Thursday, May 31, 2012

In A World Where



While I scanned the websites you gave us to find a news article, I came across one news article on npr.org that really caught my attention. It caught my attention because what happened in the article seems to be happening a lot lately.

The article I chose was about a 13 year old boy named Jake Fousheee who miraculously hit and kicked puberty in the ass, all in one day. He said that “I woke up the next day and my voice went from way up here… to how it is now”. You all may be wondering what is so special about a kid who hit puberty early. Well at 13 his voice sounds like Don LaFontaine’s voice, who some of you may have heard before, but don’t know who he is. Well Lafontaine is the voice at the beginning of all the movie trailers that does the saying “in a world where”.

Jake noticed his talent very early and asked his friends to help him come up with some lines for movies and he would then go write the scripts out and practice them. Well, he did a very good impersonation of the voice of the apocalypse trailer and posted the video on YouTube. In the video, he said he wanted to become a voice actor just like Don Lafontaine, little did he know his video would go viral and it would pay off for him. He began to get media coverage from Good Morning America and Ellen DeGeneres. Ellen later had him on her show called the Ellen DeGeneres show and all of a sudden Jake’s dream came true, Ellen contacted Abrams Artists Agency and told them about Jake, and well, they said they would like to officially sign him, as a voice actor.

I found this article interesting because this seems to be the way talent is being discovered anymore. Many people post videos on YouTube of themselves singing, dancing, doing acting scripts, or just talents they have, all hoping for what Jake just got. Getting noticed for this kind of stuff has become easier because of America having so much opportunities like America’s got Talent, So you Think you Can Dance, or even American Idol, where regular people like you or me can go to show off our talents and abilities to the world and get recognized.

This doesn’t relate to any personal experience of mine since I’ve never posted a video on YouTube, but in the future it might, who knows I might have a talent or skill someone is looking for and get lucky like Jake did. This article got me thinking though of how later on in the years it will probably be hard for people to get into the entertainment business. The Army is a perfect example of this, they will take everyone who can pass the mental and physical aspects, but as soon as they get to many soldiers they are going to get rid of the weaker ones and getting into the Army has already become harder and people are already getting discharged. So in the end, I think getting overnight fame will deplete or become way harder because so many have already done it, and we will just have too many singers, dancers, and actors, then we know what to do with.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, I like that you shared this. I think sometimes people only have negative to say about technology and it's nice that you found something positive. With that said I totally agree with your final paragraph, what an interesting idea but it sounds completely plausible to me.

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  2. I saw this young man on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, but I didn't watch the whole thing and was wondering what all the fuss was about. I didn't realize he'd become famous because of YouTube. That's very interesting. Thank you for sharing this story. I liked your positive outlook on how such exposure makes otherwise unknown people famous or offers them the opportunity to start a career they may have not have imagined possible.

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