Barely Political, Barely Funny
By Andrew Wallenstein
With the release this week of the latest edition of the Obama Girl series, "Super Obama Girl," I have two questions. One, who out there actually finds this clever? The first version was mildly amusing at best; why it is viral-worthy is mystifying to me. It's not that a hot chick crushing on Barack Obama to the tune of cheesy R&B just doesn't do it for me--there are plenty of things on the Internet that I don't personally go ga-ga for, but I understand their appeal. This, I just don't get what anyone would enjoy here.
Secondly and most importantly, Obama Girl was largely responsible for its host site, Barely Political, getting acquired by Next New Networks, Herb Scannell's growing roster of niche video sites last year. But a visit to the dot-com left me wanting; what is this site really beyond Obama Girl videos and the weakest collection of political-related content I have laid eyes on. In the midst of an election year, you've got to have more than this to attract eyeballs.
Barely Political feels like post-"Landlord" FunnyOrDie.com, a site unwisely built around a single video phenomenon with little else to bring to the table. FunnyOrDie in recent months has corrected the problem and rounded out its content offerings; is Barely Political up to that challenge?
Agreed. This is an attempt by Next New Networks to leverage viral success and a pretty good brand name--which I admire-- but they seem to have neglected the development of any meaningful content associated with the brand. These same vacuous cleavage-loaded music videos can only hit so many times.
I wrote a similar post in November.
http://www.tilzy.tv/news/2007/11/Barely-Watchable.htm
Posted by: Jamison Tilsner | February 02, 2008 at 02:04 PM