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Ringling Student’s Video Tops MTV.com Chart

April 6, 2011, 2:30 pm

After high school, Jason Letkiewicz pursued music with the Marysville, Michigan punk-pop band Every Avenue, but planned, if it wasn’t panning out, to go to college. As it happens, the band started hitting it big at about the time the guitarist/vocalist got a scholarship to art school, enrolling four years ago in the first digital filmmaking-program class at Ringling College of Art and Design.

Now 26, Letkiewicz, who is among this spring’s nine graduates from that pioneering class, has pulled the music and film strands of his career together, directing a low-budget Every Avenue music video that premiered at No. 1 on MTV.com.

MTV Buzzworthy Blogger Jason Newman described the video  as “a hilarious nod to Every Avenue’s prepubescent female fan base, as the band members become the kidnapping victims to an overly enthusiastic young lady. With the acumen and stealth of a professional hitman—make that hitgirl—the fan employs her Fisher-Price ‘My First Stalker’ kit to snatch each band member and hold him hostage. Pizza, poison arrows, and the band’s own CD are all used against them, culminating in a forced rock show in a very pink bedroom.”

Letkiewicz said by phone that the record label, Fearless, hadn’t asked for the video and that he made it on spec. He lassoed the band, just back from Australia, on one of their rare days off from touring, he explained. He was writer, director, editor, and color corrector, but cast and crew for the 18-hour, $500 shoot included about 50 people, including some of Letkiewicz’s fellow Ringling film-program students. “Film’s all about collaboration,” he said.

The song, “Mindset,” is about being obsessed with a girl, but Letkiewicz thought it would be fun to turn the premise around. He remembered from his official rocker days being surrounded by autograph-seeking 16-year-old girls who “absolutely love you” and thinking how weird that is because “you know nothing about me.” At the same time, for the band, “these are the people who are your lifeblood … keeping your career afloat.”

After he graduates, Letkiewicz says, he is going to New York, where he hopes he’ll be working on a pilot project for the Food Network. He’s in contact with a producer for whom he edited a documentary, and is writing a script based on a true event.

He still plays music, too, he says, but primarily for his fiancee. “Not doing it professionally has brought a lot of the fun back.”

—Alexander C. Kafka

As part of MTV’s Indie Music Month, Jason’s video of Michigan punk-pop quintet “Every Avenue” premiered on MTV.com as number one and the band was lauded as one of the “the most exciting artists in the indie music scene.” The video was described by MTV Buzzworthy Blogger Jason Newman as “a hilarious nod to Every Avenue’s prepubescent female fan base, as the band members become the kidnapping victims to an overly enthusiastic young lady. With the acumen and stealth of a professional hitman – make that hitgirl – the fan employs her Fisher-Price “My First Stalker” kit to snatch each band member and hold him hostage. Pizza, poison arrows and the band’s own CD are all used against them, culminating in a forced rock show in a very pink bedroom.” (viewable at http://buzzworthy.mtv.com/2011/03/16/every-avenue-mindset-video/)
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  • fiona

    OK, I’m against character assassination. But I think there’s a huge amount of wisdom on the CHE fora that wouldn’t appear if people (including me) had to post under their real names. I’m not interested in attacking people, but I do reveal secrets of the academic trade that I wouldn’t want to reveal under my real name. I do make negative comments about academic practices or (sometimes) the things that academic people have done. I don’t believe in attacking individuals, but I do believe in attacking bad behavior, which is often inseparable from the individual. I think you have to, um, “nuance” what you’re saying :).

  • clarinetsarethebest

    In general, I’m a believer in disclosing one’s name – if you say something, you should be proud enough to put your own name behind it.

    However, if I may, it’s a lot easier when your name is Rob Jenkins, which is clearly both masculine and English.  When you know that your more controversial comments may very likely provoke racist and sexist attacks as well as the usual attacks, it takes more courage to use your real name.  Of course, these attacks generally come from people (or trolls) who don’t use their real names, so it’s a bit of a circle – it’s even harder to use your real name knowing that other people don’t have to.

  • http://twitter.com/IsaacSweeney IsaacSweeney

    Always a fan of using one’s real name.

  • robjenkins

    I can’t help my name, clarinets. All I can do is use it. (Although I suppose I could have used my full name, Robin, which is decidedly less masculine, if no less English [Welsh, actually]. But I’ve been going by “Rob” since I was six, and that’s how everyone knows me, so it never occurred to me to attach any other name to my writings.)

  • clarinetsarethebest

    I’m not judging you for your name!  It’s a great name.  I’m just saying that some names (mine’s Eileen Nguyen) invite racist, sexist attacks more than others.

    Although I suppose everyone gets called “Nazi” equally.

  • corvus_caurinus

    The real issue at stake is that in a Google world, everything I sign my name to can be cross-linked to every single other thing I’ve ever signed my name to. There’s a huge difference between being willing to put my name behind a statement or an opinion as a one-time act, and allowing that statement or opinion to be aggregated into the larger corpus of information that allows anyone to triangulate who I am by simply typing my name into a search engine. This is the predominant reason that I use pseudonyms on internet forums.

  • fizmath

    Anonymity is an essential component of free speech.  In every society there are taboo subjects that can’t easily be discussed openly.

  • polisciguy

    As someone who has been the subject of a very hateful MySpace page when I was a new teacher (let’s say the title of the page would have been criminal had I acted quicker on it), I know the power of people using the anonymity of the Internet for their own nefarious purposes. And the people who know me are always stunned when I tell them this, because most often I am described a nice guy. The only reason I post anonymously here is because I am in (slow) transition from K-12 to CC teaching and I don’t like to advertise this fact about myself to those who may read these fora and also making job decisions with that in mind. 

    I never am ashamed of what I post here (I am of the camp that believes if you wouldn’t say it out loud, you should never post it online) and your column is making me re-think my preference toward concealing rather than revealing my identity.

  • boiler

    “I confess that I always have a little more respect for — and pay a
    little more attention to — those courageous souls who post under their
    real names.”

    That’s funny — for me, it’s just the opposite. In academia, we’re surrounded constantly by people who want their names on everything, who want to make sure that everyone understands just how brilliant and important they and their opinions are. An anonymous post represents the opposite, an opinion stated not for the purpose of drawing attention to the writer, but just to contribute to the conversation. Maybe it’s unfair, but when I see a signed post, I don’t tend to think, “How courageous!”, but rather, “How pompous!”

  • http://who-will-kiss-the-pig.blogspot.com Richard Grayson

    It *is* easier when you have a generic “Anglo” name (my parents changed our “ethnic” surname), and it’s even better when there are so many people with the same name that it invites the confusion can offer a small degree of protection to any one person with that generic name (and that can work, except for deflecting racist comments, even if it is not Anglo but common — for example, Thien Nguyen).

  • http://whytheology.wordpress.com/ Trey Medley

    For me, anyway, I don’t generally think of my name as anonymity, (It’s George Medley), but as merely the standard way of speaking on forums. Generally you have a username that may or may not reflect your actual name (in my case I’m technically George Medley, III and go by “Trey” hence t_rey). Although this is becoming less common place (to have a username that may not necessarily have any ties to your actual name), often times (though certainly not always) it is not a question of anonymity, but merely some unspoken convention.
     
    That said, it seems there are two interesting issues to consider here. First, giving your name does not necessarily eliminate anonymity. If your name is Joseph Smith, for instance, how many out there share your name? The top result for my name on Google is usually an orthapaedic surgeon or a petroleum engineer. I only know one of those people. If I get more specific and add the “III” or use “trey” I usually get a youth pastor from Alabama, which was slightly bizarre when I lived in Alabama. More recently I’ve been getting a Medley of songs from R&B semi-amateur artist “Trey Songz” Now that could be resolved is we merely gave significant personal information. But at some point it’s too much (and I’m not just talking about identity theft). I like keeping certain aspects of my life separate. People who use online forums or virtual games even moreso. For “gamers” there’s the phrase IRL (Invading or In Real Life) where there becomes a crossover between virtual worlds and the physical world (usually in fun/surreal ways), but the term has had some crossover from Facebook, Twitter, and the like. At what point do we need to keep these identities separate and at what point should we acknowledge their commonality? Granted the CHE is not really a place to worry much about that, at least for me, but it might be for others.
     
    The second issue has to do with credibility the other way ‘round. For instance, if I give my name, the usual response would be “who?” That is warranted. I am a lowly PhD student (granted one who has taught at a few small schools, but they’re not well-known schools either). Giving my name does little to add or detract from my credibility, until it is placed next to a very well known scholar. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter who I am, or what I say as much (it may still matter, but if I’m in disagreement, and the issue is contentious, then those “on the fence” will likely throw their support to the well known scholar for that reason alone). While the anonymity of the internet may lead to abuses as mentioned here, it also has become a great “equalizer” of sorts. Suddenly, my voice actually matters. Things can be evaluated on the basis of the arguments and not who is giving them. Again this has its pros and cons, but I think in this instance the pros greatly outweigh the cons. So the issue isn’t all that simple as “give your name you coward.” I don’t have a problem giving my name (as noted above). I just don’t think that the presence or absence of a name should be given much (if any) weight, particularly in online forums. If people make baseless attacks let them. It doesn’t make them good because they’ve been posted. It also doesn’t make them good if they add their name to them (though I suppose it might open them up for litigation). It doesn’t take that much courage to add a name most of the time, so why focus on it?

  • bigtwin

    Funny, I always thought that the anonymous posting that take place on CHE was about as civil as one could hope for on the Internet.  The author should compare what goes on here to, say, the posting on Youtube or craigslist.

    In fact, some of those posts the author would likely describe as “character assasination” I actually find to often be the most thought provoking and insightful.  I wonder if this is really about criticizing people who don’t agree with you.

  • tgroleau

    I’m a bit torn on this.  I’ve never tried to hide my identity on-line.  My id, tgroleau, is for Tom Groleau and a simple Google search on “tgroleau” will reveal that.

    On the other hand, there have been several times when I refrained from commenting on a Chronicle article or responding to a comment because I could easily be identified.  I’ve been in higher ed long enough to have experience with “sensitive issues”  that could be useful, or at least interesting, to other readers. However, in some cases, publishing those experiences with my name attached is more than I’m willing to reveal.

    Over the years, I’ve also been on the receiving end of a few attacks to my comments here and elsewhere (I differentiate “attack” from legitimate questions and critiques).   Then I have to decide if I want to get into a public shouting match or just ignore the troll.  That would be an easier decision if I were anonymous. 

    Therefore, I’m not opposed to anonymous posting/writing, but I wish there were some way to require a minimum level of maturity and civility for anonymous posters (if you want to be immature and uncivil, then at least sign your name).  Of course that could lead to censorship and … well, there’s no easy answer.

  • 11134078

    Take a look at Taylor Branch’s piece about college athletics in The Atlantic. It reinforces very strongly what I have maintained for a long time: college athletics are so corrupt as to be un-reformable. They need to be discontinued. (And by the way, up in the the right hand corner of the page as I type is a headline “An Epidemic of Injuries Plagues College Athletes.” This is followed by “Slide Show: College Athletes, Living with Pain.” Are we in higher ed so as to encourage this sort of thing? Oh wait, there’s more: “Pay for 15 NCAA Executives Topped $7-Million in 2009.)

  • Socratease2

    “Athletic spending and marketing vastly outstrip academics, in any form.”

    Talk about delusional . Don’t be a nay sayer just to spite me, read what those words are saying. You think that is an accurate statement? Please read it again and see if you can still say that with a straight face. It is not my opinion, it is just not true and you know it is is not true.

    I’ll take that bet. At my university athletics is is completely self-supporting (not the majority of schools are in this position I realize)….so, let’s see we will divide 0 dollars of state funding and student tuition for athletics by about 600 or 700 student-athletes and …..carry the 5 and divide by 16 and you still get 0. So, where do I pick up my bet

  • Socratease2

    I wanted to address the most important part of your lengthy comments. Specifically, Socratease is far from a lame pseudonym, it is an awesome one. And I did think of it myself but someone else got there first. I don’t think I am the first person to put a number after a desired email or login name before so don’t think you really want to criticise people for doing that. Think of the poor MaryJohnson674 out there, what else can she do except legally change her  name. Can’t say if I have ever heard from the “real” Socratease before but I hope I am more that just a “pale imitation” of a random login name, not quite sure what it would take to measure up to that august fake moniker.

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