Amanda Mooney, a digital kid who spends far too much time in social networks and is addicted to finding fresh talent emerging somewhere between Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr, Lookbook and MySpace. In her weekly column, "Wwwe Could Be Next," Mooney chats with one of these young creatives, to share their work, perspective and advice.
I first heard about Nikki Malavar, or Baby Porridge as she's known on the Web, a few months ago when Three Billion linked to her virtual collaborations with other young musicians on YouTube. She's a fresh and talented musician and filmmaker... and 19-years-old! She is has one of the top trafficked profiles on YouTube, where her tracks, shorts and covers have been seen by hundreds of thousands of fans, making her one of the top users in her home country of Australia. On MySpace, her work has been viewed by more than 72,000 of her closest digital devotees. In our chat, I found that she's as genuinely funny and smart as her videos.
Read the interview after the jump
Hey Nikki, so tell us about yourself. What do you do? What are you really passionate about?
I am a student by day and a nutcase with too much interest in too many outlets of creative expression during remaining times! Music (and performing it) has always been my first passion. Then one day, literature decided to look beautiful and appealing and it too became a passion. Then photography and film followed suit.
Describe your style. What's fresh about your work?
I suppose it's fresh in the absolute literal sense because the output is all raw 'emotion' or 'drive to create' more than it is based on technique or convention. For example, I've never had formal guitar lessons, never attended a film course, never took up photography class, etc., so what I do create is essentially just a product of the whim to create something.
I guess, also, that my work is all full of heart. (Cheesy!) But it's absolutely true because it is because of 'art' that I am a social pariah / was never cool in high school. On most occasions, I pick staying home to write a song over being a cool kid and heading to a club.
Your work is now viewed by a crazy amount of people who love your work, but what was the first video that you shared on YouTube or song on MySpace? Tell us about your choice, the reaction you got and the possible audience you were trying to reach.
Actually, the first video on YouTube I ever uploaded was a message for the people I watched and admired, telling them to keep making videos because I would keep watching. I initially made a YouTube account just so I could comment and favorite videos. I made my first video because, in the event that someone I admired were to wander over to my page, I didn't want to just be a blank page. I wanted to put a face to a name. Then I actually got a few encouraging comments of my own, and I thought "HEYYYY! This video-making-thing might actually be fun." And thus I started making my own content.
As far as MySpace goes, the first song I put up was called 'Sorry Seems To Be'. My friend Chumpy helped me record it and he worked on it -- adding lots of instrumentation and drums and whatnot and I got excited and wanted to share it. I don't recall who I was trying to reach. In fact, I think the MySpace [profile] stayed dormant for a while and it wasn't until a few months later when I started getting a few hits on YouTube and people started friending me on MySpace that I revived it.
And overall, what's your absolute favorite video or song you've created so far?
I have a soft spot for one of my ancient videos, "Dear Diary, I Love Ricardo." It's absolutely absurd. It's a spoken love letter to someone fictional and it breathes on the very fact that it is an exercise in being strange. I'm also a little partial to a recent song, "So Incredibly Profound. Not," because it wrote itself. As the title suggests, it absolutely lacks lasting and meaningful lyrics and it's basically my acknowledgment of my own lack of knowledge... I think. But with both choices above... I ran with whatever insane ideas came to mind.
Tell us about your collaborations with other singers and musicians on YouTube.
Collabs have been around for yonks. The first musical collab I ever did was "Virginia Moon" with BenLoka, and we had previously done a skit-type collab. The song was already originally a duet. Ben and I liked the song so the only reasonable option really was to cover it. As he lives in England and I, Australia, the most practical solution was a muso-collab! The response was much better than I had anticipated. People seemed to enjoy the duo-screens happening, and so I periodically ran with the idea. Generally, though, I like to live on spontaneity so I don't plan out videos too long in advance.
Do you have a craziest or favorite story about connection with other creatives on the Web?
Probably getting acquainted with BenLoka. I absolutely admired his videos. They were always witty and funny and he always had an amazing sense of self-awareness and comedic timing. So I made him a video response one day, letting him know I appreciated his videos and admired his efforts. Next thing I know, he's watched all the videos I had up and told me about how I inspired him and how he admired whatever I came up with. And it was insanely mind-blowing to garner mutual respect with your idol!!! Anyway, that wasn't so crazy, but I'm all out of ideas.
Oh and Frezned and Nerimon flew into Sydney. We all met up and hung out for the first time. While in Sydney, a couple of Nerimon's fan girls wanted to meet him, so he ended up meeting them, but Frez & I were not so keen. As it later turned out, one of the fan girls was the best friend of one of my close friends. Small world!
Leave us with some links.
Fave filmmakers on YouTube: BenLoka, HayleyGHoover, Frezned
Fave musicians on YouTube: NatalyDawn, Pomplamoosemusic, KthxRae, KokoKaina
Sites online I am addicted to: fmylife.com, stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, lookbook.nu (my account is lookbook.nu/barelyporridge), flickr.com
