Creativity

New media has a new way of cultivating creativity. Take Disney for example, according to Brooks Barnes from New York Times, Disney has been known to keep their cartoon characters on a tight leash. This meaning that Disney is strict with who can use the image of their various cartoon characters for creativity purposes. However, in 2007, when “Crack That” by Souija Boy reached No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Disney did not force YouTube to take down the parody music video of “Crack That”, that uses Disney characters. The video was a compilation of different moments of Winnie the Pooh episodes. Shortly after the parody was circulating the internet, other similar videos were released using other characters. In my opinion, Disney was capitalizing on the video and using it as a form of free marketing. Viewers associated the animation with Disney and by doing so, Disney was pretty much marketed all throughout the internet. Whether people are aware or not, there is an automatic association with Disney through Winnie the Pooh character. At the same time, because the parody was being circulated, it created a new form of art. People saw the popularity of the video and started to create others that are similar and due to the way new media works, the video was circulating in probably just a few days. The more attention the video gained, the more popularity that form of creativity and video content gained. New media has a way of fostering and encouraging creativity that was not experienced in any other era.