Dear Adrian Bliss,
Woah Greg. Relax. This isn’t that kind of love letter. What are you doing reading Adrian’s open mail anyway? Ugh. Sorry. Readers who haven’t watched Vlogvember and Vlune are already completely lost. This letter needs some bloody context and foreshadowing…
Adrian, your satirical take on social media culture and ‘YouTubers’ is brillant. I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember the last time I watched broadcast television. Shit, I don’t even have a television these days. But as a teenager I grew up with one and the Seinfeld intro was something that would come blaring from the living room most evenings.
Yeah, I’m going to go there. Your vlog series is as good as Seinfeld. Like Jerry, you adopted a fictionalised version of yourself and set him up with aspirational life goals. You tear your fictionalised self to shreds and the self-deprecating tone softens the underlying critques. It helps us all laugh at the absurdity of our own roles in social media. Just the way Seinfeld did with the minutiae of life in the 90’s.
It seems fitting that a modern adaptation of a format popularised by Seinfeld is played out on YouTube. Your series is one of the first to cross the ‘YouTube Singularity’, where short format indie content is better than the majority of traditional productions. I’m really excited by what your generation is creating and how it will bring the established entertainment industry to its knees.
Throughout both of your vlogging seasons you managed to weave an amazing story of love and friendship. Something that you wielded so artfully that I found myself rolling through a wide spectrum of emotions in a single episode.
Spoiler alert, the following frame is from the end of Vlogvember. Seriously, watch the series from the start.
Secretly I like to think that you sprung that, completely unawares on Greg. Just to capture a genuine reaction.
This fan letter is actually part of a series, where I dig into my ‘family-tree’ of influences. I want to try and better understand why I like the things that I like. People such as yourself are pretty hard to learn more about. I have no idea where to even look to try and figure out who are your influences. But I’m trying.
Love,
Clinton Freeman.
P.S. Keep making all the things.
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