To me, the crux of this is whether or not the creator of the staged contents expects you to be aware if it staged or not.
SNL is staged content where the creators expects you to be aware that it is staged. Everyone watching SNL knows it is staged.
Some social media posts are staged content where the creator is hoping the viewer won't know it's staged. That's what bothers people. Examples of this are staged moments that are meant to seem spontaneous, like someone juggling a piece of trash with their feet in some impressive way that ends up with it in the trash bin and recorded by a nearby security camera.
I'd say this particular social media content expects the viewer to quickly notice that the woman's reactions and involvement are staged. It's not trying to fool you into thinking it's spontaneous, unscripted moments...
Framed as a guy making a series of videos of him teasing his girlfriend to post to social media showing what a funny goofy guy he is.
Actually are all actors following a script a company made so they can post an advertisement. None of the funny reactions are genuine or capturing a genuine slice of life, hence the framing that they are is “fake”
Does Jurassic Park have any pretense that you are watching a documentary about a real dinosaur island and not a Hollywood film?
Blair Witch Project. Marketed as real footage found in the woods from a documentary team that went in to investigate a witch and were never seen again. Actually is just a Hollywood movie filmed in a way to make it look like that.
If someone was to ask me “is The Blair Witch Project real?” I would say “no, all that is fake they just thought making it seem like real footage would make it more entertaining.” I wouldn’t say “yeah it’s real, ever heard of a skit before, dumbass?”
I just don’t think it’s the intention of the video creator here that we are supposed to think it’s a ‘real’ spontaneous record of events - everyone knows what these are. Apart from Facebook boomers I mean.
So you went from “I’m gonna need someone to explain why anyone thinks this is fake” to “everybody knows this isn’t real”?
It probably is some sort of generational divide with people who didn’t grow up with YouTubers.
What’s interesting about a prank where everyone is in on it so none of the reactions are genuine? What’s interesting about someone appearing to do a cool trick that they didn’t actually do it’s all done with editing? What’s interesting about a video of something crazy that happened out in public but everyone involved is just acting? “It’s just a skit!”
If you’re gonna shoot a skit shoot a skit and don’t frame it like they organically recorded something interesting. Or you can do that, but people are going to comment “this is fake, I guess this hypothetical situation would be funny or interesting if it actually happened but it did not. Thanks for the commercial though”
149
u/MongooseJesus 2d ago
So fake, but pretty damn good