Superstar of the Week is Yakov Smirnoff

Remember Yakov Smirnoff? I don't. But, I do remember a period of time when it suddenly became popular to imitate his comedy routine, in which things in Soviet Russia do things to you, instead of the other way around.

"In Soviet Russia, old-school blog read you."

Urban Legend of the Week

Lemmings Commit Mass Suicides by Jumping off of Cliffs

False

The phrase, "don't be a lemming" is often used similarly to "don't be a sheep". It's a derogatory, meaning, "don't just follow the heard without thinking for yourself". "Lemming", however, can have a worse connotation than "sheep", the idea being that lemmings ritualistically follow each other to their own deaths, off of cliffs, and into the sea. The irony here, is that lemmings don't actually do this. It could be said that someone who uses the phrase "don't be a lemming" is being a lemming, in that the phrase is based on an urban legend that isn't true.

There were studies done showing rapid declines in lemming populations. One hypothesis to this mystery, was that perhaps lemmings had some ingrained self destructive instinct. A Disney nature film called "White Wilderness" attempted to depict this, by staging lemming suicides. The film makers purchased lemmings, and filmed them forcedly falling into a river (supposedly the Arctic Sea). The narrator explained that the lemmings were following migratory instincts from an age where migrating in that direction would have once brought them to land, but now only leads to death by sea.

It is now known that lemmings do not in fact migrate off cliffs, as staged in this Disney video, but years of classrooms using this video as an educational video has left this idea ingrained in people's minds.

Wise of the Wabbit

The history of Looney Tunes

If you were a viewer of J-Dubb's Theatre videos, you may remember a video I did a few years ago, where I talked about the history of Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons. It was the video where an anvil fell on my head, and I saw little birdies flying around. As a history buff, I find it interesting to go back to the old song and dance, Bosko cartoons, and trace them forward through time, until I start to see a familiar picture unfold. Since I know a little more about the subject now, than I did before, I thought I'd write about it.

One thing that I didn't know at the time that I made the video, is that it all started with a small-time cartoonist, named Walt Disney. Now days, you know Disney as the mega corporation that owns 75% of everything there is. But back when young Walt owned a small animation studio that was struggling to get by, he employed two animators by the names Hugh Harmon and Rudolph Ising.

Disney made a deal with Universal, pitching a new character named Oswald the rabbit. Harmon and Ising, who had previously estranged from Disney in a failed attempt to start their own animation studio, returned to animate Oswald cartoons for Disney. Eventually, Universal ended their contract with Disney. Harman and Ising continued to animate Oswald for Universal, and Disney, no longer holding the rights to Oswald, was forced to come up with a mouse character to replace Oswald. Poor Disney.

Let's face it. Oswald was a long-eared Mickey.

Eventually, Universal started their own animation studio, putting Harmon and Ising out of work. The duo went to Leon Schlesinger from Warner Brother's studios, and pitched a new character named Bosko. They created a cutting edge animation, in which Bosko, from his page on the drawing easel, interacts with his live action animator. This impressed Schlesinger, who hired the pair to create Bosko cartoons for a series called "Looney Tunes", a play on the name of Disney's "Silly Symphonies".

Bosko was, well...  essentially a black-face character who, at first, spoke in stereotypical 1920s "black speech". After the first cartoon, however, they gave him more of a high pitched voice, similar to Mickey's. The first cartoon, "Sinking in the Bathtub", began with Bosko, taking a bath while singing "Singing in the bathtub". He then winds up his Model T, and drives to his girlfriend, Honey, who is also singing in the bathtub. Honey joins Bosko on a wacky road trip.

Meanwhile, Schlesinger and the animation team were contracted to start a second animation studio, Merry Melodies. Merry Melodies cartoons were intended to showcase Warner Brother's music. The first few cartoons featured a cast of characters, but the studio eventually decided that Merry Melodies would not feature recurring characters, like their Looney Tunes counterpart. After a few years, Merry Melodies began to produce cartoons in color, while Looney Tunes would continue in black in white for some time.

Harmon and Ising animated Bosko for the Warner Brother's from 1930 to 1933, when they split from the WB, taking the rights for Bosko with them. Meanwhile, Warner Brother's studios needed a new star for their Looney Tunes cartoons. The replacements for Bosko and Honey, were Buddy and Cookie; essentially, whiter, duller versions of Bosko and Honey. Their first cartoon even featured Buddy and Cookie taking a road trip in their Model T, as if to reboot the Bosko cartoons.

Buddy and Cookie were the worst things to come out of Warner Brother's cartoon studios. They were dull. Watching Buddy cartoons, I find myself vocalizing, "What even is the point of  this cartoon?" Audiences of the 1930s agreed with me.

Warner Brothers needed to ditch Buddy. While still creating Buddy cartoons for Looney Tunes, the animators created a Merrie Melodies cartoon called, "Haven't got a Hat". The film was inspired by the Little Rascals, featuring a group of kids performing for a school talent show, including Beans the Cat, Porky Pig, and others. This cartoon essentially doubled as an audition of characters to potentially replace Buddy.

Beans the Cat was chosen to be the next Looney Tune star. At this point, the style of Looney Tunes cartoons began to change. In the beginning, the cartoons mostly revolved around the music. Animations would dance, cannons would expand cartoonishly, and fire off to the beat, sandwiches would sing, ect. With Beans, cartoons became more plot focused.

Beans, in his cartoons, would pair off with other characters from "Haven't got a Hat", including Porky. Beans was short lived, however, as animators realized that audiences preferred Porky. Beans and the other "Haven't got a Hat" characters were phased out, and Porky became the solo star of  Looney Tunes cartoons.

With Porky, Looney Tunes finally had a success. During this time, Porky went through a lot of changes. In "Haven't got a hat", he was depicted as a school child, and his stuttering voice was a sped up recording. In his second appearance, he was an adult with a deep voice. The original reason for Porky's stutter, is that his voice actor, Joe Dougherty stuttered. By the time Mel Blanc replaced Dougherty, becoming the more iconic voice of Porky, the stutter had become synonymous with the character. Porky's design and age changed from artist to artist, until all artists came to agree on one design.

One day, Porky decided to go duck hunting, where he found himself tormented by a goofy, insane duck. Apparently, this wacky duck was unlike anything that had been seen in a cartoon up to this point, and audiences wanted more. Meanwhile, the contract with Merry Melodies, requiring the studio to showcase WB music, ended. Merry Melodies introduced a character named Egghead. In his third appearance, Egghead was paired with the newly named Daffy Duck, in a cartoon very similar to Porky's Duckhunt.

Daffy went back to Looney Tunes, partnering up with Porky. Audiences liked Daffy even better than Porky. Before long, Daffy became the Looney Tunes star. The animators could have phased Porky out, as had happened with Beans, but Porky had become too beloved as a character. Instead, they paired him with Daffy as the straight man and the funny man, a style of humor that refined Looney Tunes humor even more into the brand that we're familiar with.

In one cartoon, Daffy and Porky jumped out of paintings within the live action Warner Brother's studio, where Daffy made a deal with the studio to make him the star instead of Porky. This is somewhat poetic, as the old Looney Tunes era was ushered in by Bosko interacting with his live-action animator, the new era of Looney Tunes, symbolized by Daffy, was similarly ushered in by Daffy interacting with the animators. This also signified a personality change, in which Daffy became less the insane hooting and hollering duck, and more the glory seeking, quick to anger Daffy.

While Daffy was being introduced, Porky starred in a cartoon called "Porky's Hare Hunt", setting him opposite a crazy white rabbit. This white rabbit was featured again in a Merrie Melodies cartoon. No longer restricted to the black and white of Looney Tunes, he was recolored as a gray and white rabbit, and paired with Egghead, in a familiar "foiling the hunter" series of gags.

The gray and white rabbit appeared in a cartoon with a character named Elmer, who looked a lot like Egghead, and dressed like Egghead, but spoke with a peculiar lisp, substituting W's for R's and L's.

From here, a grey and white anthropomorphic rabbit was designed with a Bronx accent and much more laid back personality than the proto-Bug's rabbit. Elmer Fudd was redesigned as a hunter and placed as the antagonist to, and recipient of, Bug's Bunny's gags. Bug's became the star of Merrie Melodies. After they started producing cartoons in color, Looney Tunes began producing Bug's Bunny cartoons, and Merrie Melodies began producing Daffy and Porky cartoons, and the two studios became interchangeable. Eventually, Bug's Bunny stole the role of "Star of Looney Tunes".

More characters were added to the roster, such as Sylvester and Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn, Coyote and Roadrunner, Yosemite Sam, Speedy Gonzales, and Marvin the Martian. Today, all these characters are referred to under the blanket term "Looney Tunes", with Bug's Bunny being the figurehead.

Animal of the Week is the Bearded Dragon

Superstar of the Week is Don S. Davis

Don S. Davis, 1942 - 2008, known for roles such as Air Force General George Hammond, from Stargate SG1, and Air Force Major Garland Briggs from Twin Peaks.  Above, you can see him pictured in his role as General Hammond...  or is that Major Briggs?

Urban Legend of the Week

Hand sanitizer may combust if left in a hot car.

False

A fire district in Wisconsin posted a warning that clear plastic bottles left in your car can act as a magnifier for sunlight, and potentially start a fire. They later warned about keeping hand sanitizer in direct sunlight, for the same reason, adding that hand sanitizer is flammable. Several news stories picked up on this, reporting that hand sanitizer left in a hot car  may combust. This was combined with an image of a melted car door, which is not linked to hand sanitizer or clear plastic bottles.

This fire department later stated that the warning was intended to be about leaving clear plastic bottles in sunlight, not exploding hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer in and of itself will not explode in a hot car.

The Occupiers are Leaving Portland

Federal Officers Downtown Portland

These last few weeks have been interesting.

...Funny. It's 2020, and I just said "these last few weeks have been interesting".

Anyways, it's been interesting, these last few weeks, seeing a lot of people who are nowhere near Portland, talk about what's been happening in Portland. Towards the beginning of July, Federal agents were sent with riot gear to quell the uprising of militant anarchists and Antifa terrorists who had taken control of Portland, and were destroying the city... 

Only, for me and my wife, as well as many other people around the area, our own eyes told us a different story. We've been all over Portland, both sides of the river, and have yet to find evidence of militant anarchists or terrorists destroying the city. The courthouse in downtown Portland has been heavily graffitied. Images of the graffitied courthouse are what news outlets like to tout as "Portland being destroyed". Anybody unfamiliar with the area, would not necessarily realize that these are images of one building, not a city.

For perspective, here's the city of Portland vs where the courthouse is.

A few days before the 4th of July, shortly after the Feds began arriving, there was a night where shit essentially hit the fan. There was a clash between protestors and Feds, in which some individuals began shooting fireworks at the agents. This lead to the agents taking refuge in the courthouse, inside which a fire was ignited by the fireworks. This is the incident news sources refer to repeatedly, in reporting on the "riots  in Portland". A funny thing that I discovered, was that news sites which prefer to spread the narrative of "Portland under siege by militarized anarchists" liked to word this as "launching explosives", "arson", or "fire-bombing", instead of "4th of July fireworks obviously purchased in Vancouver, because the ones sold in Oregon barely do anything".

Protests have been underway in Downtown Portland, ever since George Floyd's murder. Prior to the Feds arriving, protests had dwindled down to 100 or so people. Since the arrival of the Feds, protests had sprung up to thousands of people, including mom groups, dad groups, grandpa groups, teacher groups, lawyer groups, and veteran groups. Each night, the protest plays out like a big dance party in front of the courthouse, with music and barbeque, until the troops begin launching tear gas canisters into the crowds. People with homemade shields try to volley the tear gas away from the crowds, while dads with leaf blowers blow the gas, quite successfully, back toward the troops. This occurs until the Feds and police emerge from the gas clouds, and begin to push the protestors back. According to OPB, even some of the Federal Officers were admitting that their actions were only escalating violence amongst the crowds.

It can be frustrating seeing know-it-alls all over social media talking about something contrary to what I'm actually seeing. But where it gets particularly "funny" is when people who aren't even in the state  of Oregon try to argue with me about what's happening in Portland. Always with that sarcastic political tone, "And, I suppose the courthouse set itself on fire?" If they were to ask me respectfully to explain it, I would explain it. But if they hold the attitude that what they read on the Internet from their arm chair is more valid than what I've actually experienced, I typically respond, "I read somewhere that they blew off my left arm". To them, what I'm watching in my back yard is just another topic for squabble between the left and the right, just another political game to play.

Trump, from the opposite coast, has even claimed that the moms and dads groups are really anarchists pretending to be moms and dads.

A group of militant anarchists

The part that particularly gets to me, is the attempt to discredit the veterans. Some people speculate that they must be phony, and others call them disgraces. The same people who love to use veterans as political fodder to serve their purposes, claiming to honor and respect veterans, will throw veterans under the bus the minute they no longer serve their political bias.

All that said, no matter what people outside of Portland are saying, or how right they believe themselves to be, Oregon's leadership has finally managed to get rid of the Feds.

Animal of the Week is the Tree Kangaroo

Superstar of the Week is Orville Redenbacher

I'm not typically a big fan of popcorn, but this actually makes me want popcorn.

Urban Legend of the Week

Scientists recreated a T-Rex embryo using chicken DNA

False

I was hoping there would be some sort of misconstrued truth behind this story, like maybe, scientists looked into the similarities between Rexxy and chickens, and the whole story got blown out of proportion due to a misleading headline, or something. But it turns out the whole thing is just the fabrication of a gag news site, that got taken seriously, and the story comes back up every now and again. Kind of like how your Aunt copy and pastes warnings about Facebook hackers every two years.

On that note, don't forget, I once started my own campaign to breed back the dinosaurs: You May See Dinosaurs in Your Lifetime

Animal of the Week is the Muskox

Tale of the White Wyvern

Tale of the White Wyvern is a text based, high fantasy, sword and magic adventure mini-MMO that you can play with your friends! White Wyvern is a throwback to old school BBS games, like Legend of the Red Dragon.

Follow this link to defend the town of Wyrmdoor from the legendary White Wyvern: thewhitewyvern.com

But, be sure to prepare yourself by training to level up, chatting with players and NPCs, upgrading your weapons and armor, or taking a break to go fishing. Also, you may want to use the outhouse from time to time.


Follow the White Wyvern on Twitter, but don't make him angry. @the_whitewyvern

You can even purchase White Wyvern merch. 

Superstar of the Week is Roach

While posting my past videos to this blog's archives, I realized that Roach is my favorite J-Dubble. Floyd seems to be the most popular, along with Roger LeBlanc, and Professor Glenn Robbins. But Roach, despite his vacant exterior, seems to be the most loyal and helpful J-Dubble. When I had been indoctrinated into clown-hood, it was Roach who took action to make me right again. And when the other J-Dubbles didn't remember who I was, Roach was the one who reminded everyone.

J-Dubb's Theatre Consolidated

 Tim is moving the J-Dubb's Theatre archives, to be shipped from YouTube to the J-Dubb's Theatre headquarters

This past week, I did something that I should have done a long time ago. If only I'd known, years ago, that I could backdate blog posts. (Assuming I actually could backdate blog posts, years ago. A lot has changed.)

Many years ago, after I had been blogging for a couple years, I expanded J-Dubb's Theatre into the fledgling world of YouTube. Five years later, the written blog began to wane, in favor of of the video element of J-Dubb's Theatre. In 2011, it came to a point where all I posted to this blog were my YouTube videos. No more written posts, no more Superstar of the Week, no Nosferatu part VII for Halloween. Then, by the end of that year, I stopped posting even my videos to this blog. After seven years, this blog became an idle blog.

In 2012, after more than a year, I decided to officially end the blogging portion of J-Dubb's Theatre. Then, remembering how I enjoyed writing in this blog, I redacted my decision to end it, within that same blog post. I decided, instead, to leave the blog open for the occasion where I would suddenly decide to post. And that's what happened. Every once in a while, over the years, I've decided to post something.

J-Dubb's Theatre videos pretty much divorced themselves from the blog of origin, and my YouTube channel replaced the blog as the central hub of J-Dubb's Theatre. I uploaded videos for five more years, until new life priorities brought an end to that era. Since then, J-Dubb's Theatre has continued to exist quietly within it's original blog form, as a place to occasionally reminisce.

Recently, I decided to post all my YouTube videos and collaborations to this blog, starting from where I had left off in 2011, and backdating each post to the date when I had originally uploaded the video to YouTube. It makes sense to have all of  J-Dubb's Theatre posted to this blog, as this blog is J-Dubb's Theatre, after all. It's interesting, after all these years, mentioning the J-Dubbles, and VidCon in this blog. They're integral parts of J-Dubb's Theatre, but they've never actually been mentioned in the classic blog posts. I also wrote the descriptions for Halloween videos in red text, giving them the feel of my classic Halloween posts.

Overall, it gave this blog a sense of continuity between where I left off in 2011, and the few scattered blog posts I've written since then. What was really interesting, was posting my videos from the final two years, 2016 and 2017. Even though I didn't realize it at the time, in retrospect, I can tell I was getting ready, at least subconsciously, to end my video foray. There was a lot of reminiscing and talk about change in those final videos.

That said, enjoy the full and complete J-Dubb's Theatre experience, right here on the classic J-Dubb’s Theatre blog.

Superstar of the Week is Donald Sutherland

The first Superstar of the Week in 10 years, is Donald Sutherland in his role as Hawkeye Pierce, from the movie, Mash.

The first ever Superstar of the Week, was Alan Alda in his role as Hawkeye Pierce, in the classic TV series, Mash.

2009 to 2019

Ten years ago, I was on the verge of turning 30. I was anxious, as I felt I wasn't in the place I wanted to be by the time I turned 30. I was still single. I had finished school for web design, rather than working on my PHD in Psychology like I had originally intended, and had not successfully launched my career that entire year.

J-Dubb's Theatre had taken a bit of a turn. I focused more on connecting with local  media types, both traditional and new media, via Twitter. My involvement with YouTube waned. First of all, I learned that the music that I used for the first two years of videos, even though it was royalty free, required expensive licensing to use, and I was worried that I might have to ditch every video I had made prior to that year. Secondly, YouTube was changing. There was less emphasis on the community from 2007, and more of an emphasis on a few YouTube celebrities. YouTube did away with having editors select videos to feature on the home page. The beginnings of the dreaded algorithm were put into effect, selecting only the top few YouTubers to feature over and over again. These few YouTubers had multiple channels being featured, and even got together and started a collab channel called "The Station". A YouTuber named Mr. Chi City made a video called "Is The YouTube Community Dying?"

At the end of 2008, I started the J-Dubb's Theatre Twitter account. In 2009, I began to use Twitter regularly. I connected with Portland radio personalities Cort and Fatboy, and the Rick Emerson show, of former station 101 KUFO, and several people who were connected with this group. This was fitting, as KUFO had a heavy influence in the beginnings of this blog, several years prior. Bobby "Fat Boy", and several others Portland people became readers of J-Dubb's Theatre. A guy named Robert Wagner, who hosted a podcast called "PDX Sucks" and ran a podcasting network called "PDX.fm" also became connected with this group. Through this group, I connected  with several local  media personalities. There was a big push to unite traditional media with new media, largely fostered by a guy named Mitch Nolan, who authored an online  journal called Oregon Media Central.

A company called Alpha  Broadcasting purchased several local radio stations, including KUFO. That Fall, the new management of KUFO canned Cort and Fatboy, and the Rick Emerson crew, and  began airing a countdown over the radio station, counting down till  the beginning of the  "new" KUFO, in which several shock jocks had been hired to replace the previous personalities. This outraged many Portlanders, including local media personalities. This also shortly after lead to the demise of KUFO, which was replaced by a talk radio station.

Robert Wagner invited Cort and Fatboy to continue the Cort and Fatboy show as a podcast on PDX.fm. Eventually, Rick Emerson and friend Dawn Taylor began a new Rick Emerson Show on PDX.fm, as well. Cort and Fatboy continued to host local events, such as screenings at the Bagdad Theater. Sarah X. Dylan, and Greg Nibbler from the Rick Emerson Show started a podcast, in Greg Nibbler's spare room, called "Funemployment Radio". This was originally something to do while they were unemployed, but as of this past October, they celebrated their 10th anniversary. They broadcast out of a studio and host a podcast network. Funemployment Radio has ironically been their source of employment for the last decade.  

My involvement in YouTube waned, and would take a hiatus for the first few months of 2010. In April of 2010, however, J-Dubb's Theatre videos would make a come back into what was possibly the the most successful year of J-Dubb's Theatre on YouTube. That year also shaped the format of J-Dubb's Theatre's videos for the majority of its existence.

That year, Adam, my bff since I was 8, moved back up to Oregon from California. Prior to this, I had been spending a lot of time with our high school friend, Jon, ever since leaving my security job in 2006. When Adam moved up, we became a tight-knit group of 3.

That New Year's Eve, I stayed home. The last New Year's Eve of my 20s was my first year not having any plans for a New Year's celebration. Just me and Twitter. I felt completely lame for this. However, in my 30s, I would find that it's really not a big deal to not party on New Year's Eve.

As my 30s loomed closer, over the next 22 days, I felt a sense of dread. However, during my last day of being 29, something happened. I decided that all my goals up to that point, had been for the purpose of other people's expectations. As I was walking around the park, I realized that now I was free to do whatever I wanted with my life. I went to my 30th birthday party feeling like a free spirit, and had a great year.

10 years later, the year 2020 has just begun, and I'm on my way out of my 30s. Things are a lot different this time around. I'm married, I have a business apprenticeship, and a job in insurance, and the future is very promising. People always talk about the futures of young people, but life is still going when we get older. We still have futures when we are in our 40s, 50s, 60s, ect.

At the end of 2009, I decided to end my New Year's blog post by embedding Knights of Cydonia. Prior to that, I had typically embedded something melancholy to signify the passing of years. But that year, I decided to go with something upbeat to signify a promising future. This year, I wanted to end with a video montage, in the same spirit as the video from 2009, like I did last year. But I was too busy this year, and the new year crept up on me. So I will embed a video in the upbeat spirit of the 2009 blog post.

2008 to 2018

As far as J-Dubb's Theatre goes, 2008 was, for the most part, a continuation of 2007. Nothing special. Just a carry over from the previous year: blogging, YouTube videos, Superstar of the Week in the Summer.

 Towards the end of the Summer, I filmed a continuation of The Network series. The Network series, in 2007, involved my friend, Jon, playing the part of "The Executive", an etherial network executive, who was making YouTubers disappear, so that the television networks could replace them with their own puppets. In the 2008 series, The Executive, revealed to be named "Belphegor", came back and possessed me in order to recruit YouTubers to help him create a new network. This was originally supposed to be a promotional thing, where I would post video responses to YouTubers, Belphegor, now played by me, recruits them into the new network. This was intended to expand my own YouTube network. However, I turned out to be incredibly busy with college and and internship, and didn't have time to make all the video responses. I ended up posting videos once a month, which continued the Network Series. The series, which was intended to be a Summer series, ended up running into 2009.

YouTube-wise, things were starting to change. As I mentioned in my previous post, there was  a lot of ill sentiment starting up between the YouTube community, and the YouTube corporation. YouTubers were starting to feel thrown under the bus in favor of a few handpicked "stars". The coup de  gras, was "YouTube Live", a livestreamed  YouTube event, which combined YouTube celebrities with mainstream celebrities. Going into 2009, "The Network" was starting to become a little too real.

In life, I was studying Web Design, which was my third major after psychology and graphic design. I spent a lot of time with my friend, Jon, or my friend Mike, or my sister and niece and nephew. In September, I attended my 10 year reunion, and spent the day with my old highschool friends: the afore mentioned, Jon, Kenny, and Adam, who would end up moving back into the area the next year. At the end of the year, I finished college.

10 years later, the year began with my last YouTube video, a montage of every video I had uploaded over the years. I did not originally intend for it to be my final video, but when the decision came, it  turned out to be a perfect conclusion.

This year has had the most change out of the last several years. I started off by getting engaged. I've been learning business and investment strategies, and consequentially, have finally been able to move on from the retail job  I had been trying to leave for many years. I've worked in insurance, and am now providing tech support for a financial software company. Jon and his wife Francesca, have been raising their first child, Finley, for the last few years. Adam lives with his wife, Stephine, and step daugher, Anna, and my sister lives with her partner, her three kids, and  my nephew is in the  middle of his senior year. My niece lives with her boyfriend, Josh.

To conclude this blog post: 10 years ago, I concluded my new year blog post with a video titled, "Night of the Rose City", set to a rendition of the song "Shadow of Your Smile". So, that's  why I have chosen the song  for the background of  this video montage.


Also, I finished that blog post, stating that 2009 would be the last year of my 20s, after which I would begin the "infamous three oh". So... you know what that means for this year.

YouTube Live 2008/ 10 Years Later

Remember the first time big YouTubers got together and mixed with mainstream celebrities, such as Katy Perry and Will I Am, for a live variety show? No? That's probably because it was a flop that people were quick to forget. However, forgettable-flop or not, it was in fact an event which altered the face of YouTube. It signified the end of the first era, and the beginning of a new era; an era of fans and celebrities, networks and contracts.

Today, an event such as YouTube Live would be business as usual. But in it's time, it was something new. This was a time when YouTubers existed within a box on your computer screen. They were ordinary people broadcasting from grainy webcams in their bedrooms. They did not have networks, and professional equipment. YouTube "celebrity status" existed within a niche. Many people hadn't even heard of YouTube yet. YouTube Live, in November of 2008, signified a major shift.

I remember, 10 years ago, sitting in front of my computer desk, in the chair I got on clearance at Office Depot. I had a pad of paper, and took notes for my report I would write, because that's what I did. YouTube events were my domain. This was the first live YouTube event, and I loved watching YouTubers step out of their microcosms and collaborate. But, as I watched Katy Perry and her crew work her way through a line-up of YouTubers, I began to experience a sinking feeling. Something about the event just didn't sit right with me. I stopped taking notes, and never wrote about the event (until now). I don't remember if I even watched the whole thing. Later on, as vlogs began to pour out on the subject of YouTube Live, I saw that I wasn't the only YouTuber who experienced this.

For those of us who joined YouTube in the beginning years, YouTube was essentially seen as the messiah of media. It was the next evolution of media, superior to television and movies. Traditional media realized this, but never quite grasped what made it what it was. YouTube wasn't revolutionary because it took place on the Internet, instead of cable and air-waves. It wasn't the fact that we watched it on a different box that made it what it was. It was revolutionary, because everybody was a participant. Corporations wanted to capitalize on this, but it wasn't a thing that could be duplicated or controlled by a board of directors.

Traditional media is passive. You watch TV, and you live vicariously through characters. You don't exist. The actors who depict these characters are heralded and fan-fared through award shows. Pictures of them are sold for a high price to sleazy magazines. They live cushy and luxurious lifestyles. Meanwhile, you are nobody. Your meaningless life is paused, to observe the much more interesting lives of these great characters. Then, you get up early and return to your 9-5, where your life is treated almost as meaninglessly as it was while you were watching TV.

YouTube, or more accurately, the YouTube Community, was not passive. Everybody was a part of it. You watch somebody's video, and upload your own in response, which is viewed in return. Even if you don't want to upload videos, you comment on videos, and the uploaders reply. YouTube was revolutionary, because it was media that we all participated in. We were both the viewer and viewed. We interacted with the people we were watching. We could simultaneously enjoy the show, and be one of the characters.

As we watched YouTube Live, however, a glaring feeling began to smack us in the face. We weren't a part of it. This was an exclusive event that only the top YouTubers were invited to. We watched these "YouTube celebrities" intermix with mainstream celebrities. We watched these elite YouTubers upload videos of their backstage parties they were having...  that the rest of us weren't invited to. We were watching our "new media" hijacked from under us by people who didn't understand what made it "new media", and relegating us back to our old traditional media roles of meaningless observers.

This was the sentiment we had, at the time, as first era YouTubers. There had been a buildup to this. As the YouTube Community developed, sort of an accidental byproduct of the video sharing site, a hierarchy began to develop, as happens within a community. Before YouTube became a household word, people began to experience a pseudo-celebrity status within this niche online community. News stations began to pick up on this, and would report on "the new celebrities."

After Google took over, they introduced the partnership program in mid 2007. I always supported the idea of the partnership program, but regarded its execution as being poorly handled. The greater community saw the elites being hand-picked and given special privileges. This exacerbated a rift between the "YouTube stars" and the "regular YouTubers".

YouTube began to market itself as a reach for stardom, rather than a community. It misappropriated the terms "YouTuber" and "YouTube Community" to refer to the totality of uploaders, rather than the community of people who participated in interacting with each other, who had coined those terms in the first place. A new wave of people began to join YouTube with the aspirations of online celebrity status, and YouTube partnership, and being like their online celebrity heroes.

By 2008, there was a well-established rift. At one point, YouTube came up with a feature called "premium most viewed" in which partner's videos would show up first in search results, and be identified by a red triangle in the corner of the thumbnail, making them stand out from other videos. This was met with much resentment from the community.

A lot of people in the old community saw YouTube Live as the death-nell of the community, and of our new media revolution. Well, actually, a lot of things have been met with claims of being the death-nell of the YouTube Community. But YouTube Live, in a lot of ways, did in fact signify the end of the first era. At that time, a lot of my associates disappeared from YouTube. I would have to rebuild my network of associates, later. Renetto, once YouTube's strongest evangelist, became YouTube's biggest critic.

YouTube Live was intended to "mainstreamize" YouTube's content. Despite being a flop, I'd say it was successful. In the same way, the Apple Newton is seen as a flop, but it lead to the marketing of PDA devices, which lead to the marketing of the iPhone. Ultimately, the Newton was a success. While YouTube Live was a flop, it opened the door to the mainstream public, changing the face of YouTube.

While this change was a disappointment to the first era YouTubers, the new star-driven approach fueled the success of YouTube. We had our fun for a while, but it's the nature of things to change. This is an inevitability, and it's in one's own best interest to keep moving forward. We can't stop change any more than a corporation can reproduce the old YouTube Community. What if Google hadn't bought YouTube? What if there never was an exacerbation of the the rift between YouTubers? Do you think the YouTube community would still be the same in 2018 as it was in the old days? My guess is, we'd be saying, "remember when YouTube was popular in the 2000s?" We'd have all moved on to other things in our own time. But, we'll always have the memories of YouTube's golden age.

Moving Forward

So, you may have noticed that the year has come and pretty much gone without a single J-Dubb's Theatre video. The fact is, I have other obligations, and J-Dubb's videos have had to step aside. This is something I've seen coming for the past few years, but change can be difficult, and I delayed it for as long as I could. On the other hand, J-Dubb's Theatre is not ending, as I plan to post to this blog more frequently. I just don't have the time to make videos these days.

When I started making videos, it was a fun hobby. I was a blogger, studying graphic design, and I thought it would be fun to extend my blog into the YouTube world. I developed the ambition to become one of the top YouTubers, and collaborate with the other top YouTubers. Eventually, YouTube videos took precedence, and blogging dwindled.

Over the years, with the partnership program, and trips to Vidcon, YouTube grew from a hobby to an entrepreneurial endeavor. Much like Phillip DeFranco, I wanted to expand J-Dubb's Theatre from a YouTube channel, to an enterprise. I worked a part time job, while struggling to gain traction in the YouTube world.

Time went by, and my future was uncertain. I was tenacious, and didn't want to give up. I read "Think and Grow Rich", and saw YouTube as the modern equivalent of the radio enterprise which was burgeoning at the time the book was written. I didn't want to be the gold miner who gave up, just to have someone else find that I was mere inches from striking gold. But, I was afraid of going nowhere in life. So, my ambition became split, between, "keep pursuing your passion", and "put your effort into something stable". I just didn't know where I should put my efforts, and I went back and forth in committing to things.

Gradually, me and YouTube began to grow in separate directions.YouTube began to feel like busy work. And the YouTube environment just wasn't what I had originally signed on for. I didn't recognize it anymore. Ironically, as I felt myself "jumping the shark", My subscriber count began to grow faster than it ever had, something which made it difficult to step away. After all these years, my channel was finally growing, but I just didn't have the YouTube juice in me anymore.

Earlier this year, it came time to commit to something. When YouTube ended my partnership, I decided to let that be the deathnell, and I finally made the decision to walk away. While I maintain my entrepreneurial spirit, I've shifted my focus, and for the first time in years, I'm experiencing progress in life. I toyed with the idea of coming up with a finale. I would've had the J-Dubbles move on with their lives. I even had a tear-jerker in mind, in which one of the J-Dubbles dies. (Maybe you're glad that idea didn't pan out.) I was  going to conclude things with the return of Belphegor. There would be another tear-jerker, where I take Spenser to a new home, while I go off to deal with Belphegor. At some point, my house blows up, and furniture is strewn all over the place. The Time Traveling wristband comes into play somewhere, too. The series ends with the conclusion of J-Dubb's Theatre videos.

Well, I didn't really have the time to do anything like that, but the last video I uploaded, a montage of ten years of videos, turned out to be pretty fitting as a conclusion to my channel, even though I hadn't planned it that way.

Will J-Dubb's Theatre videos return, someday? Who knows. But at the moment, it's time to say adieu. I'll see you around the blog.

The Last Jedi Is The Anti Empire Strikes Back

With The Force Awakens, probably the main talking point, was that the movie was a "rehashing" of A New Hope. This has been stated both as a positive and as a criticism. It seemed that a lot of people, upon watching it in the theater for the first time, felt that the movie "brought back Star Wars" after the deviation they felt from the prequels. Criticisms, however, were that Force Awakens was merely a clone of A New Hope, with no original story. Either way, it seems that the goal of Force Awakens, was to "reawaken" Star Wars, by giving the audience something familiar, which may or may not have been over-done.

With The Last Jedi, on the other hand, the main talking point is, "did it feel like Star Wars?" In fact, discussions of this movie seem to present a duality between "was it a good movie" vs. "was it a good Star Wars movie". This would not be a question if there were not some element that felt different from one's expectations of what a Star Wars movie feels like, which provoked fans to ponder and decide whether these deviations were reconcilable to their experience of the movie. However, similarly to The Force Awakens, there is also the criticism that it "rehashes" The Empire Strikes Back. The movie seems to be simultaneously criticized as "too different" from Star Wars, yet, "too similar" to Empire Strikes Back.

I see The Last Jedi as essentially a "rejection", so to speak, of The Empire Strikes Back. When it comes down to it, it seems that the goal of The Last Jedi is the opposite of The Force Awakens. Where The Force Awakens intended to draw us back into the Star Wars universe by invoking familiar "Star Warsey" feelings, The Last Jedi set the stage to expand the Star Wars universe beyond the familiar. (It's a big galaxy, after all.) It did this by essentially "rejecting" The Empire Strikes Back.

In the beginning of the movie, we have the template set up for The Empire Strikes Back to happen all over again. We have the new Empire and the new rebellion, the new Emperor and the new Darth Vader, the new Luke heading off to train with the new Yoda, the new betrayal of the rebels, and the new battle of Hoth. Only, in each of these instances, the movie takes an unexpected deviation, swerving the series away from the direction of the original trilogy.

Right off the bat, this premise is exemplified when Luke rejects the light saber, symbolically rejecting the role of "Yoda 2". Of course, Yoda had apprehensions toward training Luke in the beginning, but not with such a symbolic gesture of rejection towards everything he once was. Next, we have Snoke criticizing Kylo Ren's mask, which seems to be garbling his voice exaggeratedly from the first movie. This is followed by Kylo destroying the mask in a fit of rage, symbolically rejecting his likeness to Darth Vader.

With Leia in a coma, General Holdo takes command of the rebellion. General Holdo essentially seems to betray the rebels, whether through corruption or ineptitude, much as Lando betrayed the rebels in Empire. It's now up to Poe and his cronies to fight back. We believe that they are standing up against the betrayer, up until the scene where awakened Leia enters the room in which Poe has barricaded himself. We are expecting Leia to congratulate Poe, and join him, after all, why would the movie take us through this if we were not watching the good guys standing up to the bad guys? Poe seems to expect this as well, right up until Leia shoots him. We then find out that Holdo was not in fact the betrayer of the rebels, and Poe was not the good guy struggling with the bad guy. The rebels proceed as Holdo had planned, with Poe's mutiny acting as a mere hiccup.

Luke states the idea that, rather than reinstating the Jedi, it's time to move on and let the Jedi die. This sets the story up for a change of mind, but still sets a tone of "moving on". Later, Yoda burns down the tree. Even though we find out that the texts had been saved, this symbolizes a moving on from the old ways. (The texts move from the old temple into the possession of the new force user.)

Rey and Kylo reject the adversarial "Luke and Darth Vader, dynamic", as they form a bond, and eventually team up against Snoke. Then, finally, Kylo kills Snoke, and assumes control of the First Order, smashing to pieces the "Emperor/ Vader dynamic" which defined the original series. The Emperor runs things and Darth Vader is subservient. By killing Snoke, Kylo eradicates both the Emperor and Darth Vader, and becomes something entirely new. He even suggests to Rey that they team up to create something different, that is neither the Empire nor the Republic.

Rey and Kylo themselves are shown to be something new that has never been seen before. In the previous movie, Rey demonstrates an uncanny adeptness with the force, surpassing even Anakin. Yet, as Kylo reveals in Last Jedi, she is not linked to any of these institutions which precede her. She is something new which has appeared. Similarly, in the previous movie, Snoke refers to Kylo as representing a new power which embodies both the dark and the light. In Last Jedi, Luke states that he feels the same energy from Rey as he did from Kylo. It is unfamiliar, and it scares him to the point that he considered killing Kylo. The two of them team up and essentially end up smashing the premise of the original series.

Then, we have the final battle. To me, this battle seems to symbolically sum up the movie's rejection of the Empire Strikes Back template. Arguably the most iconic scene in Empire, is the battle of Hoth. The Empire Strikes Back begins with the battle of Hoth, and The Last Jedi ends with the battle of Hoth. In both battles, the rebels have been cornered within a facility on an ice planet, by the Empire, and must face down Imperial Walkers. Only, it is revealed that in The Last Jedi, it is not actually an ice planet. It is merely a thin dusting of salt covering a red mineral surface. The movie takes care to point this out to us, even though it doesn't play a part in the plot. Since it is not a direct part of the plot, yet is deliberately pointed out in the narrative, it is likely symbolic, showing that this is only superficially a rehashing of Hoth. Under the surface, there is something else to be revealed. By the end of the battle, most of the salt covering has been blown away, revealing just the red planetary surface, as if Hoth itself had been blown away, and replaced with something new.

In the end, Luke, the protagonist of the original series, fades away, taking the old series with him.

It seems to me that the ambiguity as to whether The Last Jedi "feels like Star Wars" was a deliberate mechanism to move us beyond the confines of the original series. Whereas The Force Awakens was all about reentering the Star Wars universe by re-purposing the original template, The Last Jedi was all about moving beyond the familiar, into yet unknown areas of the universe, by rehashing the familiar template, and deliberately veering in a different direction.