Internet Stars

This episode of South Park explores the idea of making money on the Internet. In order to save his brother, Kyle and the boys decide to make a Youtube video to generate some income. Their video involves Butter’s singing in a music video, which is a direct copy of a video already in circulation entitled ‘What What in the Butt’. In this short clip the boys are waiting to get their money along side many of the other Youtube sensations. Each star compares who has more hits, and how many ‘theoretical’ dollars they are worth. Although their video has been seen millions of times and they are widely recognized they are unable to make any money.

This is an exploration of the idea that while the Internet allows for the public creation of mass quantities of creative works that can be viewed by millions, it hasn’t yet developed to the point where creative content producers are able to retrieve any form of monetary value for their work. Later in the episode it is stated that there is the potential for websites like Youtube to become more like traditional media forms and use advertising revenue to offer content producers money for their creative videos in exchange for ownership. However, I feel like this is an impossible feat as its contradictory to the very public sphere nature of the Internet. In order to monetize the Internet you would have to completely alter the principles behind it and convert the internet into a hierarchical system ran by a few. In which case it would lose a lot of it’s appeal.