Epic Fail!

I can't help it - I love a good laugh at the expense of others!  As a kid I always laughed hysterically over Funniest Home Videos, while my Mum sat, fixing me with a look of disdain, wondering what on earth I thought was so funny.  But to this day, I find endless amusement in watching people do stupid things (or trying to do cool things and coming off looking stupid).  Thank God for YouTube, as now I can feed my appetite for people failing anytime I want to.

 

 

Sometimes it's the predictability, that sense of impending failure, that amuses me.  Why would they think that was going to work?  How could they not see what was going to happen?  Some of my favourites include a guy trying to 'bomb' into a frozen pool, and landing hard on the unbroken ice.  Ouch.  Skateboarders trying to do cool tricks to impress their friends is always good too, as are the plethora of videos of people jumping off roofs into a pool (that never works either)!

 

The many and varied 'fail' compilation videos to be found on the Net today are a prime example of what has been termed 'produsage'.  The term refers to a shift in the method of production from traditional producer-distributor-consumer to a process where the consumer and the producer are one and the same (Produsage: towards a broader framework for user-led content creation).  The produsers of these compilation videos are exactly that - they've found short clips of people doing stupid things, and from that, edited them together into a new video; thereby turning them into producers.  Examples of produsage can be found in many other places - Wikipedia is another one of the most common forms, where various people compile entries on various topics, which are then edited and added to by others in a constantly evolving piece of work.  The process of produsage remains continually unfinished by necessity, and infinitely continuing (Produsage: key principles), so that new content is added all the time, and then picked up by someone else and used to create something else new. 

 

In the meantime, I'm off to laugh at some hapless individual falling off a swing, or a boat, or a bike, or face planting into their loungeroom floor after attempting a flip from standing, or smacking themselves in the face, or unintentionally knocking over or breaking something, or... well, you get the picture!