I just watched a new type of video (a new genre?) that may be peculiar to YouTube and/or online amateur video. It is something called unboxing. A unboxing vid is a homemade video of someone opening a box that contains a recently purchased product. In a culture of hyperconsumption it is a bit like porn — we can watch but we can’t touch (not until we too pay up).
Most subject matter of unboxing videos are high tech items such as cell phones, computers, laptops, tech gear, tech components, and related ‘male’ consumer items. Not until the 37th hit on YouTube do I find a woman doing the unboxing.
How to catorgorize this type of video behaviour?
There is a related genre wherein an individual films himself purchasing a hot item, pays for it and immediately opens it in the store and smashes the newly purchased item in front of consternated clerks and customers. Also probably a genre of film unique to amateur online video culture.
Unboxings and in-store smashings almost always feature highly desirable items such as an PS3 or a Mac SlimBook. I wonder if anyone is making unboxings of very common items like duct tape. Appears to be mostly men doing the unboxing (does that make the gender of the purchased item ‘female’).
I am going to go buy something in a box today and film myself opening it. Wheee.
Related Statictics:
Unboxing generated 10,000 hits on YouTube and 1,530,000 hits on Google. When I started writing this article ‘unboxing’ generated 9,060 hits on YouTube. Thirty minutes later, after editing the post, taking my picture, uploading picture, reediting article, YouTube returned 11,200 hits for ‘unboxing.’
A related subgenre is fake unboxing. Here we see a woman opening what is claimed to be an X-Files script. This raises the point that just about any video genre on YouTube will have a spoofing subgenre.
X Files: I Want To Believe Script unboxing (7,623 views)
UnBoxing — Consumption Porn?
I just watched a new type of video (a new genre?) that may be
peculiar to YouTube and/or online amateur video. It is something called unboxing. A unboxing vid is a homemade video of someone opening a box that contains a recently purchased product. In a culture of hyperconsumption it is a bit like porn — we can watch but we can’t touch (not until we too pay up).
Most subject matter of unboxing videos are high tech items such as cell phones, computers, laptops, tech gear, tech components, and related ‘male’ consumer items. Not until the 37th hit on YouTube do I find a woman doing the unboxing.
How to catorgorize this type of video behaviour?
There is a related genre wherein an individual films himself purchasing a hot item, pays for it and immediately opens it in the store and smashes the newly purchased item in front of consternated clerks and customers. Also probably a genre of film unique to amateur online video culture.
I am going to go buy something in a box today and film myself opening it. Wheee.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUaI2_zkfKA]
Related Statictics:
Unboxing generated 10,000 hits on YouTube and 1,530,000 hits on Google. When I started writing this article ‘unboxing’ generated 9,060 hits on YouTube. Thirty minutes later, after editing the post, taking my picture, uploading picture, reediting article, YouTube returned 11,200 hits for ‘unboxing.’
A related subgenre is fake unboxing. Here we see a woman opening what is claimed to be an X-Files script. This raises the point that just about any video genre on YouTube will have a spoofing subgenre.
X Files: I Want To Believe Script unboxing (7,623 views)
[youtube:http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XbVRTM4F7Bs]
Related posts:
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.