The NYT's Virginia Heffernan on Amanda Congdon, who has jumped -- after being pushed from Rocketboom -- to being the video blogger for ABCNews.com.
Now in the warm embrace of the mainstream media, this onetime indie figure is making online video segments on eclectic subjects. And ABC is meanwhile promising its groovy young girlfriend that she won’t have change a bit, even for corporate events: no first-lady suits, no hot-roller hair, no mannequin makeup. Ever. On her first minishow, which became available yesterday on ABC’s Web site, Ms. Congdon shows up in a taut Steely Dan T-shirt and opens with her trademark girly casualness: “O.K., this is weird.”
That’s a decently far cry from Barbara Walters.
The item she goes on to report isn’t all that weird — the actress Tori Spelling held a tag sale that was filmed for her reality show — but never mind that. What stands out is Ms. Congdon’s reflexive bafflement, well known to fans from Rocketboom. Like a teenager, she seems exaggeratedly puzzled by whatever’s at hand; she’s too cool for almost everything, and good for her.
To achieve this effect, she often appeals to the camera — the audience? God? — to find out what’s going on. Slim, swan-necked, with the upright bearing of a dancer or cadet, she doesn’t exactly lean in for intimacy with the viewer. She’s not relatable. She seems a touch abstemious. The news, it seems, kind of grosses her out.
I watched Ms. Condon's first instalment. It had bon mots like this:
As I was driving to work today, I started thinking about just how much Javascript sucks. I was thinking how messy it looks when it pops up and clutters my desktop and how most video blogs now are embedded in the page. Then I thought, 'Yeah, let's go with Javascript for my new show on ABCNews.com!'
Cool. Way cool. Or should I say, "that's hot."
You might think Amanda's on top of the world right now. But it wasn't always so.