Sunday, March 20, 2011

Alexandra Wallace

I'm astounded at how fast a life cycle of a viral video moves. I watched the vid last week. Then I watched the parody videos and a week later, it's old news. A couple of things I wanted to comment on:

1) Know your audience. This girl goes to a school that's 37% Asian-Am and posted her video on Youtube, a site created by an Asian-Am where the most subscribed to channels are by Asian-Ams. It's kind of like Mel Gibson working in Hollywood and ranting about Jewish-Americans. Yeah, we're a minority, but if we control the medium, do you think anyone is going to laud your tirade? And finals week? That's primetime for Youtube watching by college students. How do you think WongFu Productions got so popular? Of course she didn't think this through and now has to find a new college where they have never seen the Internet...good luck with that one.

2) Free speech doesn't mean freedom from criticism. Alexandra apologists say that people should leave her alone, because she has the right to free speech. Free speech is a guarantee against government regulation of your right to speak, not a magical talisman that insulates you against people you piss off. Should we respect her right to air an unpopular opinion? Sure. Do we have the obligation to tolerate her ignorant statements? Absolutely not.

3) My fave parody videos:





Oh and Alexandra? If you're Googling yourself, know that real Bruins study in Young. You were probably in Powell, which is why cellphones were going off every 15 minutes.