Survey of the Brony Culture
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h2. About
On the 24th of January, 2009, a Quebec City photojournalist, Francis Vachon, made a video of his 9-month hyperactive son. In this 2:39 video, we see the baby, Charles-Edward, playing with his toys and creating chaos in the family's dining room. All of that with the song "Ensemble", by French-Canadian musician Coeur de pirate.
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In the first week after it was uploaded on YouTube, the video had been seen 452,604 times.
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Here is the original video :
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h2. Spread
In the French-speaking Province of Quebec, the video quickly made the news and the media accelerated it's diffusion. from influent bloggers to mainstream media, to magazines and even TV News :
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As you see, even Good Morning America made a feature on the clip!
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"I did it for my family and my friends, and now, it has been seen all around the world. I just can't believe it", said Vachon, in interviews.
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And, of course, where there is popularity, parodies and remakes soon follow.
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Time Lapse Baby and Benny Hill...
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A 23-year old man playing with his toys...
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The original clip has also made it's way throughout the web. In interviews. Vachon said that 4000 sites now host the original video he uploaded from YouTube. Probably even more. Why the success? "Everybody loves baby. And time lapse also helps : people find it cute";.
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The experience pushed him to do more clips of his infant son over the months, such as this one that can be seen on his YouTube channel :
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Althrough Francis Vachon created a hit with his "time lapse baby", the time-lapse video process, in itself, is, one could say, quite a hit on YouTube.
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From a haircut.
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To a dinner.
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And many, many in betweens...
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In a way, Francis Vachon is one of the well known user of this process, kind of like, in the Photo-a-Day meme, "Noah Everyday" is the one commonly associated with this process, even if he didn't actually invent it.
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In a way, Francis Vachon used a known process. But with his baby, with the innocence displayed in the imagery, with the playfullness of his young son, as he created a meme in itself (baby playing with his toys), he also became on of the most renowed users of the time-lapse process.
For the baby, Edward, the story doesn't end there : in February 2009, there was a meeting between him, his father, and Coeur de pirate, de singer whose song is featured over the video.
http://www.francisvachon.com/blog/edward-and-coeur-de-pirate-meet-at-last/.