Letters posted here are associated with the following article:

19
Letters
Monday, April 23, 2007 12:00 AM

"Anger. Pain. Death. Madness"

The letters thread is now closed.

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Monday, April 23, 2007 12:37 PM

The people have spoken... or so I thought

Umm.... what did everyone say in the last VD post regarding overkill on the Hometown Bagdad stuff? Is Video Dog being programmed by a machine, like some top-40 station?

Monday, April 23, 2007 02:36 PM

Is it someone's specific job for VD?

I'll do it! Consider this my application. I have absolutely no experience. I have no professional qualifications. I'm addicted to the internet. As for salary, I'll settle for 20k a year.

Monday, April 23, 2007 04:10 PM

Seriously, enough is enough

VD used to be funny. Now it's just a drag. (Boy, you don't know how many times I've had to say that...)

So here's my deal. Yesterday I wrote one letter complaining about crappy viddys. Today I'll write two. Tomorrow I'll write 4. The day after that, 8.

Pretty soon, every single letter you get will be from me, complaining about how crappy Video Dog has gotten.

Let's hope it doesn't have to go that far.

Monday, April 23, 2007 05:18 PM

I'll write another one!

I'm no longer going to Video Dog for the videos, just to join in this campaign to get them change the current programming!

Remember the good old days?

- The balls bouncing all over San Francisco

- Acutally funny Jon Stewart moments

- The laughing quintuplets

- and my all time favorite: the BankOne employee singing his own version of U2's One. "One card, one bank, we've got to carry each other, carry each other." Priceless.

I'd even take back the cute kitty videos!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 08:06 AM

I vote for kill it

I think Ermal said yesterday "kill it or fix it" well after the editors blatantly ignored the letters of the few readers VideoDog has left, I think this poor, boring site should be removed from Salon. It's dragging the whole thing down and making a mockery of the interesting and varied Web 2.0 explosion.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 09:33 AM

FIX OR KILL

Wow, so the fix-it-or-kill-it debate has finally gravitated over to the hometown baghdad videos.

Are the editors even reading this feedback? How many of us have registered new 'letter' accounts just so we could come here and post about how pathetic and embarrassing VD has become?

Seriously, VD and the A&E section in general has just crashed and burned in the last few months.

Rabbit Bites and Hometown Baghdad? With the occassional Maher slipped in?

Really? That's it? You people are freaking lazy.

Any premium subscribers care to chime in so that the editors might finally take notice?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 09:44 AM

maybe we should stop writing

Maybe if we stop writing letters about VideoDog they'll get the message. Do they see that it inspires letters and therefore it's a success? Boycott VD altogether!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 09:45 AM

Dead Dog

Looks like no one cares about this Dog.

Even Salon won't put it out of its misery.

Considering that the aim of the Iraq pieces is to generate sympathy and support for ordinary Iraqis in America's newest Killing Field, I would've thought the editors (are there editors for the Dog?) would by now have figured out that it has backfired. It's overkill (bad pun intended) by "friendly" fire.

The Iraq vignettes will work, if (and only if) they are available with something humorous … And, that EXCLUDES rabbits and 'new' rules, both of which are useless.

Meanwhile, Salon's failure to respond to what is rapidly becoming a torrent of complaints doesn't bode well for Salon … or for its readers.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 10:52 AM

Give up? Never!

Oh, Hester. Don't be such a surrender monkey!

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in these letters, we shall fight on the blogs and vlogs, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the forums. We shall defend our Video Dog, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight for the bouncing balls, we shall fight for the cute kittens, we shall fight for the clever and the insightful, we shall fight in this, our most honest medium, the feedback loop.

We shall never surrender!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 11:15 AM

Graffiti

That guy is the worst graffiti artist ever!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 02:37 PM

ATTENTION ALL ADVERTISERS

OK, you folks at Porsche USA and other unlucky corportate entities, take a good look at the vapid crap next to which your ads are running here on Video Dog.

If I was you, I would give a call to that smoothing-talking account exec who sold you this space and demand better content on Video Dog right now.

C'mon.

Times a-wasteing.

It's almost 5:30 on the East Coast.

Pick up ol' Al Bell's invention and register your contempt for the sorry state of affairs here at VD right now.

Thank you for your support.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 02:54 PM

Rabbit Bites and Hometown Baghdad! With the occassional Maher slipped in!

Hmm, Video Dog went into the toilet not too long after Camille Paglia returned. Could there be a connection?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 04:34 PM

Fantastic, Farnsworth!

That's what this pro-VD movement needs: A conspiracy theory AND a common enemy.

C'mon now, who's with me?

Let's storm the doors and demand both better video content and less left-wing harpy-ness.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 07:21 PM

I Think I Know The Problem

Several months ago Salon hired an "associate" or "assistant" for Video Dog named David Punier (sp?). But if you look on the VD masthead he's gone. Fired? Laid off?? Who knows? But with just Heather Havrilesky and Kerry Lauerman - both of whom are busy with other projects - this is what we can expect from now on. It's actually making me pine for the bad-good old days.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 07:46 AM

Gee...

How come none of these comments are marked with the starred "Editor's Choice" symbol?

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 10:09 AM

Um, I really like Hometown Bagdad

I must admit to not being a fan of Rabbit Bites and I have yet to click through to listen to one of Maher's rules but Hometown Bagdad is an interesting an insightful documentary, I hope it continues...

Thursday, April 26, 2007 02:19 AM

Don't get me wrong

I am glad to watch Hometown Baghdad. I want to keep watching it. But I don't want that to be the only thing that Video Dog is about. Which, unfortunately, has been the case since the very first episode.

Thursday, April 26, 2007 06:05 PM

I still like it...

I LIKE Hometown Baghdad... I know I could just go to their website and watch it, but I've liked Video Dog since it started because it was my filter on Web videos. I agree the pickings have been pretty slim here lately. Maybe they've been overly worried about copyright violations?

Sunday, April 29, 2007 02:58 PM

Video Dog debate

My two cents: While I ***HATE*** the talking bunnies, I find "Hometown Baghdad" tolerable.

My problem with Hometown Baghdad is that they only seem to interview and interact with the same 4 or 5 dudes, who all seem to live in some upper-middle-class suburb of Baghdad. I do not trust that their point of view is representative of average Iraqis.

But beyond that, at least it has some journalistic merit, providing a window into other people's experience.

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