Second Bit of Media—LindseytheFriendliest

When trying to think of a good piece of media to dissect, I finally came upon the perfect thing: a dissection of the media in video form. This video-blog, created by the lovely LindseytheNerdiest of YouTube, analyzes the emotional relationship the public has to fictional characters, how this affects our relationship with the works those characters appear in.

In her video Lindsey compares the emotional response to fictional characters to porn. She notes that people's attachment to these characters prevents them from understanding the flaws in the plot, or virtually any other part of the piece of fiction. And this is why I like her video so much: she understands how we're all being brainwashed, instead of just noting that we are. Her critical look at a situation that is so commonplace shows her brilliance and never ceases to intrigue me.

LindseytheNerdiest leans in to tell the camera her story is true

But I also like the video because of the way she portrays herself. Lindsey seems to be having a conversation with her audience. She begins the video like each of her others, with the familiar "Here's what I'm thinking." This sounds almost like she's beginning a conversation with a real person, and not just her camera. Her friendly tone makes the audience feel as if she is one of their friends—the same type of one-sided emotional attachment she talks about with fictional characters, though perhaps less extreme.

As she continues to talk to the camera, she continues to treat it like a person, at one point leaning forward to tell the camera in a confidential tone that "this is a true story" as if she were talking to a friend. Her continued friendliness increases the sense that the audience is looking through a screen at her talking directly to them, instead of looking at a recording of her talking to a camera.

And when she laughs at herself for saying "fish-pumping," which she could easily have cut out of the final video, we see her sense of humor and how comfortable she is sharing her mistakes with her audience. By leaving this part in she seals the deal, and the audience is inevitably charmed by her friendly, personable, self-assured manner.

But don't get me wrong. I don't think she's intentionally trying to make her videos "emotional porn" in the same way she says fictional movies, books, and other media try to sell their characters. As far as I can tell, she's being herself, or whatever aspect of herself shows up when a camera is turned on. But the little gestures and moments Lindsey shares with her audience give her videos a quality of familiarity that is surprisingly rare in video-blogs. Watching her videos feels more like a human interaction than like an intake of media, and this is why they are so brilliant.

So in her creation of a video about emotional porn, Lindsey ends up making some herself. She draws the audience in as much with her charm and friendliness as with her thoughtful analysis. But the thoughtful analysis is there. So thank goodness that in this bit of media, at least, I can safely say that relationships with characters are not built to cover up badly thought out work.