Rock TV’s YouTube Flare-Up
About a year ago, Rock TV finished a video called America’s Next Top Pastor. As our videos go, it was a decently successful satire on some of the issues in the American church today, particularly regarding people’s expectations of their pastors - that they be “cool”, relevant, funny, and cuddly, but never challenging or willing to discuss unpopular issues. It also featured Beaker.
The video was posted on YouTube when it first came out, and over the last year, it managed to collect just over 12,000 views and become the most watched Rock TV ever. Unbelieveably, the video was featured on the front page of YouTube yesterday, and has been viewed over 100,000 times in the last 24 hours. That is completely nuts.
The most interesting facet of this recent spotlight is the comments the video has garnered - a mix of positive and negative. Generally speaking, the positive feedback seems to have come from Christians (which makes sense, given that the satire would only really hit home with somebody familiar with today’s Christian landscape). Much more amusing are the negative comments, a few of which I am happy to share with you now:
ducktill writes:
I didnt laugh once , how come?
I don’t know, ducktill. Did your cat get run over recently?
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oXxBENNYxX0 writes:
Be very care folks !!
joking about Gods stuff/PPL is like playing with a mad viper !!
trust benny !!
and ya NEVER really know ,Sometimes who IS real/Really Gods !
Eloquently stated, sir. I shall indeed trust Benny in the future, because ya never really know who IS real/Really Gods, whatever the hell that means…
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AznElf1 writes:
Boo, this is completely painting another view on us. Is this what America has gone to? I think so.
I can’t make heads or tails of this. Who is “us”? What view have we painted on them? Why is an Asian Elf watching Rock TVs?
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TJZA1986 writes:
what a sh*t. My time was wasted watching this.
you clearly don’t have anything good to be done out of your meaningless lives.
Excellent point, and quality insight. Hopefully my honorable suicide can still set things right.
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koreaboi6 writes:
i found this very offensive…as i’m sure many other people did
some of it sounded like a weak imitation of dane cook to me. anyway, they didn’t have to involve pastors and christianity. pastors really have a rough time in the increasingly secular world today. i find comedy that doesnt aim for a larger audience and that offenses a large population very inefficient
Thanks for paying attention to the video, koreaboi.
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And finally, supershroom164 writes:
no wonder America is sucking so much.
America wastes money on stupid offensive productions that arnt even funny.
This video cost our ministry about $60 to make - it was spent constructing the Beaker puppet. Apparently this money tipped the scales toward our nation’s cultural demise. On behalf of Rock TV, I would like to apologize to supershroom and the world.
Categories:
July 9th, 2008 at 10:38 am
This blog is the other reason America is sucking so much.
It often offenses me in a very inefficient way.
Stop painting another view on me!
July 9th, 2008 at 11:51 am
I thought it was funny. Very clever in it’s use of a pop culture touchstone such as American Idol and America’s Next Top Model to make an insightful barb at the modern evangelical culture. Keep it up.
BTW, all 9 seasons of my hit show the X-Files are available on DVD, pick them up before going to see my new X-Files movie.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Is This:
oXxBENNYxX0 writes:
Be very care folks !!
joking about Gods stuff/PPL is like playing with a mad viper !!
trust benny !!
and ya NEVER really know ,Sometimes who IS real/Really Gods !
Even really qualify as a “criticism”? It seems like most of the critics are…well, not the best with language skills as I can’t understand what half of them are trying to say. Or do most people who commented at Youtube drink in excess before typing? Or just the ones you highlighted, Peter?
July 9th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I like the comments along the lines of “this was a waste of 6 minutes of my life”, as though they were well on their way to the Nobel Peace prize before our little church video deterred their efforts.
Sorry to distract you from your Rihanna videos, dude.
We are still on the front page of Youtube, btw.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
See…if we had more nudity in Rock TVs…we’d get more posite commentary. But no one ever listens to me…
July 9th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Thom, for the last time, you have to wear pants at the shoots, whether on screen or off.
Why do we keep having to have this discussion with you?
July 9th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I am just thinking of the ministry, man.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Ha! Those are great. I love how utterly incoherent they sound!
July 9th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
it’s still on the front page….and these comments caught my eye:
leadingbyxample
This is too funny! 99% of the pastors out there are just as superficial.
ilovehimm2012
thats not true. there may be some of them but i know a lot that aren’t considering i’m a pastors granddaughter
Well that’s good, since she’s the granddaughter for one pastor, obviously she knows the Rock TV is garbage. i’m sure after watching ANTP, she went for the more civilized Hannah Montana video.
i also would like to state that i was a fan of Rock TV long before it became a youtube phenomenon.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
and also, i’m proud of you guys, just remember us lowly blog commenters when you hit the big time producing videos for Kanye and Maroon 5.
July 9th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Is it possible that RockTV could produce videos for Bryan Adams?
July 10th, 2008 at 12:03 am
“ilovehimm2012
thats not true. there may be some of them but i know a lot that aren’t considering i’m a pastors granddaughter”
And, wouldn’t you know it, ilovehimm2012 has a Rihanna video amongst her favorites.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Okay, this one is now my favorite:
currypollo
great concept. poor execution. the scary thing is, I would watch this if Fox picks it up.
As Rock TV’s director of photography, I was a little offended by the “poor execution” comment at first. Then I went and checked out currypollo’s favorites. Not enough of a health food message in our video, I suppose. Also, ours came to a conclusion, rather than just cutting off in the middle of some dialogue.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I didnt know this… freaking awesome
August 14th, 2008 at 9:43 am
also… this is my new favorite
dragoonhog (1 week ago) Show Hide 0 Marked as spam Reply | Spam John Connelly should have won instead of a puppet. But Jasper Stax is an idiot. If you can’t mention God or Tithes in church you can’t be a pastor. Jasper is just trying to not offend anyone but when it comes to church you will always we criticized. Preach what you will please God and not the crowd. The judges sucked too. I don’t think the judges are christian. Bunch of Bullshit. John was the best out of all the other ammatures.
(he does know it isnt real right?)