I love this song and video. I think it is thoroughly entertaining and I can recite all the lyrics. So I can’t help but put a few lyrics in quotes as I write this blog.
“I’m gonna be him,” the pizza guy says to himself at the beginning of Brad Paisley’s “Online” music video. He says this as he looks at a recording of Brad Paisley’s live performance of "Online" after delivering pizza to a rude customer. The pizza guy is portrayed as an outcast, someone completely opposite of Brad Paisley's character. The pizza guy is seen looking forward to going home and logging onto MySpace Chat with a false identity. He sees cyberspace as the place to alter facts about himself and replace them with characteristics that make him "cooler online."
The differences between the two characters are apparent in looks, social status and behavior. The pizza guy is portrayed as a shy and quirky guy, with possible low self-esteem and confidence. I think that because he seeks cyberspace as a way to become cool, he feels insecure about his true self as the lyrics tell us:
"When you got my kinda stacks, it's hard to get a date
Let alone a real girlfriend..."
On the other hand, Brad Paisley is shown as rich, famous, good-looking, with confidence and high self-esteem. Unlike the pizza man, Brad Paisley seems very well grounded with his life and does not try to pretend to be someone he is not.
The pizza guys personality changes when he is online. In the music video, MySpace Chat is shown with the pizza guys profile image being Brad Paisley. The music video shows two bubbles above his head with images of attractive women whom he hopes he is chatting with. He feels that with the profile image and life style of Brad Paisley, he can “chat with two woman at one time.” The pizza guys face lights up and you can practically see the confidence building within him when he is chatting online using his fake identity. A good example from the song are the lyrics:
"But I grow another foot and I lose a bunch of weight everytime I log in."
The pizza guy’s personally is different when he is offline in the respect he is back to his true self. He has no Internet profile that he can hide behind when he is offline and facing the real world. He seems very shy, especially with the neighbor girl, who it seems he has a crush on. His confidence seems to dwindle down and his lifestyle becomes apparently different than what he would like it to be. He lives at home with is parents, not in Malibu, and works as pizza delivery guy, not a country music artist such as Paisley.
At the end of the video, the guy is seen taking his old band outfit out of his closet. He then is seen marching away with the love interest (the girl next door) while the band music plays. Marching away arm and arm, I think the moral of this music video and song is to embrace who you are and not pretend to be someone else. I think the character learned that it is better to stay true to yourself and to stop taking ideas from other lifestyles that are not your own just to be “cooler.”
All lyrics from http://www.lyrics.com/url.php?link=http://brad-paisley.freeoda.com/text/5thgear/3.html
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5 comments:
I didn’t think about mentioning in my blog about how you can see the characters confidence rising. At the beginning of the video all he did was chat with women (or what he thought were) but by the end of the video he had the courage to snag his next-door neighbor. I am surprised that in the video there wasn’t some sort of climax with him being made fun of or breaking down. It just so happened that one minute he wasn’t confident or cool enough to talk to the girl next-door but then one random day he decides to put on his old band suit and go get her. Maybe it was something that his mom and dad said. I agree with what you said about the purpose of the video. It is truly sad that some people have to hide behind the computer to be personal with anyone.
Don’t you think that the on-line character is a protective device to hide who he really is? I found it interesting that it was only a decision that was holding him back from the confidence he needed to move out and enjoy people, including the girl next door. All it took was the decision. And the only thing holding him back was himself. Do you think this could be applied to real people in the world around us? Do they hide behind a self-designed, artificial role because of fear; lack of confidence? I think all of us experience the lack of confidence at one time or another and experience and success assists in eliminating or at least reducing it. Fear of rejection, criticism, loosing, or failing can motivate real people to hide behind a fake identity so they experience a delusion of success. But it only last while they hide in the fake identity. Wouldn’t it be great if they would free themselves, step out and do what they really want to do or be; become the change necessary to be who they dream of being? I think so.
I really like what you took to be the moral of the story. I think that is the biggest problem when it comes to online profiles. I like them becasue it helpes me stay in touch and see what all my old friends are up to, but it makes me wonder if they are really as good as they may appear to be. if I look at facebook and see one of my friends updated their work info or their photos. i will look and see that they got a new job and are looking good in their pictures. Then I wonder if they really got a job or if they are just lieing. I think online profiles are a cool, fun thing to have, but I also think that you can never trust them fully. I think the moral to the video is perfect. everyone just needs to be real. they just need to be themselves becasue no matter how cool you look online the real you has to come out some time.
Somehow when I was watching the video I didn't notice that he ends up with the girl in the end. After you described the end of the video at the end of your post the moral of the video is much more clear. I think that trying to develop an online character who has the qualities that he thinks a woman wants is obviously a waste of time. There is a woman out there somewhere who is interested in him just as he is.... the irony is that the women he was talking to were probably made up online characterst of a woman similar to himself.
I enjoyed the video as well, you good interpretation of the lyrics and the scenes in the video and I agree. The video was ment to show how some people are not confident in themselves in real life so they go online and pretend to be someone their not. I think the video was not only to poke fun at the fact that so many people lie about themselves online, but to also warn people and make them aware that people can easily lie about themselves online so be careful with online communication. Alex Christensen
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