The MySpace Movie

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MySpace: The Movie
Directed by	David Lehre
Produced by	Reese Serra
Written by	David Lehre
Starring	Jeremy Kerr Joe Laduke Rick Joyce Mike Metz David Lehre
Distributed by	Vendetta Studios
Release date(s)	2005
Running time	11 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$10,000-

The MySpace Movie, also known as myspace: the movie, is the name of a short independent film and viral video created by Vendetta Studios and David Lehre Productions which are based out of Washington, Michigan. Its name refers to MySpace, the social networking website which it parodies.

Two years later, a new video by Lehre was released, but instead of MySpace, focused on Facebook.

Contents 1 Plot and outline 1.1 The blind date 1.2 The bulletin 1.3 The password 1.4 The party 2 Vendetta Studios 2.1 David Lehre Productions 3 Publicity 4 Reactions 5 See also 6 References

[edit] Plot and outline

The MySpace Movie explores the basics of life as well as disputed territories located within the MySpace site in a humorous and parodic fashion. Themes of this movie include:

• Capturing profile images.
• Dating on MySpace.
• Excessive chain bulletins.
• MySpace's "Top 8" feature.
• A humorous portrayal of Tom Anderson, the "creator" of MySpace.

[edit] The blind date

This story opens with two males sitting in front of a computer and the first male attempts to show off his prize catch, a woman named Yeta, whose profile they are both examining. His friend believes that the woman has "The Angles", a term referring to the practice of taking photographs from such extreme angles as to obscure or distort the person in question, thus implying that the user is insecure about their image and, presumably, unattractive. He also insists that the woman's name is not Yeta, but Yeti. Shortly afterwards the first male receives a telephone call from the woman in question, whose audible voice bears a close resemblance to that of Chewbacca from Star Wars. They arrange a date for the evening, with the friend insisting upon chaperoning. Once the two meet, the man is horrified to observe that his date is masculine, grunting, and lurching. She immediately rubs up against him, asking "Do you want to see the Angry Beaver?", a now popular quote.

David Lehre (the creator) stars in this chapter.

[edit] The bulletin

This begins with a man reading a bulletin, and having to scroll down excessively. It then reads that if he doesn't repost, he will first hear a duck call, then be killed by a crazy drunken hunter asking for circus peanuts. This is commonly found in many MySpace bulletins today. Finally, during his last moments of life he will see a singing fish. He casually ignores the bulletin as a joke, and is soon thereafter killed precisely as described. The scene takes place in Reese Serra's apartment.

[edit] The password

A prominent feature of MySpace is that of the "Top 8" (Although you may have a "top" of as many as 40), which is essentially the ability to display upon a user's profile page a link to 40 of his chosen friends. In this scene a couple at a computer are arguing; the woman is complaining about her partner's choice of Top 8 friends, expressing dissatisfaction at the fact that she is not among them, as well as questioning the integrity of those present. After demanding his password, she is able to log in and see the rest of his pictures, which include photographs of his participation in lewd activities, including that of judging a wet T-shirt competition. In this scene one can see the email address joejoe227@yahoo.com.

[edit] The party

This short segment proposes a humorous theory as to the origin of MySpace creator Tom Anderson's default profile picture - arriving at a college party, where he is immediately the center of attention. (This directly alludes to the fact that whenever a new profile on MySpace is made, Anderson is automatically added as the user's first friend. For this reason, Anderson's profile has over two hundred million friends, and in the movie it is humorously assumed that every one of those people is a close friend of his). Later on, Anderson consumes copious amounts of pizza, alcohol, and even cocaine. A short time later, presumably the morning after, the crowd of MySpace users from the previous evening open the bathroom door while Anderson is vomiting, and take his picture as he hunches over the bowl, resembling Anderson's actual profile picture.

[edit] Vendetta Studios

Vendetta Studios, the credited production company, is not classified as an official Motion Picture Production Company on the Internet Movie Database.

Vendetta Studios' work can be found on YouTube. There are, however, two other production companies with similar names: "Vendetta Films" and "Vendetta FX". Vendetta states that it is not in any way associated with MySpace.

[edit] David Lehre Productions

David Lehre Productions, like Vendetta Studios, is not an official production company; instead, it is run by a single man.

[edit] Publicity

After its creation, a YouTube user named eggtea uploaded the video to YouTube, then posted bulletins & comments on MySpace which circulated containing the MySpace Movie. At that time eggtea was a MySpace user that had 1,000+ friends. Eggtea states that his friends were individually picked based on how popular they were on MySpace and how many friends they had.^[1] Eggtea downloaded The MySpace Movie as soon as it was uploaded to Vendetta Studios's website (on January 28 2006).^[2] Eggtea posted the video on YouTube 3 days later (on January 31 2006)^[2] then immediately posted the YouTube video all over MySpace which then spread around MySpace as one of the first mainstream YouTube videos on MySpace. The video spread to other viral sites soon after.

The Myspace Movie appeared in its first article in the L.A. Times called "His MySpace Odyessey" ^[2] which was republished across multiple Times websites. This was the first publicly written article to have YouTube and MySpace written about together. Eggtea explains that he "did this on purpose to test a cross promotion/viral marketing theory dealing with communities, and websites in general." (by writing this wikipedia article).^[1]

On March 7, a few weeks after the article about The Myspace Movie appeared in the L.A. Times YouTube sent eggtea an email expressing that the MySpace video is a copyright infringement. YouTube did not delete the video. Also keep in mind that a large portion of the videos on YouTube are copyright infringements (If eggtea could link to the email from his inbox then it would be here as a reference.)

MySpace the Movie was the first video to hit 1,000,000 views and stayed as the top video until the deletion of The MySpace Movie and eggtea's account on August 2 2006, because of another copyright infringement claim. The video and eggtea's account just happened to be deleted a month prior to Google buying YouTube in October 2006.^[3]

Eggtea aka Tony Graham is currently seeking more information and stats about YouTube/MySpace, and The MySpace Movie. He suspects his actions are what made YouTube, and partially MySpace so big. This would confirm his theory of viral/cross promotion through communities. He also states that The MySpace Video was unintentionally made by David Lehre as the initial viral advertising of MySpace and cross promotion of YouTube that was the other half of the pie for Eggtea's theory. Eggtea claims that he could have placed The MySpace Movie on another video site, and the same thing would have happened, but to another site with MySpace.^[2]

[edit] Reactions

Reaction to the film can be summed up in the fact that it became an Internet phenomenon almost overnight; indeed, more than 10 copies of the movie were produced on the popular filmsharing website YouTube. Reaction has extended beyond the social networking sites and into the mainstream media including mentions in Boston Globe^[4], San Francisco Chronicle ^[5], and the New York Times.^[6]. The world-wide attention that the video received earned the video's creator, David Lehre, the opportunity to develop a pilot for Fox Television.

[edit] See also

• YouTube
• Viral video
• MySpace
• Pastiche
• List of Internet phenomena

[edit] References