It’s kind of weird when you accidentally stumble upon a video of yourself that you didn’t know existed out in the ether. I mean, I’m sure it happens to Brad Pitt every day, but to me?
Last summer, I told you about a video that genConnect made of me, where I talked all about Our Hen House. At the time, I was a speaker at the fabulous BlogHer conference here in NYC, giving a workshop on how to podcast. genConnect, a worldwide online hub of experts in various fields, cornered me in a room, turned on a bright light, and asked me to talk about OHH, going vegan, and the importance of adopting shelter animals. For some reason, I managed to miss the publication of the latter two videos, and so I decided to share them with you today. (Don’t worry, my hair has since grown back.)
Here I am talking about how easy and important it is to go vegan (in it, I reference Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s amazing 30 Day Vegan Challenge):
And here I talking about the importance of adopting shelter animals:
I’ll bet you want to go vegan and adopt a dog now, right?
While I was watching these videos in horror (it’s always difficult to watch yourself), I was thinking about how exceedingly simple it is to make videos and put them online. Easy concept, right? Well, it’s so easy to execute, too, and when you consider the huge variety of ways that people internalize information, and factor in most people’s short attention span when they’re reading articles online, it makes having vlogs, or regularly publishing short videos, an extremely compelling idea. I know you’ve been making cute videos of your adorable niece singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (or maybe that’s just me — my niece is, by the way, so completely adorable!), so why not make a short a video about an animal rights issue you’re passionate about? Or perhaps make one about one particular animal?
I was also thinking about the importance of cross-promotion of videos and articles that speak up in one way or another for animals. Cross-promotion of content to “non-choir” outlets is something OHH is focusing on of late. It’s fabulous to get coverage by folks who already get it about the plight of animals, but what we really need is a way in for others. Bring animals into the conversation whenever and however possible. It would be edifying, for example, if yesterday’s brilliant OHH column by Keri Cronin, featuring artist Isa Leshko’s moving photographic series entitled “Elderly Animals,” got some coverage by a major photography website. Bam, there’s the animal conversation, front and center! The audience? A bunch of unsuspecting artists and art appreciators.
Since I like to walk the walk, I will do some cross-promotion of the videos above, making sure that food and environmental outlets see the “go vegan” video, and that sites related to dogs and cats get a heads-up about the video about shelter animals.
Let’s raise a stink, and an eyebrow or two, about animal issues, both in video form and in written form, and let’s make sure that everyone with even a remote interest in some aspect of our conversation is listening and watching.