Duder: Online Sitcom

To continue my series on Internet Television, I encourage everyone to check out duder to understand my next point. Duder was created by my very talented housemate, Matt Kirsch, who wrote and edited everything almost single handedly. He even had the obligatory freak out when he thought he erased the entire project after it was complete, as it happens with many large projects. But after the grueling task of editing was complete, Matt threw a launch party in New York City rooftop where duder was screened to a group of about 35 people, to what I thought was a great reception. I actually recommend it to anyone who likes Curb your Enthusiasm or Arrested Development.

While there are some really good online shows, like Dutch West, and good stuff comes out of Channel 102, no online show really focuses on dialog and character development. Internet Television is still young and I can see parallels in the way Internet Television is developing to the way blogs have developed. The original blogs were online journals and a way for young people to vent publicly, but it then got a bit more mature and people started posting interesting ideas and analysis, and now we see the mainstream media and individual bloggers competing directly with each other for readership.

Now, Internet Television is going through a similar transformation. Initially, online programs were short clips or spoofs of “real” shows. They never took themselves seriously and prided themselves on their amateur look. Now we are seeing more mature programs, such as Dutch West, which have great production quality satisfying the sketch comedy niche quite well. But none of these programs challenge traditional television programs that focus on story directly. Internet Television is maturing rapidly and we’re going to see more direct competition with traditional television in the near future. I think duder is playing it’s role in paving the way for online internet television.