Member-only story
The Salt Bae Viral Videos Are Television Outside of Time
Why TikTok viewers may be fascinated by a celebrity chef performing the same old tricks
Fifteen years ago I started to study YouTube content and web television. It was at the dawn of a new era. New formulas, new characters, experimental television, no more gatekeepers! However, for the most part, web television was just television on the web.
Webseries were a type of new media television that emerged after the bubbling lava of early YouTube cooled. It appeared to be a new medium of entertainment, unconstrained by regulation, network clocks or advertisers. However, when watching some of the earliest standout shows, from We Need Girlfriends to The Guild to Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager, it became apparent that even when the content pressed the boundaries of the structure of traditional television, it still resembled traditional media.
Even creators who “tried” to bend the rules perpetuated old models and upheld the hegemony of television codes like framing, formats, pacing and story elements. Thankfully the structure shifted and enabled creators marginalized by traditional media to get their work seen. Issa Rae’s AWKWARD Black Girl series stands out. But it’s still television.
