YouTube Mimesis -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 17:47:00 03/31/08 Mon
Author: CS Holden
Subject: YouTube Mimesis

After watching the mad scene from "Long Day's Journey" on YouTube, I got curious. I searched "imitation" and here are some of the highlights of what I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG4qzpmkaos
A robot "learns" how to imitate a human instructor. Interesting that the progression of the robot's learning is described in the same language ("choosing a different model" appears at least once).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkyeKIv3Jl8
This is a kind of annoying video, but it's still an interesting case study of childish imitation, straight from Spanish children's TV. This kid imitates a duck, an elephant, and a dog, and different things happen each time. I personally think the duck's reaction is the most accurate. But when the dog is in distress, Pocoyo has to realize that there is something good about being who he is instead of pretending to be someone else. According to the Wikipedia article, the name "Pocoyo" is derived from the words "poco" and "yo," which translates roughly to "little me."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A5jvoSBOsA
Not the best recording of Ben Folds, but anyway, he's doing his song "The Best Imitation of Myself." I think the following lyrics are relevant to the class: "Last night I was / East with them / And west within / Trying to be for you / What you want to see / But I can't help it / With you the good and bad / Comes through / Don't want you hanging out / With no one but me / Now if it's all the same / It comes from the same place / And if my mind's somewhere else / You won't be able to tell / I do the best imitation of myself."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwafWHq6-QU
Mike Shula at one point on this video says, "I have become what I used to make fun of." Doesn't that say something about the great number of "imitation" videos on the web? I mean specifically the "I'm doing an imitation of Michael Jackson" or "SoandSo does a Bush imitation!" videos. At the same time that we lampoon something, we have to imitate it perfectly.

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Replies:

Re: YouTube Mimesis -- Katelyn R., 19:54:10 04/02/08 Wed