Linked: “The Silent Film Returns — on Social Media”

via NYTIMES:

The summer’s hottest destination for video entertainment is a U.K.-based social media brand called LADbible. In July alone, the viral clips that churn out of its Facebook page were viewed more than 3 billion times. Though the site is nominally branded around young British men, its offerings hold an oddly universal appeal. On a recent afternoon, it served up videos of a guy accidentally hitting himself in the head with a baseball bat; a pizza being made out of French fries; a dog bathing in a Jacuzzi; a woodworker crafting a salad bowl; a tourist riding a slide down the Great Wall of China and a manatee kissing a snorkeler.

The videos are curated from disparate sources, filmed on smartphones and GoPros around the world, but they all have one thing in common: They’re best watched silently. If they even have sound, it’s completely beside the point.

I don’t use social media so I have zero exposure to this but I went on YouTube to find videos uploaded by Business Insider and BuzzFeed because if anyone is making these, it’s these two. I imagine Mashable probably got on this band-wagon as well. Sure enough, photos with blue blocky text explaining what you’re seeing in the video. The video itself acts more like B-Roll because the consumer is reading instead of watching and if you keep it on mute, not much is lost because it’s usually just upbeat music with spoken word by a narrator best summarized by the content of the blocky text. Here’s a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzxY2-60I-0.

Notably, 1.5 minutes in length, can be watched silently. Ignoring the fact that I’d never consume a video on a tiny phone screen and rarely my 9.7” iPad Pro, don’t people have headphones that they can put on? Is that too much effort now?

I see my girlfriend browse through SnapChat w/o any audio on so I guess it’s a thing now but I’d prefer she do what I do and dedicate time to consume online video on her laptop or TV using our $800 wireless sound-bar with subwoofer than stare blankly into her phone for an hour a day.

Even when I commuted on the subway, I’d read long-form editorials and books or listen to them via Audible. Do subways even have cell phone service now?