July CommQuote

Virginia Heffernan wrote on the Susan Boyle phenomenon in a the New York Times Sunday Magazine column, The Medium:

"What was the Susan Boyle spectacle, that chunk of culture that held us, for days at least, so firmly rapt?

The answers still lie in the video, a small, insidious masterpiece that really should be watched several times for its accidental commentary on popular misery, the concept of ''expectation'' and how cultures congratulate themselves. First off, the Susan Boyle phenomenon truly belongs to the world of online video, whose prime directive is to be amazing. The great subjects of online video are stunts, pranks, violence, gotchas, virtuosity, upsets and transformations. Where television is supposed to satisfy expectations with its genres and formulas, online video confounds them." --Virginia Heffernan (The Medium, The New York Times Magazine, June 28, 2009)