Hats Off: Web Series

For my first entry here on Cheshire Cat Studios, I'd like to discuss a topic, or rather a medium I've been keeping a close eye on for quite some time, and that is "Web Series".

"We're the next generation television network," vivaciously announces Blip, completely oblivious of the fact that most of the schlock featured on the main page is either your generic overused and crocked "Internet Reviews" or just some plain atrocious dross that any competent TV Network wouldn't even consider watching, let alone airing.

Now, you can easily call me conservative (I wear an old-fashioned hat, use antiquated lingo in my vocabulary and most of my favorite rock bands come from the 60s and 70s), but what I’ve honestly never considered myself is close-minded. You see, as embarrassing as it is to admit this, but for the longest time I've been quite skeptical and disdainful towards the Internet as a credible outlet for creative and original ideas, erroneously convinced that such obnoxious and pretentious dross like Fred or The Annoying Orange is basically as good as the medium is ever going to get, with only occasional hidden gems like "I'm A Marvel... And I'm A DC" and "Red Vs Blue" preserving the entire industry from permanently falling into endless obscurity.

However, I'm pleased to announce that the superb and remarkable quality of such creative and engrossing Web Series like "The Dirty Do Gooders" and the recently released "Mortal Kombat: Legacy" (the review is coming soon, I promise) have finally proved me wrong by clearly demonstrating the hidden true potential of this relatively young yet highly promising medium! Engrossing storytelling, likeable characters and enthralling blazing action - all of this is something you'd expect from a high quality TV-Series or even a big budget feature film, and yet all of this could've been seen in a modest and meek made for the Internet show!

This is the real future of the industry, children, not some obese twenty something year old looser sitting in front of a web-cam in his mother's basement, talking about Anime figurines

So why don't we see more top-notch and presentable series like that, you ask? He-he, now this is where we get to the gist of this article. You see, in my humble opinion there are two unfortunate reasons for that:

...Hm, well, ok, you obviously shouldn't take The Internet too seriously if you want to keep your sanity unimpaired 'till the end of the day, but the point I'm laboriously trying to get to is the fact that most people don't even know they can do something different, let alone creative, on the Internet.

Here's what I mean: say, you were to conduct some kind of a special survey in order to make a list of some of the most popular shows on the Internet. So, what do you think will be the results? I'll tell you what: the experiment would just show that your average poor hapless misguided Internet user will inevitably be subjected to such insufferable crap like Ray William Johnson (yes, 'cos some pretentious ignoramus sitting in front of a camera yammering about stuff no one gives a flying toss about is the kind of show that will broaden your horizons and enrich your life), YouTube Poop (believe it or not, but people are still into that schlock) and - least we forget - the constant and ubiquitous Internet reviews, though, on reflection, that's a completely different story (more on that in future entries!)

So, as disenchanting as this sounds, with such fatal and pernicious influence there is basically no way your average Bill Todgers or Suzie McRack can comprehend the true potential of the medium and contribute something beneficial for the enrichment of the entire industry, rather than, you know, being a parasite on this or that forum, bitching and arguing about stuff anyone with even the slightest shed of dignity or intelligence wouldn't ever care about (friendly trolling I can tolerate, flame-wars not so much).