On today’s #WebSeriesWednesday I followed the new series Gunderson, a raunchy, R rated pile of fun. Thinking more about it, I’m kind of surprised that youtube has been ok with it, considering their ‘could you show this video to your grandmother’ policy – I would not let my grandma anywhere near this series, and you shouldn’t either… But maybe check it out for yourself.
Gunderson seems to exemplify something of a cultural movement I’ve been noticing in web video. Cheap camcorders, and lots of down time in small towns has led to many young people taking up video production. Series like Gunderson are a semi-scripted, documentary like look into modern youth culture, but loaded with tons of exaggerations.
The show recalls my experiences in college making silly videos about that awkward age where you are too old to be a kid but you still act like one. After watching tons of series online this is perhaps the most common theme, in fact I think you can see it running through some shows previously featured on this blog such as ‘The Big Time Show’ and ‘Midwest Underground.’
Web series like ‘Gunderson’ are emerging in a similar fashion as rap did in the 80’s – where the high cost of music production was taken out of the equation and a whole culture of individuals who had previously been financially locked out of the system began expressing themselves in their own way.
Today web series are becoming a method of expression for a generation of youth who have been hit especially hard by a global financial let down. No money of their own, lots of time on their hands, zero Hollywood connections and a cheap camcorder make for a recipe of creative explosion – or maybe I’m just waxing philosophical like our protagonist Gunderson…
Anyhoo you guys can check out ‘Gunderson’ over on their site http://gunderson.tv – a new episode will be ‘dropping’ this Monday the 4th!