1938 Media’s distribution deal with Verizon, announced just a week ago, is history.
Yesterday a group of “civil rights activists” protested the deal and threatened to boycott Verizon. The reason? A 2007 video that Feldman created called “TechNigga” that the groups say is racist.
The video was not included on Verizon, and television reports that Verizon financed the video are incorrect. But Feldman confirmed to me that all 1938 Media videos were removed by Verizon yesterday and that they terminated the relationship today.
There is almost certainly a back story to this that may unwind over the coming days. Feldman has been in the spotlight recently for a set of puppet videos that originally mocked new media consultant Shel Israel (and later others including me, Loic LeMeur and Dave Winer). A lot of people were angry with Feldman over the parodies (and I drew criticism for covering the story) – and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone helped organize the early stages of this protest.
So what’s your opinion? Is the video racist? Should Verizon have stood by Feldman? Tell us in the comments.
I find it interesting that the rest of the world is just now learning about said video. It’s been almost a year…
Stupid reason to pull it… But thank god. 1938 is a waste of bandwidth.
I don’t get Arrington’s fascination or friendship with Loren.
Maybe he just doesn’t want a puppet made of him.
black tech blogs just like the parody video exist:
http://www.nigg...gory/technology
gotta love the media.
That video is extremely dis-tasteful. Crossing the line..
All things considered, that video is very racist. I personally don’t see what the big deal is though. People take things too seriously.
Last comment… “my company”…
You’re a dude with a camera…
Oh wait, a laptop with a built in camera.
The production quality is shit. Professional comedian? The guy video blogs and makes fun of others ventures. What bull$hit!
why can black people say that word and people accept it in rap songs and they call themselves that all the time but a white person says it and its blasphemy? just wondering…
If a black guy made that video, it would be laughed at, and probably promoted…!
I thought it was hilarious, but that’s because I have a sense of humor.
These “civil rights activists” are the only people keeping the notion of racism alive with their reverse discrimination… Get over it already and rejoice in the fact that you’re going to have a black president!
Get a sense of humor Verizon, and the rest of you liberals…
I’d like to see Loren’s “history” of promoting racism. Aside from one satirical video? I doubt there is any. I don’t know Loren, but my father’s family is from the same small town on Long Island, and it’s not “that kind of place.” Despite all the crap about ShelPuppet, I will not accept that Loren Feldman is a Racist. However, I will say that Verizon is guilty of cowardice and reactionary tendencies. Perhaps still smarting from the NARAL Short Code debacle?
One video? One year old video? That’s all it took?
And Loren’s content isn’t even pushed. You want it? You view it. Imus is broadcasted – the ultimate “push.”
Please. How about we organize a day of protest and withhold our Verizon bills for a bit. Ordinary non-activists have clout, too.
anon and jimmeee, you need to relax. the video was fun and Jim is right, if chappelle did it, it would have been labeled as hilarious…
but we are turning this into a race thing, and it really is not. nice job from verizon, they proved to be a stand-up company.
What’s with the conspiracy theory about “and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone helped organize the early stages of this protest.”?? Seriously, if “someone” had that power – wouldn’t they have used it some time in the past 6 months?
More probable is that someone saw Loren’s content on Verizon VCast – googled him, and up popped the TechNigga controversy. It’s not like it’s exactly “hidden.” Hell, put Loren Feldman into Google and it’s the 3rd entry:
“Loren Feldman: TechNigga and the Don Imus of Silicon Valley
I want to apologize to all the black tech bloggers It could have been any ethnic group It could have.
valleywag.com/tech/loren-feldman/technigga-and-the-don-imus-of-silicon-valley-287091.php -”
It’s not like it needed some secret cabal for someone who wasn’t necessarily aware of it last year to hear about it and get offended.
It’s too bad for Loren though. But nothing goes away on the internet, does it?
Im glad that somebody finally stood up and said something, i was wondering why everybody thought that video was ok?
He hasn’t had the best couple of weeks. Cnet and now this.
He is still one of the few people on the web that make me laugh.
What a shame! i bet shel israel was behind this crap.
screw em loren! you don’t need the money
Well, I apologize in advance over this…but I feel strongly about this topic so I’m going to break the golden blogger rule and post a link in the comments to my post on the topic…
http://www.toms...orrectness.aspx
I hate people who post links to their blogs in the comments to get hits but in this one case I’m breaking my own rule and doing it anyway. I’d appreciate if anyone seeing this gave it a read and really thought long and hard about what it means to ACTUALLY support free speech (rather than just give it lip service)
Loren is a no talent fool. He sits in front of a built-in iSight camera on a MacBook and acts like he’s a video production company.. What a poser.
It was funny to hear him talking about composing a shot and “white balance” when shooting video as he bagged on Shel.. As if he’s doing some kind of major filmmaking, and as if he can even adjust white balance on his built-in iSight CCD.
I think he needs to get a job.
To be honest I was curious why the hell 1938 Media clips were even on VCast. Would you download Loren Feldman vids to your cellphone? Sure the guy is a riot and I don’t think the sketch in question was over the line in the least but I just thought it was a weird deal from the start.
Bet Shel is getting a chuckle out of this one. What I can’t wait for is Feldman’s next video (most likely) making fun of all of this.
Yeah dude Loren looks like an ignorant f%^k in that video…
it’s still kind of funny. In a, man this is really depressing kind of way…
Anybody notice that Loren is HIGH AS A KITE?
He looks like he took 3 bong hits.
1. The eye color.
2. The slow blink.
3. That’s really pot he’s smokin’.
The term is now a Rap term (not the difference in the spelling)…
It has been primarily used in Rap music since the 1980s
It has become so widespread that hip hop loving teens of ALL races are now using it to refer to their buddies or in the same way the the Rock world uses the word ‘Dude”….
In the 70s, it was “My Man”
Loren,
Karma’s a bitch ain’t it?
Conspiracy about organizing the early stages of the protest?
This is from his CrunchBase profile:
http://www.crun...n/loren-feldman
“Feldman was a featured video blogger at The Huffington Post and formerly at Podtech. He was prominently featured on Valleywag for his controversial TechNigga video.”
Give me a break. He hung his hat on it and now he hung himself on it.
This is the second time that that very offensive video has come back to bite Feldman. I’m very glad that Verizon got wind of Feldman’s hypocrisy and dumped him.
Visine should have sponsored that clip.
A pothead with a laptop.
That’s it.
I do believe that the video wasn’t ok, it definitely wasn’t the worst.
I never quite understood why the hell he was on VCast in the first place.
“When I first started watching your videos I was amused because you did a good job of pointing out how silly the whole ‘Web 2.0′ thing is, and I couldn’t agree more. Lately it seems like you’re becoming just as silly as all those people you love to trash, and I’ve lost all interest… shame.”
This is a comment from Alex on Feldman’s latest blog post, and I couldn’t agree more.
The humor’s too “edgy” for mainstream corporate sponsorship.
If you want to go big, you have to go broad. And going broad means going for the least-offensive, no shock-value stuff.
I’ve never liked Feldman’s stuff and have wondered if he suffers from mild retardation. But that video is funny, perhaps even clever (love the twitter riff). I couldn’t help but laugh.
I don’t see it as racist at all. You either find it funny and ok; or not funny and label him an idiot. But let the man do his thing and either succeed or fail by the results.
Loren is the Carrot Top of the web. Except he’s not as handsome as Carrot Top.
Yeah, that video is a “technically” racist video.
If he made fun of white and asian people too, it might have been okay but it was a video only about black people, that’s where the problem lies.
Heck, I know lots of black people who don’t rap and don’t smoke weed, why is that video even online? It’s kinda degrading to black people as a whole.
@Jimmee,
Yeah, I can see that, he took a hit on the video. Cough…cough…
you can call who you want to nigga, but face the consequences. really, you have friends, and you may refer to each other as bitches, or hoes, or some other term that you Would NOT go up to a stranger and call. Seriously, girls do it all the time calling each other bitches, and fellas call other friends names. please don’t get brand new, because you cant walk up on the street and call a black man a nigga.
Be like Nike, and JUST DO IT!
“and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone helped organize the early stages of this protest.”
fuck the conspiracy theory, verizon didn’t like the TechNigga video and Loren got cut, that’s it. Why on earth Shel was part of this story boggles the mind. Loren’s a funny guy, definitely stoned in some of his videos as pointed out in earlier posts, if he wants total independence he’s got it. Along with that comes responsibility for his content, he made it, he should stand behind it. The rest of the world doesn’t give a fuck about Loren and Shel’s feud like they didn’t care about Kathy Sierra or any of Dave Winers spats. It’s all a silicon valley soap opera that doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. Seriously Michael if your in the top 100 influences according to Time magazine this shit is so pointless, do something good, help some humans in the world.
I like Loren. At first I didn’t, but I do. He brings some cool and a bit of soul and laughs to this whole ’social’ thing and I appreciate that. I look forward to watching his videos. He has a fan in me.
check out what he’s listening to at muxtape as well. great music taste
the black blogger spoof wasn’t funny. the spirit behind it was off, in my opinion. i don’t mind offensive, it just wasn’t that funny and it was ill spirited. It made me feel bad for just watching it – it was just bad comedy. In my opinion.
@16 Tom – I think your off, way off. This is a free market and you can align your brand, and sit at lunch with who ever you want for whatever reason. He made a bad choice with an ill advised post – I wouldn’t blame Verizon for that. Ball-less, maybe. Cowards? Perhaps..I don’t know. BUt comparing them to what Iran is doing is warped logic and random.
The video is stupid and racist. Watch David Chappelle or Russell Peters do a parody of race and it is funny, no matter how many lines it crosses. Most effective racial comedy exaggerates stereotypes, racial tension, and cultural differences to create awkward and/or ironic skits. However, this video just insults.
the best video was about seesmic. everything else was… lets say “stupid”. verizon is right with terminating the partnership.
All bad comedy is always offensive. When it has a racist angle, it makes it that much worse.
Loren stepped out of his element on this one and it showed. No reason to crucify the guy but if I was Verizon I would have done the same. There’s no upside to keeping him.
I’m sure he’ll bounce back with a great Kara Swisher parody or maybe a ‘day in the life’ of Jason Calacanis…plenty of material out there. Just stick to the nerd herd.
Racist or not, the video certainly wasn’t funny.
If Chappelle did the exact same video, I’d still say it wasn’t funny.
what a load of crap. if a black guy did the skit it would be fine. but since a white guy did it, it’s racist. It was a joke people -a joke about that whole subculture of ‘bling’ and ho’s and ridiculous overdone rap videos and it’s not limited to a skin color -I seem to recall eminem fitting right in with that whole deal.
If he did a ‘white trash’ video, would Verizon have pulled it? I think not. It’s the so-called ‘civil rights’ groups that have hijacked real civil rights issues and turned the whole thing in to a fear based fiasco of Al Sharpton induced race baiting causing huge corporations to turn into scared little girls.
@james – You’re making exactly the opposite point. It is a free market and people shouldn’t try to bully companies into taking away options because they don’t like those options. If those options are unwanted by people the market will make that determination. Those people who try to take those options away are people who don’t care about freedoms like a free market or freedom of speech they just want a market where everything is approved by them.
The question isn’t the morality of Verizon it’s the morality of those who are forcing Verizon to capitulate to their will.
As far as the Iran comparison my point was to highlight the warped definition of those who claim someone has the right to free speech and then prevent that speech from being heard. My exact statement was “By that definition the Iranians trying to kill people for blogging are free speech advocates.” And I don’t see how that isn’t absolutely true.
With freedom of speech comes the huge responsibility. If people don’t make proper judgments while exercising their right to speech, they have to face the consequences. Freedom to hold gun doesn’t mean freedom to shoot anyone you like. Similarly, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom to insult anyone you like. If people have difficulty understanding this basic aspect of any civilized society, I suggest that they go back to high school and continue their education from there.
you go, keef
@Tom, you are contradicting yourself. It is a free market and companies need not get bullied by people. It is just a fact that companies in a free market system worry about customers and they take action based on how their brand name will be affected in the marketplace. Your argument doesn’t hold here.
The truth is whatever happens on Channel 4 KNBC.
For those of you comparing Feldman’s use of the “N” word to hip-hop artists & Dave Chappelle.. that’s not a plausible argument. Hip-hop carries a label for its “adult content”.. consumers have a choice to decide if they want to listen to Hip-Hop. Fedlman on the other hand, attacks his subjects as a way to generate a reaction & push views to his blog.
Lame.
It’s pretty funny given that Loren made fun of Shel for losing his sponsor (turns out that Shel actually didn’t lose his sponsor;) someone’s got to say it: karma’s a bitch.
the video is mean spirited, and condescending, to say the least. I think James@32 said it best. Despite the video, I don’t believe Feldman is racist in any way, it was just unnecessary.
And holden, you’ve proved once again you have the mental age of 13. STFU.
Well said, keef (37)
Break it down Valleywag! Seriously, look at the history, GeekMommy has it right.
http://tinyurl.com/27gmbc
Its racist. I am shocked by how many people in these comments gave some sort of “if a black guy did it no one would mind” answer. Do you really need that explained to you?
I will make sure these activists pay, 1938media is comedy and nothing but it. Fuck you Shel Israel for doing this you deuchebag.