If you asked me a few years back who Freddie Wong was, I would be at a loss for words. I was only exposed to his work a year or so ago. Stumbling upon an amazing Portal gun video, I immediately looked up all of his other now famous works. From Rocket Jump to his Real Life Mario Kart, all his effects based comedy videos are wonderfully produced and a joy to watch for gamers and indie film enthusiasts. His most recent work is a continued collaboration with Brandon Laatsch and titled Video Game High School, an episodic, comedic action oriented  web series based on a fictional High School for video game characters, was extremely well received by the throngs of normally very critical reviewers known as the common internet viewer. (Editor: Ha! Wordplay.) A second season, we are told, will soon follow.

But that is not why Freddie and Brandon were there at RTX. Well, it is, and it isn’t. They, similar to the ladies and gentlemen at Rooster Teeth, have made a name for themselves and are now (at least semi-)famous from their work online. Their keynote was on how to make and market media for the masses and the upcoming area of media of creative independent media.

Even before the presentation, Freddie came out and led the crowd in a famous accelerando, checheno clapping, giving himself a commanding and comedic presence over the crowd. As all presentations of this type start off, the two of them gave their general history and overview of works, Bear and Dark Island respectively; for these two projects, they were grossly underpaid. When I say grossly, I really mean it, a meer $250 was allegedly given to the two of them for their combined work over a six-month period. In fact, their greatest satisfaction came from seeing the their work could be found on the infamous pirating website “The Pirate Bay”; the joy they saw from seeing their work on such an irreputable site as painted by Hollywood, truly discredits the propaganda that we see in the media on how much these sites hurt the little man in large-scale media productions.

The presentation then moved to exemplify how modern hollywood is no longer the source of truly creative material. Freddie and Brandon displayed the following chart from http://filmbydemocracy.blogspot.com/2012/05/where-has-hollywoods-originality-gone.html

From http://filmbydemocracy.blogspot.com/2012/05/where-has-hollywoods-originality-gone.html

The decline in originality from Hollywood productions

This chart exemplifies how hollywood is putting their money into what’s safe. Sequels and remakes are nearly guaranteed cash-crops for the executive producers of hollywood. In contrast, independent and amateur filmmakers are not as concerned about making money, and thus can post their unadulterated creative properties making YouTube and like media outlets the ultimate way to get their media to the masses.

So, if you’re reading this and have a creative idea, why not do what Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch did? Just make it, post it, and hope someone likes it. Their final ending words were that if you feel like your product isn’t good enough, or that no one will like it, give it the aptly named “Parent Test”; if your parents think it’s good, then post it, someone else might like it and pass it on. Never have they seen something amazing online that hasn’t exploded; we, as a society, want to share anything we find interesting.

You can view the keynote in its entirety below: