online will be complete.
Photo by Vimeo