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The internet has been criticized as killing person to person contact and making people out of touch with the world. However the internet is also an amazing way to connect people in different ways. Stories don’t stop at the local neighborhood meet up, an article in the newspaper, a radio show or even on national TV. Big or small, a story can be read by nearly anyone, anywhere. In addition, art, knowledge and passion can all be passed through the wires of the world wide web. Although people of power and prestige still create much of the culture of our world, the internet has allowed each person to pass something onto a stranger or even a million strangers. This mass exposure, this unraveling of distance is commonly called the democratization of media and it has touched me so greatly that I wish to contribute as I am doing here at SGB. With this in mind, I want to feature a few of my favorite sources of inspiration, interest, and awe that I have found online. I hope to have a few separate posts, focusing on different aspects of online media with this one starting the series by touching on a few favorite online videos. Below you will find videos I have collected over the years from all over the internet. Each touches on different things, but taught me something new.

See the videos after the jump:

Free Hugs Campaign - Website

I’d been living in London when my world turned upside down and I’d had to come home. By the time my plane landed back in Sydney, all I had left was a carry on bag full of clothes and a world of troubles. No one to welcome me back, no place to call home. I was a tourist in my hometown.

Standing there in the arrivals terminal, watching other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family, with open arms and smiling faces, hugging and laughing together, I wanted someone out there to be waiting for me. To be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me.

So I got some cardboard and a marker and made a sign. I found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign aloft, with the words “Free Hugs” on both sides.

And for 15 minutes, people just stared right through me. The first person who stopped, tapped me on the shoulder and told me how her dog had just died that morning. How that morning had been the one year anniversary of her only daughter dying in a car accident. How what she needed now, when she felt most alone in the world, was a hug. I got down on one knee, we put our arms around each other and when we parted, she was smiling.

Everyone has problems and for sure mine haven’t compared. But to see someone who was once frowning, smile even for a moment, is worth it every time.

Le Grand Content - Website

Le Grand Content examines the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand ‘association-chain-massacre’. which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more. Of course, it totally fails this assignment, but in its failure it still manages to produce some magical nuance and shades between the great topics death, cable tv, emotions and hamsters.

Kiwi - Interview with creator

“Kiwi!” is an animation about a Kiwi - a type of bird that cannot fly, who spends its whole life working towards achieving his dream. The kiwi strived to create the illusion that it was flying over a forest as it soared down through the sky from the top of a cliff. Thus, the kiwi spent what must have been its whole life nailing trees to the side of a cliff. All this, to fulfil its one dream of flying, even though it was technically unable to. There are several powerful messages behind Kiwi, but mainly, it makes you think: no matter how absurd and seemingly out of reach your dreams are, what’s stopping you from achieving them? Kiwi’s had a huge online success, with currently over 1.75 million views and 9000 comments on the online video site ‘YouTube’ in approximately just 3 days. The animation has been recently featured on YouTube and currently ranks in at the #1 favorited video in the arts and animation category of all time. As I’m sure you’ll agree, “Kiwi!” is an inspiration to us all.

Where The Hell Is Matt - Website

Matt is a 30-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. He achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around the planet until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.

A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt the idea of dancing everywhere he went and recording it on his camera. This turned out to be a very good idea. Now Matt is quasi-famous as “That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny.”

Interview:

Lapses in Light - Website

Lapses in Light is film born out of a desire to challenge myself to create moving image on par with the fantastic work from the likes of Ron Fricke. I wanted to push every aspect of my knowledge, and technical artistry, expanding the boundaries of what can be achieved on a minimal budget, using off the shelf hardware.

I have always had a fascination with the pace of man, and nature. The balance of subtleness and out right chaos. Time-lapse opens a perspective we can only see snippets of in our day to day lives, yet we all experience and can relate to the images portrayed. They are timeless, and appeal to almost everybody, especially me.

NYChildren - Website

Photographer Danny Goldfield has set out to photograph one child from every country on Earth all living in New York City.