To My YouTube Critics

April 30, 2007

I have told myself for a while now that when I get 10,000 views of my YouTube videos I would do a round-up of the comments.. and I am now at 10,333 views. When I first started putting up videos I did not expect an outside audience. I figured I would pick up views from people who visited my blog.. but then a funny thing happened: my YouTube numbers started going up modestly.. and people left comments.

My earliest video in Wisconsin was the Neenah video. It became the prototype for the rest of my videos in terms of style and narration. I just re-watched the video and if you haven't seen it, you might want to check it out:

There is nothing too controversial in there.. I don't make any spectacular claims. It is obvious that we are visiting and that I am trying to make sense of what is around me. But oh the ire that this video evoked from the Neenah crowd.

One early comment took umbrage at my reference to Neenah as a "town" and not a city:

also,its not exactly a little town. neenah high is the 3rd biggest high school in the state, and it has 8 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, about 4 privet schools, and 1 big high school. the total population is over 24000, idk how big that is compared to other cities, but you were in the smallest part of the city by far.

It strikes me that this is one of those "You know you're a redneck if.." kinds of comments. If you defend your cityhood by reeling off the size of your high school.. then you known you live in a small town. I mean, officially I am sure Neenah is incorporated as a city, but a population of 24,000 falls well within the semantic range of "town".

In the video I make a couple of innocent comments about paper manufacturing. There is a red smokestack of some kind and in giant letters it reads: "Bergstrom Paper". OK, so I don't know whether the mill is still running or not.. but I have decent visual evidence connecting it to this company. I also make reference to Kimberly-Clark in Appleton. It turns out I am wrong:

Not a very good video. and it was posted by someone completely unfamiliar with the area. First of all, Bergstrom paper does not exist anymore. They were acquired by Glatfelter years ago. Recently, Glatfelter closed the Neenah mill. Kimberly-Clark is based out of Neenah among other parts of the country, but not Appleton.

Somebody else informs me about the state of affairs with Kimberly-Clark:

I'm from appleton and also go to UWM. My father used to be a researcher at K/C. It's actually based in Texas and Menasha.

I am gratefully corrected for my ignorance concerning Glatfelter's acquisition of Bergstrom. But as for Kimberly-Clark's location, Menasha is a small town (sorry) right next door to Appleton. So I fail to see why it is such a mistake to reference Kimberly-Clark as being in Appleton. Another critic makes a similarly snide remark about my description of the Fox River Mall as being in Appleton:

When did the Fox River Mall move itself to Appleton? Ummm....

Of course.. silly me.. the mall is in Grand Chute, just outside the Appleton city line. These comments are stunningly geographically picky.. nothing like I would expect from my experience growing up in Southern California where city after city bleed into each other and I was often as not ignorant of where those lines might be.

Another critic takes me on for some other substantive issues:

i live right in neenah. its not a small town at all! and "city hall" isn't what u say it is, its just a big tower. and doo dads? we're just a regular city. (not town) and by the way, riverside park is NOT outside of town, its right in the middle. and the fountain doesn't really actually celebrate children, its just a fountain. i'm not saying this is a bad video, u just need to get ur facts strait.

Thank you candiekiss22292! The most amusing part of this comment is the reference to the fountain (as you will note from the video, it is decorated with bronze sculptures of children) which candiekiss22292 claims does not actually celebrate children.. "its just a fountain". I don't know what to say.

The reference to Riverside Park as being outside of town was misleading if taken in a literal fashion. But the park is outside that clump of buildings downtown. When I say outside of town I am not making a metaphysical claim so much as saying simply: "away from that area where the previous part of this video was shot.. which could be colloquially construed as central Neenah."

As for the rest of candiekiss22292's comments, I think they are damning enough as they stand.. (note the whole city/town issue again).

Another class of comments is pretty rude about the lack of research. In the video I mention that some of the nice houses on the shore of Lake Winnebago are outside the financial scope of an assistant professor. Several people pick up on my occupation:

I have lived in the area my entire life, so yes i probably know more about Neenah then most other people, But it would seem to me that someone who is an Assistant Professor would at least try to do some research and find something out about the town. Almost every landmark was misidentified.

Another critic is even harsher:

Perhaps if you learn to do better research, you might make full professor someday...

Again, fascinating comments. I think what lies behind them is a vague conception of the "expert".. which is not so much an academic category as a TV talking-head category. In other words, there is an expectation that someone will stand up and explain what is what. But here is my advice: If you want someone to tell you about Glatfelter's acquisition of Bergstrom, then fucking go to the website for the Neenah chamber of commerce.. or rent a fucking PBS documentary from your public library (which I am sure is HUGE). Plenty of people out there want to be experts.

What I am up to is a little different. I want to walk into a town without doing any research and try to read it. What kind of sense can I make of this place from visual cues? I may be way off.. but at the end of a video you can see for yourself how a visitor has pieced together clues from the landscape. That kind of non-expert information about how a town is experienced is valuable.. and not something provided by the chamber of commerce or any tourist center. That kind of information also happens to be what I most appreciate from the texts in my academic interest.. what could be more fascinating than a medieval Arabic travel narrative in which a visitor describes the landmarks of a town he has never before visited?

I should mention one more comment:

I have a hunch you vote Democrat, no evidence, just a good hunch. I enjoy the video, with commentary.

That was a kind comment.. and perceptive since we do indeed vote Democrat. But the world would be a better place if we just tried to be nice to each other. Thank you NewtonBrook.