While most students spend their precious free-time hanging out with friends or catching up on sleep, others seek to become Internet sensations by posting videos on YouTube.
YouTube is a Web site that provides millions of different videos from movie clips, to school projects, to music video parodies. The distinctive thing about YouTube is anyone can post a video for free and everyone in the world can access it.
Sophomores Drew Berg, Alex Bulk and Joe Wachter are roommates and have made two popular music video parodies. Their latest one is to the Miley Cyrus song, “Party in the USA.”
The three-minute video was filmed and edited in one night in the Living and Learning Center. Sophomore Michael Wissman directed it.
Wachter said “Party in the USA” was a run-off of the first video the group did of “I’m on a Boat,” by The Lonely Island. The group came up with the idea for the second parody after seeing a similar video to the same song. Wachter said the group’s video turned out much better.
"According to the YouTube counts, I think it was a success," he said.<br/>Berg said the video was created out of boredom. He said the group definitely is planning on making a third parody, but he remained mum on the subject of the new project.Berg said the video was created out of boredom. He said the group definitely is planning on making a third parody, but he remained mum on the subject of the new project.
Berg said the video was created out of boredom. He said the group definitely is planning on making a third parody, but he remained mum on the subject of the new project.
He is not worried about his potential future employers seeing him in these parodies. Berg said he lives one day at a time.
"It (‘Party in the USA' video) was a lot funnier than I thought it would be," Berg said. <br/>Bulk said he thinks the video turned out pretty well, given the fact that it was made in such a short amount of time. He said no one has given him a hard time for his role in the parody.Bulk said he thinks the video turned out pretty well, given the fact that it was made in such a short amount of time. He said no one has given him a hard time for his role in the parody.
Bulk said he thinks the video turned out pretty well, given the fact that it was made in such a short amount of time. He said no one has given him a hard time for his role in the parody.
“Most people know me well enough to know I was just acting,” he said.
Sophomore Kat Niehues said she has posted a couple of viral videos. She said one of the funniest ones she did with her friends was a scene from the movie “Step Brothers.”
Niehues said the video took several takes to complete and she and her friends spread the taping out over two nights. She said they have received a lot of positive feedback on the parody.
“We got so many comments on the video, but they were never like ‘that was dumb,'” Niehues said.
While some videos on YouTube are just for laughs, others have been made as part of a school project and contain educational messages.
Last year, sophomore Molly Schmeidler had to produce a project over a topic she felt strongly about for her FY Viral Video course. She involved her family in the making of her video titled “Obesity Rap,” by the Schmeidler Five.
She didn’t want to pick a topic that everyone else was likely to choose and she had the opportunity to work on the video over Thanksgiving Break.
“I was working on the lyrics on and off for about a month,” Schmeidler said. “The editing iswhat took a long time though.”
The video features her mom, dad, siblings and grandparents all rapping about the facts of obesity. Schmeidler also includes the equation of how to figure out a person’s body mass index and what foods to avoid when trying to lose weight.
Schmeidler said the video became pretty popular both on campus and in her hometown of Hays.
“Everyone back in Hays would call me and tell me that they saw it (the video),” Schmeidler said. “I had people come up to me on campus and be like ‘oh you’re the obesity girl.'”