When Blogs Attack

I'm a pretty big fan of Chuck Olson's Minnesota Stories video podcast, partially because of how raw some of these podcast videos can be. Their Christmas podcast consisted of three guys smashing up a television and a turntable with almost zero editing (you could hear mostly just Mike Judge'esque "heh heh"ing as the only soundtrack to this Dionysian violence). The podcasts of Ethiopians surreally protesting outside of a suburban Barnes and Noble, a review of a coffeeshop in early evening, and creative lawn snowboarding all make this a really interesting blog/podcast experience. Still, the recent "WCCO Radio" episode ended by the host Chuck Olson videotaping a driver from a hotel cursing him out and spitting at his car because Chuck cut him off. Chuck remarks

"What he probably doesn't realize is that I have a high-definition camera, and that I can call...and get his @$$ fired for spitting at me, so that's exactly what I am going to do. I love video blogging."

I'm still a fan and get a bit of a thrill watching Chuck (possibly) enact some retribution for someone else's road rage, but I still have to say that I'm not sure this should have been on a video blog for public consumption. I know that "Reality" TV packages and sells exactly these cinema verite (sorry about the accents, francophiles) moments, but I'm not as gung-ho about throwing this kind of edited read meat out for public consumption when the production company is essentially an army of one. After all, who do you blame for the "crassness" of documenting and publicizing others petty weaknesses. Not even sure I should be commenting about this...