New Criticals


Yet after that first semester, quickly following the initial charge I would get from learning the 2008, 2010 and 2012 memes-of-the-moment—each momentarily but forgettably audacious in their own right, this ever-reconfiguring superficial zest being one of the principles of YouTube—I found that my own practice of and pleasures in teaching the class were pretty  routine (and this is not the case for my more traditional looks at more "traditional" subjects that I teach with frequency: say, video art or feminist documentary). Studying and teaching YouTube, for a brief moment in 2007 so scintillating for me and my viral audience, so innovative in its approach, topic, and formats, also became for me—the sole person who had to do it again in each iteration—quickly and utterly boring (another structuring principle of our object of study—boredom motivates staying and clicking—reiterated in my method and pedagogy and writing about it).