[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPJSjnizxu4]
Storytelling is an art form, but it isn’t solely the purview of artists. Video “Trashed iPhone and iPad!” is good example. The video isn’t the most sophisticated filmmaking, but the story is compelling: A guy arrives at his office and realizes that he has neither iPad nor iPhone. He last remembers placing them on a box while taking out the trash. He is everyman. Who can’t relate to the mistake or fear of making it? Thus begins Eric Boehs’ quest to recover the trashed items, and because he is everyman, his hero’s journey is ours. There is suspense, doubt and supernatural influence (“Find my iPhone”).
I came across the video at Gizmodo, which did the storytellers a disservice. Rosa Golijan embeds the YouTube video but then summarizes it in two paragraphs. She should have linked and encouraged Giz readers to click through and view. When I first watched the video yesterday, there were a little more than 8,000 views and today a little less than 18,000. I expected to see a huge increase—tens of thousands—in number of views, driven at the least from Giz’s techie readership. I must blame Rosa’s summary, which robbed many possible viewers of a story that really is about them.