What Should I Do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZAP4JvdOg

Here is a piece of digital media that weaves together a variety of forms of media that are all interconnecting. So before you watch this clip, you need a certain amount of media knowledge. Remember the whole LeBron James story that was so huge in summer of 2010? From my viewpoint in Chicago, tensions were high when he finally decided against joining the Bulls. Or the "Summer of Bron" as this article refers to it as: http://www.aolnews.com/2010/10/25/lebrons-nike-ad-asks-what-should-i-do/ which also includes the subsequent ad campaign Nike created to go along with the story. Then there was the BP spill the same summer when BP aired ads to apologize: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKcrDaiGE2s&feature=related

And here is where South Park comes in. Anyone who watches South Park knows they are famous for their satire on current events, especially in recent years. In the same episode from Season 14 entitled "The Coon vs. The Coon and Friends," South Park parodies both of these commercial ads. First there is the Nike parody http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clb_GMavg-o&feature=related and then the parody of the BP ads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWaP58rzn6w&feature=related

And then we come back to the first clip of this post. Some clever person managed to interweave both of these paraodies from South Park with the actual Nike ad and uploaded it onto Youtube. So let's take stock of all the digital media we have here: first the original news stories, Nike and BP making ads from these news stories, South Park taking these ads and recreating them in their television show, and then finally some media consumer taking everything and uploading it to Youtube. And if you miss just one piece you can very easily get lost. The reason I chose this example is because I experienced this lost feeling when I watched this episode of South Park. While I had read about the news stories, I didn't have a television that summer so I had never seen the commercial. So when a friend showed me the South Park episode we had to stop and go on Youtube to find the original commercials. I find it amazing how interdependent digital media has become and I love exploring it.