A review for July- Past Bing Future Bing

Past Bing, Future Bing is a seminal work which I enjoyed tremendously.

Bing’s cinematography and honest plot development gives a nice warm feeling to the exhaustive project and the person’s views and thoughts are captivating enough to pull the viewers through the ‘slog’

One thing about PBFB that sets it apart from other vlogging project is how the style is widely varied, but that’s what you want in a daily vlog... or a weekly vlog. You want some variety with consistency.

Especially on the internet, it might be off-putting to come back every day for the same thing repeated in hundred different ways. This is why I hated the Shaytards run of their first year. It was way too long with same thing happening again and again. It had consistency but not enough variety.

Again with ApprenticeA, I was excited for the first year but came the second year and it got stale because they were hitting the same notes again and again. They formed a undeniable routine.

With Past Bing Future Bing or Wheezy’s Daily Vlogs, you don’t perceive that. The videos are short and the two almost parodies the tropes of Shaytards and CTxFC (although CTxFC does it less) by subverting, inverting or outrighting averting the typical structure of the daily vlogs and instead going for variety and meme-building. (I’ll talk about what meme-building is later)

This fits quite nicely with what the person is. Shaycarl, you cannot deny, is an actor. He can show emotion and ideas in an effective manner. But Bing and Wheezy are creators, entrepreneurs, impresarios. They create and manage ideas very effectively. They gives personal thought to the jokes and make it come out as its own, rather than riding the wave.

This is why Craig hangs out with UK people more than LA... they are passionate about the work and it shows! LA tries to hide it for a polished look, but that’s not what YouTube media is known for... this is not what good media is. Bing does a fantastic job tackling the format of daily vlogging and I feel proud of Bing for that.

But more about Bing and his project. What make Bing stands out from the rest is his musical background. They fit nicely to the image and inspire more a melodramatic sense of filming, fuzzier and more romantic.

After the awkward liftoff which all daily vloggers experience, the format takes off. The Corporate Mixer and Miss Quincy’s Mittens was a double hit for Past Bing. Meanwhile, Future Bing had steady hits like Kings of Men and Top Hat Snow Day.

The theme weeks highlighted Bing’s excellence in friends and cinematography and his other project show his passion for YouTube.

The deaths of Edd Gould and Bing’s grandfather is handled very well and anguish and frustration is nicely captured in video format. Last month was the finalization of the Bing’s project with best run of videos I have seen in a while and Bing gives a nice finish to the project with superb montage (as with other montages littered throughout the project) that I watched over and over again.

I was amused by his ‘hatred’ of Doctor Who and Ze Frank, because Past Bing Future Bing seems like the combination of two. Doctor Who is about a character which succmbs to dramatic changes but yet with qualities to identify as the same person. In a way, PBFB show that we’re all The Doctor in that we change our atoms every few years and comes out as a different human but there’s still something that we could call ourselves us.

By composing two different version of Bing over and over again, we see how we develop and how we grow as a person. Through mulling over mundane tasks like filing stamps or folding shirt, Bing emulates Ze Frank’s typical ‘talking something deep that feels shallow’ approach.

In fact, Bing most closely resembles Ze Frank’s progenitor, Hank Green. They are even born on the same day! They both has insight veiled through absurd comedy and they seems to be focused on work and friendship more than others. Bing even has a Katherine as Jenny who can bounce off his absurd thoughts and give more of the insights. Bing also has a John as Tom who is more articulate about his thought and pursuit things in different manner.

In all, Past Bing Future Bing is the next great YouTube vlog series after Brotherhood 2.0. Bing prophesied that PBFB won’t be remembered in fifty years. But I secretly hope that, the prophecy won’t be coming true.