Post videos of your city

[ozonemania]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Discussion? What discussion?

Wait a minute...there's actually an ongoing discussion about a throwaway line about Vancouver in a casual opinion piece in the Economist from five months ago? Wow. Just...wow. I'm speechless. This is a level of sad that goes beyond your everyday sad.

As for the video, it's a bald-faced cry for help. These are people invested in how others perceive the place they live in to a degree far more disturbing than your average chamber of commerce busybodies. Though I'll admit that there is a certain novelty in feeling a gleeful schadenfreude at how painfully inept this is, mixed in with genuine pity. It's not often that you despise people while worrying about their mental health at the same time.

In the future I'll have to be careful around people from Vancouver. I wouldn't want to upset them by inadvertently making a comment that could be interpreted as betraying anything less than love and undeniable admiration for the place.

Wow, chill man. No one is taking this video as seriously as you are. I wonder if the creators of the video would be amused (or horrified) at your psychoanalysis of the video...

The throwaway line you refer to wasn't coined by that article, it's been an ongoing discussion in Vancouver for years, far pre-dating anything that the Economist has written. The video wasn't written in response to that article, rather the article fit the narrative of the video.

[rousseau]

Me, need to chill? I'm spending fifteen seconds responding to a post on the internet. I'm not spending months stewing over an off-hand slight in the Economist from five months previous, and eventually working multiple days writing, planning and shooting a music video in response to said article (it's explicitly spelled out in the video that it is a response to the Economist).

Sure, I'm horrified by the video, enough that I'm now up to three posts on the topic, but the issue will disappear from my thoughts five minutes from now.

But it won't for said video-meisters.

[vanman]

Rousseau the Economist did not coin the "No Fun City" moniker for Vancouver It has been around for years. It mostly stems from the sentiment that Vancouver lacks in the arts and nightlife department especially when compared to Toronto and Montreal.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by rousseau

I'm not spending months stewing over an off-hand slight in the Economist from five months previous, and eventually working multiple days writing, planning and shooting a music video in response to said article (it's explicitly spelled out in the video that it is a response to the Economist).

As someone already tried to point out to you, the issue of Vancouver being a "No Fun City" is an internal discussion that the city has been having with itself for years (if not decades): that the city, hypnotized by its own scenic beauty and overly regulated by City Hall, is failing to create as rich an urban culture as it could.

Here is a trailer to a documentary from 2010, called No Fun City, documenting the difficulties that Vancouverites who want to create a vibrant art/music/cutural scene often face from City Hall and rapid gentrification.

Decent documentary by the way:

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[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

As someone already tried to point out to you, the issue of Vancouver being a "No Fun City" is an internal discussion that the city has being hais ving with itself for years (if not decades):

I see. However, in the video itself it is made explicitly clear that this particular video and the narrative within it collectively form a response to the Economist article.

Though either way the sentiment in the video is pathetic beyond words.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by rousseau

I see. However, in the video itself it is made explicitly clear that this particular video and the narrative within it collectively form a response to the Economist article.

I think your ignorance of Vancouver has caused you to give the video the most clumsy interpretation possible.

To a more informed person, there is a lot more going on in this video. For instance, although there is a reference to the Economist and the character complaining about Vancouver is posing as an outsider, the complaints raised in the video typically come from Vancouverites themselves, and most of the defences (e.g. "but it's so beautiful," "you can go for a hike," "there is so much nature," etc.) are largely recognized by Vancouverites as cliched responses to the charge that Vancouver is a "No Fun City."

And when you consider the videographer's history of mildly satirical videos poking fun at Vancouver, Vancouverites and Vancouver culture, to interpret this video in the way you have is not very adroit.

[Klazu]

Very well said, Prometheus.

[SignalHillHiker]

That's a Porsche, right? I suck at cars, but I like how it sounds.

Anyhow, the Battery, yesterday.

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Looks warm but it really, really wasn't.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

I think your ignorance of Vancouver has caused you to give the video the most clumsy interpretation possible.

To a more informed person, there is a lot more going on in this video. For instance, although there is a reference to the Economist and the character complaining about Vancouver is posing as an outsider, the complaints raised in the video typically come from Vancouverites themselves, and most of the defences (e.g. "but it's so beautiful," "you can go for a hike," "there is so much nature," etc.) are largely recognized by Vancouverites as cliched responses to the charge that Vancouver is a "No Fun City."

And when you consider the videographer's history of mildly satirical videos poking fun at Vancouver, Vancouverites and Vancouver culture, to interpret this video in the way you have is not very adroit.

I think we're talking about two different videos. The one I watched, this one...

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...is a one-dimensional response to an opinion piece in the Economist from five months ago (as he states at 0:29). The visitor is a drone who repeats his mantra that Vancouver is boring while visiting various attractions meant to dispel said mantra in a ham-fisted use of mise-en-scène to send up what he says. The simplistic polemic of the video is summed up at the beginning by the yoga girl: "How could you not like Vancouver?" It doesn't get any deeper or more nuanced than that.

I honestly can't remember the last time I cringed so much in excruciating embarrassment. The awfulness of the video is epic.

[Xelebes]

It's going in my cheese thread. Whenever I get around to preparing a fresh batch of tunes.

[ozonemania]

Originally Posted by rousseau

I think we're talking about two different videos. The one I watched, this one...

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...is a one-dimensional response to an opinion piece in the Economist from five months ago (as he states at 0:29). The visitor is a drone who repeats his mantra that Vancouver is boring while visiting various attractions meant to dispel said mantra in a ham-fisted use of mise-en-scène to send up what he says. The simplistic polemic of the video is summed up at the beginning by the yoga girl: "How could you not like Vancouver?" It doesn't get any deeper or more nuanced than that.

I honestly can't remember the last time I cringed so much in excruciating embarrassment. The awfulness of the video is epic.

Okay, your skull is thick. I don't know how I can be clearer about this, but this video was not done as a specific response to an Economist magazine article. If you even bothered to read the originating article, it is not even a trash piece on Vancouver, or even an article about Vancouver. It just mentions Vancouver as a safe, livable city. It is merely controversially taking a position that the more dangerous a city is, the more exciting it is.

Now if you don't like the video, that's perfectly valid, and no one should fault you for it. But your internet screaming is a tad cause for concern. It might be a 5 minute scream, but a hysterical scream it is.

[Klazu]

There is also a Making Of video, where the crew gives some background on their video... I suggest watching it before making more assumptions.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by ozonemania

Okay, your skull is thick. I don't know how I can be clearer about this, but this video was not done as a specific response to an Economist magazine article. If you even bothered to read the originating article, it is not even a trash piece on Vancouver, or even an article about Vancouver. It just mentions Vancouver as a safe, livable city. It is merely controversially taking a position that the more dangerous a city is, the more exciting it is.

Now if you don't like the video, that's perfectly valid, and no one should fault you for it. But your internet screaming is a tad cause for concern. It might be a 5 minute scream, but a hysterical scream it is.

I found the original article and read it (yes, I know, I need to get a life). The throwaway line in the Economist was: "Vienna, Vancouver and Geneva always seemed to do well. Pleasant cities, yes, but mind-numbingly boring." I then found numerous frantic pieces by Vancouver media outlets with much hand-wringing at that one single sentence. The overwrought reaction was cringeworthy itself, but then this video came along.

The guy in the video specifically references the Economist article at 0:29. Anyone not privy to the latest concerns of the Vancouver chattering classes on the internet is going to see the video as an explicit response to the Economist article, and it really does function in that way, regardless of your claims. It's basic lit crit 101: authorial intention is superseded by reader response. You can claim that the video was not a response to the Economist article until the cows come home, but the narrative arc of the Economist article followed by this video is obvious to anyone.

And c'mon...the main character actually points to one of those hand-wringing articles on his cell phone: "Vancouver is 'Mind-Numbingly Boring,' Declares Economist Magazine." It doesn't get any more obvious than that. Why'd you call it "No Fun City?" asks yoga girl. His response? The Economist article.

Yes, sure, the subtext of my (fifth, sixth?) response to this in this thread is also obvious: I'm enjoying how fantastically preposterous the Vancouver boosters who made this video are, along with how much certain posters in this thread are falling over backwards to explain it away. It's amusing in a cruel way, I admit it.

[vanman]

Haha wow I guess you won't ever get it.

[SignalHillHiker]

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[Nouvellecosse]

This is kind of unexpected. The new Ubuntu Linux smartphone released for the European market. Go to time 4:45, then again at 5:50, plus a couple other times.

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[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by vanman

Haha wow I guess you won't ever get it.

Yeah that guy's obsession with hating on Vancouver is like a cry for help.

[MTLskyline]

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[Klazu]

This is where all the action is at. Straight outta Chilliwack, BC.

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[giallo]

While that video has gone viral, I checked out some of his other ones, and they are all of beatings, theft, and accidents. What a gnarly intersection. My image of Chilliwack is of tons of farms that reek of manure and Christians. Seems little ol' Chilli has some skeletons in its closet.

Like, is this just some random beating?

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