Log 10: Clusterfest

Over the weekend, I attended Comedy Central's first annual Colossal Clusterfest in San Francisco. I got to see over thirty comedians, a couple podcast recordings, and even a few television tapings. Throughout this intense weekend of constant live media consumption, I thought a lot about its influence on me. I considered the many different performers I saw; some were stand-ups, some were comedic actors, some were improvisors, some were impressionists, most were funny, a few were not, many whom I admire, some of whom I'd never heard. I considered that many performers probably didn't have much choice in deciding to come, because they have shows on Comedy Central or are affiliated with the channel in some way. I also thought about how the whole thing was sponsored by Comedy Central, and therefore sponsored by Viacom, one of the huge companies that we talk about in class a lot. But despite all of these things, this weekend of intense media consumption had a very positive influence on me. Because it was for the most part the kind of media I chose to engage in, it was much easier to ignore the regular advertisements that I'm usually subjected to anyway. My main takeaway from this is ultimately that despite all of the incredibly negative effects of media, sometimes it's okay to acknowledge the positive ones as well.