This gives me hope – UPDATED

I can’t say why, exactly, but all of this gives me hope.

Clearly, thirty years of access to home video has made everyone pretty comfortable before the cameras. Until now–thanks to Reality TV, I was thinking of that as a net-negative. I am rethinking my position. A society that can handle its devolution with a bit of humor and artistic entrepreneurship gives me hope. You may feel differently. Watch the videos in order:

Antoine Dodson, charismatic and with a delivery that lends itself perfectly to this:

It’s entirely possible that Dodson and his family will be helped out of the projects not by well-meaning but stale and bloated government programs, but by imaginative, energetic, opportunistic art, and a culture that craves people it can like and root for.

And, of course, by a catchy tune:

UPDATE: From Friend Shana, the Antoine Dodson Doll!. Ah, Capitalism!

Filed under: Crisis and opportunity