Caroline Becker
Final Project
Convergence
12/04/2014
The How To Do It Yourself
Before the advent of “how to” videos on YouTube or other “social media” internet sites in the 21st Century, there were “self-help” videos purchased in retail stores nationwide known as “DIY” instruction tapes, otherwise known as “Do-It-Yourself” videos played on DVD recorders or, before that, VHS or BETA tape cassette machines. “Do it yourself” tapes were basic methods of modifying, repairing or building something as a “lay” or ordinary person, without the aid of an expert or professional.
With Iphone, tablet and laptop “WiFi” internet accessibility commonplace today, we accept “how to” and “do it yourself” videos on YouTube and other sites on the internet as “mainstream” educational tools just as we accepted music videos in our daily lives 20 years ago. It seems “how to” videos are innocent enough: they free us from the grips of “professional” rip-off artists like repair persons or so-called “experts” who use their inside knowledge of a product or service to exploit the ordinary consumer. “How to” videos could be akin to prescription medicines in that they are not needed ordinarily but essential when facing a daunting home improvement project or, in the case of prescriptive medicine, an infection needing temporary antibiotics to fight the spread of a disease.
But what if we over-rely on “how to” videos like some patients abuse prescriptive medicines ordinarily necessary to maintain physical or mental health? How can this be possible? How can “how to” videos be possibly negative if abused by the onlooker? As a young teenager, I used “self-help” instructional basketball videos to supplement, or enhance, what I was taught by AAU, grade and high school coaches in order to learn a
In order to fully grasp and understand “how to” videos, including it’s predecessor “self-help” instructional videos, I am going explain the background and broader context of information about how these videos came about.
I made an outline and, in order to fully understand “how to” on the Web, I had to research the history of it. After extensive research, I realized that before the rise of “DO It-Yourself” culture really exploded on the scene after the Vietnam War in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the Arts and Craft movement relied on written instructional books or magazines, it mainly died out after the First World War. With America becoming more and more mechanized shortly World War II, the DIY movement gained steam in the 1950s and 1960s but, increasingly, an epidemic of DIY interest rapidly spread throughout the “intellectual” and cultural Northeast in the 1970s. In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, the “DIY ethic” could be traced to the explosion of punk rock, indie rock scenes, pirate radio stations and zine communities. Punk bands began to record their music, produce albums, merchandise, distribute and promote their words independently, outside of establishing music industry in residential homes rather than at traditional venues to avoid corporate sponsorship and ensure their creative freedom. There was no internet at the time punk music was distributed but “boot leg tapes” became ordinary, if illegal, means of distributing musical creativity just as jazz or blues were disseminated “undercover” among music enthusiasts in the 1940s and 1950s.
In the 1990s, a countercultural group entitled
“The Riot Grrrrl” blossomed into a little known, but heavily influential,
musical force. They were an underground feminist youth movement dedicated to
empower females in combating sexism, homophobia and sexism worldwide through underground
musical self-expression.
“Riot Grrrrl” adopted the core values of the DIY punk ethic by leveraging creative ways of communication, through zines and other projects, as a means of self-empowerment.
The
DIY punk ethic applied to simple everyday living, like vegetables gardening,
reclaiming recyclable products from otherwise discarded garbage, learning
bicycle repair rather than taking a bike to a mechanic’s shop and so on.
The DIY movement spread through North America and grew into other areas of daily life among young and old enthusiasts but particularly among college and recent-graduate student age groups. The movement involved the renovation of run-down homes but also sparked related projects like vegetable gardening, health and personal growth- improvement culture. This is when Steward Brand published his first edition of The Whole Earth Catalog. which emphasized intellectual endeavor, science, as well as new and old technology.
For years after this, magazines like Mechanic Illustrated and Popular Mechanics offered ways for readers to keep current on useful, practical techniques and skills in home automobile repairs. DIY home improvement books were first created as collection of magazine articles and, eventually, Sunset Books created an extensive line of DIY or “how to” books based on previously published articles from their magazines. In fact, the DIY movement included personal health, wellness and fitness. By the mid-1980s, Jane Fonda revolutionized personal fitness with “how to” instructional videos and, coincidentally, my father partnered with Ms. Fonda’s company to develop work-out wear, using instructional hang-tags showing exercises, such as sweatpants having exercise hangtags for the hips, buttock and thigh areas, attached to the piece of clothing being sold, boutiques he created with Ms. Fonda having her videos, books and clothing, in over 1200 J.C. Penney stores nationwide. Clearly, self-help instructional dissemination was everywhere by the 1990s, on tapes, on cassettes, in stores and “on the street” depending on one’s cultural proclivity. By the mid-1990s, Better Homes
and Gardens as well as Time-Life all followed with their own brand of DIY home-improvement,
personal growth and other videos made for the burgeoning world wide web.
Established in 1995, HouseTips.com was among the first Web-based sites to
deliver free extensive DIY home improvement content created by expert authors.
Sine then, the DIY exploded on the Web through thousands of sites.One organization I came across is
something called Khan Academy. A hedge fund analyst, Salman Khan, invented a
new way of learning math. He produces micro-learning lectures through YouTube
videos. Teachers found Khan Academy and started change the way children were
taught. They used it to flip the classroom.
What does that mean? First, the old way of learning, the student will
sit quietly with no interaction with the teacher and no matter how brilliant or
great the teacher may be, he or she has to teach in this 1 size fits all
structure. Now, with the Khan Academy, the teacher assigns the lectures for
homework and what used to be homework, is now what is being taught. Basically,
a student has a self-paced lecture at home, where he or she can pause and rewind
and not feel embarrassed by asking a teacher to slow down or explain again. By
having the lectures at home, the child will go to school and do the work
problems in class and make interaction as productive as possible
Khan Academy is a paradigm that starts
with the fundamentals from the very beginning whatever subject. The paradigm
generates as many questions as the student may need until he or she gets 10 in
a row. Instead of just passing through the motions and building a foundation
with holes in them, they treat it like learning a bike. When you learn how to
ride a bike, you get on the bike, fall of the bike, stay on, fall off but you
take as long as you need until you can ride that bike.
As the student goes along with the questions/exercises, the Khan Academy collects data from each individual student. Teachers can see how long a student was on a problem, what videos he/she watched, when did they pause the video and what exercises did they do. By using technology with flipping the classroom, Khan is humanizing the classroom, not dehumanizing, it.
The Khan approach can be used with older people who are too embarrassed to ask another human for help. Lets face it, the last thing someone wants to hear is another person asking if “ you understand it?” It avoids the awkward questions. If someone is bored, they can just watch the lectures at the comfort of their own at their own pace.
It even helps the street kids who cant go to school because he needs to work to help support his family. A step after this is, what if that street kid can help you or your children or your children friends making it a rippling effect and causing a globally one-world classroom.
These lectures and videos make “how to” videos essential. Now there are websites like eHow and WikiHow, these are websites of step-by-step instruction with pictures to explain “how to” do practically anything. If an individual wants to learn how to do anything outside of school, now there are thousands of videos on YouTube or on Google.
But, with all the praise and accolades that DIY or “self-help” videos garner, what if they are overused, or misused, in the future? What if Khan Academy instructional videos on mathematics evolves into a substitute for, not a supplement to, classroom videos such as what we are seeing with “online” college instructions from virtual colleges such as University of Phoenix or DeVry University, Capella University or other “online”
virtual, impersonal academic colleges? What if, a decade ago, I followed DIY or self-help
instructional videos on basketball techniques and, instead of having a high school basketball team or an travelling AAU “elite” girls basketball program for teenage girls, I was told that I could learn “virtually” instead of practicing with real teammates or against live opposition? What if sports, instead of teaching cooperation and teamwork, became isolating through self-taught videos which undermined the core values of team sports? Could some “talking head”, bean-counting Administrator at any academic level undercut
I know there will be cries that my hesitancies are unfounded; that I am delusional or totally paranoid about the possible misuse of DIY videos. After all, wouldn’t it be great if an athletic instructional video mirrored the “Wii” experience and actually captured your image-form and showed you what you are doing wrong, from a form approach, athletically. But, with every blessing, there is a curse. And the possibility of someone misusing a virtual instructional “Wii” video “game” by substituting it for real life, hands-on instruction by a professional coach, teacher or instructor makes me hesitate, and even long for, days past when DIY represented a thumbnail instructional
“sketch” of what to do; when self-help videos were just that, not “self” or being alone videos and when life was real, not virtual, as it is in many ways today.
Final Project
Convergence
12/04/2014
The How To Do It Yourself
Before the advent of “how to” videos on YouTube or other “social media” internet sites in the 21st Century, there were “self-help” videos purchased in retail stores nationwide known as “DIY” instruction tapes, otherwise known as “Do-It-Yourself” videos played on DVD recorders or, before that, VHS or BETA tape cassette machines. “Do it yourself” tapes were basic methods of modifying, repairing or building something as a “lay” or ordinary person, without the aid of an expert or professional.
With Iphone, tablet and laptop “WiFi” internet accessibility commonplace today, we accept “how to” and “do it yourself” videos on YouTube and other sites on the internet as “mainstream” educational tools just as we accepted music videos in our daily lives 20 years ago. It seems “how to” videos are innocent enough: they free us from the grips of “professional” rip-off artists like repair persons or so-called “experts” who use their inside knowledge of a product or service to exploit the ordinary consumer. “How to” videos could be akin to prescription medicines in that they are not needed ordinarily but essential when facing a daunting home improvement project or, in the case of prescriptive medicine, an infection needing temporary antibiotics to fight the spread of a disease.
But what if we over-rely on “how to” videos like some patients abuse prescriptive medicines ordinarily necessary to maintain physical or mental health? How can this be possible? How can “how to” videos be possibly negative if abused by the onlooker? As a young teenager, I used “self-help” instructional basketball videos to supplement, or enhance, what I was taught by AAU, grade and high school coaches in order to learn a
In order to fully grasp and understand “how to” videos, including it’s predecessor “self-help” instructional videos, I am going explain the background and broader context of information about how these videos came about.
I made an outline and, in order to fully understand “how to” on the Web, I had to research the history of it. After extensive research, I realized that before the rise of “DO It-Yourself” culture really exploded on the scene after the Vietnam War in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the Arts and Craft movement relied on written instructional books or magazines, it mainly died out after the First World War. With America becoming more and more mechanized shortly World War II, the DIY movement gained steam in the 1950s and 1960s but, increasingly, an epidemic of DIY interest rapidly spread throughout the “intellectual” and cultural Northeast in the 1970s. In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, the “DIY ethic” could be traced to the explosion of punk rock, indie rock scenes, pirate radio stations and zine communities. Punk bands began to record their music, produce albums, merchandise, distribute and promote their words independently, outside of establishing music industry in residential homes rather than at traditional venues to avoid corporate sponsorship and ensure their creative freedom. There was no internet at the time punk music was distributed but “boot leg tapes” became ordinary, if illegal, means of distributing musical creativity just as jazz or blues were disseminated “undercover” among music enthusiasts in the 1940s and 1950s.
In the 1990s, a countercultural group entitled
“The Riot Grrrrl” blossomed into a little known, but heavily influential,
musical force. They were an underground feminist youth movement dedicated to
empower females in combating sexism, homophobia and sexism worldwide through underground
musical self-expression.“Riot Grrrrl” adopted the core values of the DIY punk ethic by leveraging creative ways of communication, through zines and other projects, as a means of self-empowerment.
The
DIY punk ethic applied to simple everyday living, like vegetables gardening,
reclaiming recyclable products from otherwise discarded garbage, learning
bicycle repair rather than taking a bike to a mechanic’s shop and so on.The DIY movement spread through North America and grew into other areas of daily life among young and old enthusiasts but particularly among college and recent-graduate student age groups. The movement involved the renovation of run-down homes but also sparked related projects like vegetable gardening, health and personal growth- improvement culture. This is when Steward Brand published his first edition of The Whole Earth Catalog. which emphasized intellectual endeavor, science, as well as new and old technology.
For years after this, magazines like Mechanic Illustrated and Popular Mechanics offered ways for readers to keep current on useful, practical techniques and skills in home automobile repairs. DIY home improvement books were first created as collection of magazine articles and, eventually, Sunset Books created an extensive line of DIY or “how to” books based on previously published articles from their magazines. In fact, the DIY movement included personal health, wellness and fitness. By the mid-1980s, Jane Fonda revolutionized personal fitness with “how to” instructional videos and, coincidentally, my father partnered with Ms. Fonda’s company to develop work-out wear, using instructional hang-tags showing exercises, such as sweatpants having exercise hangtags for the hips, buttock and thigh areas, attached to the piece of clothing being sold, boutiques he created with Ms. Fonda having her videos, books and clothing, in over 1200 J.C. Penney stores nationwide. Clearly, self-help instructional dissemination was everywhere by the 1990s, on tapes, on cassettes, in stores and “on the street” depending on one’s cultural proclivity.
Khan Academy is a paradigm that starts
with the fundamentals from the very beginning whatever subject. The paradigm
generates as many questions as the student may need until he or she gets 10 in
a row. Instead of just passing through the motions and building a foundation
with holes in them, they treat it like learning a bike. When you learn how to
ride a bike, you get on the bike, fall of the bike, stay on, fall off but you
take as long as you need until you can ride that bike.As the student goes along with the questions/exercises, the Khan Academy collects data from each individual student. Teachers can see how long a student was on a problem, what videos he/she watched, when did they pause the video and what exercises did they do. By using technology with flipping the classroom, Khan is humanizing the classroom, not dehumanizing, it.
The Khan approach can be used with older people who are too embarrassed to ask another human for help. Lets face it, the last thing someone wants to hear is another person asking if “ you understand it?” It avoids the awkward questions. If someone is bored, they can just watch the lectures at the comfort of their own at their own pace.
It even helps the street kids who cant go to school because he needs to work to help support his family. A step after this is, what if that street kid can help you or your children or your children friends making it a rippling effect and causing a globally one-world classroom.
These lectures and videos make “how to” videos essential. Now there are websites like eHow and WikiHow, these are websites of step-by-step instruction with pictures to explain “how to” do practically anything. If an individual wants to learn how to do anything outside of school, now there are thousands of videos on YouTube or on Google.
But, with all the praise and accolades that DIY or “self-help” videos garner, what if they are overused, or misused, in the future? What if Khan Academy instructional videos on mathematics evolves into a substitute for, not a supplement to, classroom videos such as what we are seeing with “online” college instructions from virtual colleges such as University of Phoenix or DeVry University, Capella University or other “online”
virtual, impersonal academic colleges? What if, a decade ago, I followed DIY or self-help
instructional videos on basketball techniques and, instead of having a high school basketball team or an travelling AAU “elite” girls basketball program for teenage girls, I was told that I could learn “virtually” instead of practicing with real teammates or against live opposition? What if sports, instead of teaching cooperation and teamwork, became isolating through self-taught videos which undermined the core values of team sports? Could some “talking head”, bean-counting Administrator at any academic level undercut
I know there will be cries that my hesitancies are unfounded; that I am delusional or totally paranoid about the possible misuse of DIY videos. After all, wouldn’t it be great if an athletic instructional video mirrored the “Wii” experience and actually captured your image-form and showed you what you are doing wrong, from a form approach, athletically. But, with every blessing, there is a curse. And the possibility of someone misusing a virtual instructional “Wii” video “game” by substituting it for real life, hands-on instruction by a professional coach, teacher or instructor makes me hesitate, and even long for, days past when DIY represented a thumbnail instructional
“sketch” of what to do; when self-help videos were just that, not “self” or being alone videos and when life was real, not virtual, as it is in many ways today.
Work Cited
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Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 3 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/do-it-yourself>.
Wolf, Marco, and
Shaun Mcquitty. "Understanding the Do-it-yourself Consumer: DIY
Motivations and Outcomes." AMS Review (2011): 154-70. Understanding
the Do-it-yourself Consumer: DIY Motivations and Outcomes. Springer-Verlag.
Web. 29 Nov. 2014.
<http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13162-011-0021-2>.
MOROZOV, EVGENY.
"Making It - The New Yorker." The New Yorker. Web. 3 Dec.
2014. <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/13/making-it-2>.
Brunell, Miriam. Girlhood
in America an Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2001. Print.
Chandler, Meghan.
"Grrrls and Dolls: Appropriated Images of Girlhood in the Works of Hans
Bellmer and Riot Grrrl Bands." Visual Culture & Gender. Web. 3 Dec.
2014. <http://vcg.emitto.net/6vol/Chandler.pdf>.
"Whole Earth
Catalog." History of. Web. 3 Dec. 2014.
<http://wholeearth.com/history-whole-earth-catalog.php>.
Godfred, Melody.
"2013 Met Gala -." Write In Color. 7 May 2013. Web. 28 Nov.
2014.
<http://www.writeincolor.com/2013/05/07/2013-met-gala-punk-couture-and-the-power-of-creative-collaborations/>.
"SF Oracle, The
Houseboat Summit | Vallejo Ferryboat." SF Oracle, The Houseboat Summit
| Vallejo Ferryboat. 1 Feb. 1967. Web. 4 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.vallejo.to/articles/summit_pt1.htm>.
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