Is the Harlem Shake a Glimpse at the Future of TV?

Last week, I wrote out my thoughts on the future of television and argued that Netflix's House of Cards and subscription streaming service was a major key to understanding where TV and original programming was headed. It prompted a great conversation, both on the excellent first season of the show and on our views of television's future. In reviewing my thoughts and the comments, it seems as though there was a reasonable consensus that some combination of streaming services and a slate of basic channels for news and major live events was the inevitable end game for TV.

A recent guest post on TechCrunch takes a very different view. The author, Mark Suster, is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with experience investing and evaluating companies in and the new-media space. The heart of his argument is that the future is in participation. His primary example to illustrate his point? The Harlem Shake.

Before we go any further, and in case you've been living under a rock for the last two weeks, the Harlem Shake is the latest and "greatest" internet fad. It involves the first 30 seconds of the song "Harlem Shake" by Baauer, a New York based DJ, in which a group of people wear strange outfits and do wacky things when the beat drops. I'd attach a video, but I honestly can't stand the entire thing. Maybe I'm just a contrarian, but I think the song is a jumbled mess and the entire "weird = funny and good" thing should have died about five minutes after the first Old Spice ad with the dude riding a horse came out.

But, I digress. The Harlem Shake viral video phenomenon has produced thousands of videos from thousands of voluntary participants, with each video giving a unique spin on the 30 second weirdness concept. The videos have collectively totaled over 200 million views. The sharp rise of the popularity of the Harlem Shake video concept is not due to the artist who created the song, or even the first person to make a strange 30 second video, but rather it is due to the willingness of so many people to voluntarily contribute to the movement.

The author of the TechCrunch piece believes that this participatory media is the true future of television. Rather than relying on large production companies with big budgets and large writing staffs, smaller companies and individuals will drive productions in the future. He envisions a world in which shows are produced piece meal and altered based on fan feedback. So, the first four episodes of a new show would be released, and then plot lines would altered and dictated by fan responses, through a combination of comments and fan created videos. These would be taken and molded into subsequent episodes.

What he views is a sort of super-democratic TV in which everyone is a creator. Here is how he summarizes it:

TV of the future will not always have linear stories. I know that’s hard for many people to accept but when the medium changes from one-way broadcast to the millions to the ability to interact with each other through video it is unlikely that the future will resemble the past. Why would it?

I have started thinking about what the future might look like and I’ve started imagining what I call, “MMOV” or massive multiplayer online video.

Sure, the revenue & margin will be significantly lower than traditional TV. You should only worry about this if you’re a large, traditional media company with fat margins. The future of TV will follow the rule of Deflationary Economics as I outline influenced by the book The Innovator’s Dilemma.

It will enable the naturally creative but geographically and socially disenfranchised to make money doing what they love – participating. Maybe small amounts of money for what founders reading these pages dream of but life-changing for many.

He argues that this trend should only worry major companies with big revenue and fat margin. Not consumers of media. To that thought and his entire concept of the future of television as participation driven is a simple question:

Is this person completely insane?

Look. I am all for making it easier for people to create content and for making it easier for people to entertain others and make money in new and easy ways. But, to not only believe that 30 second flash-in-the-pan viral video trends are harbingers of a TV end-game but to also welcome this alleged end-game is complete madness. When I read something like this, written by some VC hot shot or a notable tech journalist, all I can think is that they need to take a step back and take a break from the tech-media circle jerk.

Sure, the collection of Harlem Shake viral vids may have brought in an impressive number of views...but I'd bet that a small percentage of them accounted for the vast majority of views. And just because people can easily participate in media creation doesn't mean that the end product will be any good. The idea that we might end up in a world with TV shows that have impotent show runners whose vision is controlled by the mindless masses is deeply troubling. I mean, this really begs the question...has Mark Suster even ever read internet comments? Has he watched a YouTube video and scrolled down before? I honestly don't think he has or else he'd realize how completely insane his entire argument is.

Now, this post has been something of a rant, but I'll conclude with three points:

1.) There will always be a strong demand for high quality stories and long-arc story lines driven by creative people. It will simply be developed and monetized in more effective ways (i.e. Netflix, Hulu, HBO, streaming products, etc.)

2.) Democratization of things is not inherently bad. But, let's face the facts: even if millions of people are willing participants in a project, the vast majority of the work and rewards will be driven by a select group of people. In other words, the cream will rise to the top.

3.) YouTube, the hub of participatory media and the birthplace of the modern viral video, will continue to grow and resemble more traditional TV. It's already set up so that you can view various channels and follow content creators. There are entire companies dedicated to creating content for YouTube. And Google monetizes via advertising, just like traditional television. But, let's not jump to ill-conceived conclusions and assume that this is the sole model of the future as opposed to a piece of the puzzle.

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I'm very curious to hear people's thoughts. Are we really headed towards a future hell-scape of inane 30 second videos as our primary form of entertainment? Are TV shows really going to be dictated by the mindless masses? And, most importantly, does anyone actually like the Harlem Shake song and videos? Or, like me, does the Harlem Shake make you think of G-Dep's "Special Delivery"?