The below post is part of our 2014 Social TV Year-in-Review guest post series and is written by BET Sr. Director of Digital + Social Media JP Lespinasse.
“Dad, tell me a story..”
On most weeknights, I rush home so I can put my 4 year-old son to bed. After teeth-brushing and pj-adorning, he climbs into bed. “Time for stories!” he says.
And isn’t that what we all want?? Clean teeth and fire engine pants? Sorry, I’m projecting. What we really desire is someone to tell us/read us/show us a dynamic tale. In the year 2014, the way we think of stories changed. Well perhaps it started prior to last year – but it was really codified in ’14. Stories don’t have to be elaborate narratives spanning multiple pages or multiple frames/ scenes. Rather they exist and are deployed in sooooo many forms now and by an astounding number of people around the globe.
My mom worked in advertising for much of her adult life at O&M (now just called Ogilvy) – so this form of storytelling isn’t new to her at all. And I recall my dad marveling at the :15 spot (the good ones anyhow). He’d say – “they told us a whole story in such a short amount of time – and SO well! Amazing!”
Now stories come in 6 sec vines, in moving gifs, in beautifully crafted still images, and even in the form of cobbled together grainy memes. The coolest thing about this new dynamic – it is collaborative. That’s why/how social media has propelled it. The Kermit Meme made for countless stories – all using the exact same visual – from pop culture updates to social commentary. And just this weekend, this happened: Oakman
The storytelling revolution isn’t just happening in shadowy corners of the internet. At BET, I co-exec-produced a new web series called #BLX (blocks). The concept is simple: we take celebrities back to the blocks they grew up on … wait for it … to tell us STORIES of their youth. Not a novel concept on its own – but how the stories are told are a bit different. Please watch and tell me what you think: http://bet.us/BLX An added component to the project is that we are encouraging people (collaboration!) to tell us their own stories of their blocks – and their upbringing – in whatever medium they choose. #myBLX #SocialStorytelling.
So, why is this post in the #socialTV section?
Because I feel like in 2015 the storytelling will continue to evolve with even greater creative force. Social will be used to invent, collaborate, deploy and refine our stories. Stories untold, stories mistold, made up stories, stories interwoven. Storytelling for sponsors/on behalf of others/sponsored content/native advertising … stories about stories, like #BLX is… And that will make for really terrific “tv” – whether these stories are on traditional linear television or elsewhere. Cause hey, you can define TV however you want in 2015.
The speed at which stories are conceived and created and deployed now is mesmerizing! Real-time memes and IG vids/vines/cinemagrams … and maybe tv shows … in 2015? We have more ways and more people to tell the stories than ever before. What we define as social TV is, at its core, storytelling. It has other bells and whistles – and data overlays and fancy names like “transmedia”, but really it is just producers producing in a new way. My hope for the new year is that stories on Medium will become “shows”, so that the idea of social + tv is transformed into {(social x stories)/producers} x sharers = the best content we’ve ever seen on any/all our screens.
So, in 2015 when my son asks “daddy, can you tell me a story?” – it may be our viewing sets of images + reading their captions; and/or watching and talking about a collection of short films, like #BLX, that we find in my facebook feed or in my vine stream. That storytelling is the essence of what social content is and what I feel social “tv” will become —- very soon.
