VJ communities on social media today have been puzzling over a wiki on “How to Become a Popular Vj.” Get ready for the knowledge.
Some advice is just vague – “What is your favorite music?” “Make business cards.” And of course something about clip libraries
Then the technical advice is where things really go off the rails. Commercial software VDMX from Vidvox is described as “free.” (Maybe they pirated it?) And it comes with this peculiar warning:
“DO NOT wait the day of the show to learn to use it. And don’t pretend that you can learn to use it if you don’t have a projector. Learning to throw the image onto the large screen is different for every program and computer. “
Uh… what?
Then there’s a reference to “VGM cables.” (VGA? What?) Sure, could be a typo, except then it also points you to a “VGM adapter.” (I was going to make a joke here, but this acronym doesn’t stand for much in any context.)
Oddly enough, this article has 11 authors. All I can think is that someone maybe edited a reasonable wiki article as a joke?
In which case, uh – thanks for the distraction. Keep on editin’ here:
https://m.wikihow.com/Become-a-Popular-Vj
So, uh, I guess I should have some more Create Digital Motion articles real soon, huh, if this is the state of online knowledge? I mean, we’re not going to watch a YouTube video – even as a VJ.
Sadly, I think the most telling inaccuracy in this how-to has to do with how it decribes nightclubs as all having VJs, and – right in the headline, the idea of a “popular VJ” in the first place.
But don’t let that discourage you. Just get on behind that (audio?!) mixer console, and go.
Image credit – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ – WikiHow.