A genre parody is a criticism of a certain culture or technique, executed using the medium of that genre, a work that is “ participating in the codes of a genre at the same time that they are self-consciously parodying those codes.” Genre parodies often dial up the common tropes of the targeted genre to 11 in order to make the viewer painfully aware of what is being targeted and criticized.

An excellent example of genre parody would be U2’s Zoo TV tour, done after their massively successful album Achtung Baby. The Zoo TV tour took the materialistic rock star lifestyle and criticized it through the tour’s absurd, maximalist production and dark visuals and rhetoric.

During the development of Achtung Baby, U2 were faced with a dilemma. They had risen to fame by producing earnest, socially conscious music that dealt with heavy topics such as drug addiction and warfare. This music was massively popular, and led to them becoming one of the biggest bands in the world. All this commercial success was often at odds with the ethos of the band, and led to an identity crisis of sorts leading up to Achtung Baby. Instead of continuing to be hypocritical, or rejecting fame entirely, frontman Bono says that “instead of running away from the contradictions, I should run into them and wrap my arms around them and give ’em a big kiss.”

While this embrace of contradiction was apparent on Achtung Baby, it became obvious during the Zoo TV tour. The set design was maximalist in a way U2 tours had never been before- cars hung from the ceiling acting as spotlights, and a belly dancer appeared during “Mysterious Ways.” Bono also adopted a series of characters onstage, such as The Fly and MacPhisto. The Fly was Bono’s take on the traditional rock star, and donned a leather jacket and sunglasses that have become a central part of his image. MacPhisto was Bono’s take on the devil, and was intended to represent the temptation and sin that goes hand in hand with the rock star lifestyle. While this maximalism may have been a criticism, it was also an embrace. The sunglasses that Bono donned to mock other rock stars have not left his face, in one form or another, since. Bono himself said about his parody of the rock star lifestyle: “You actually find out that you like some of the bullshit. I mean, some of it’s fun.”

The Zoo TV tour as a parody was also an exercise in postmodernism. The criticism of the rock star lifestyle while simultaneously embracing it indicated U2’s acceptance of their place in pop culture. Even the imagery of the tour was unquestionably postmodern. Giant projectors set up on the stage projected different messages to the audience, the most famous being the simple statement EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG. This statement, along with several other aspects of the tour, challenged master narratives, such as the narrative that materialism is universally wrong. Sure, the rock star lifestyle may be materialistic and sinful, but, as Bono said, “some of it’s fun.”

Since this article was published in 2009 there have been several significant advancements to Youtube and web 2.0 in general, to the point where several of the points made in Urrichio’s piece seem quaint and antiquated.

Youtube specifically has become a media giant, and is now unquestionably a separate entity from the traditional media that it was only a companion to six years ago. Content creators such as PewDiePie have made careers out of creating videos for the website. The Swedish gamer in particular raked in $7.4 million last year largely due to advertising revenue from his videos.

The trademark of Web 2.0 has been individual content creators gaining notoriety through uploading their own content. This is on the surface a very democratic approach, and if you create quality content you will be recognized and celebrated for it. In practice, the barrier for entry is still very high, and most of the well-known Youtube celebrities use very expensive recording and audio equipment. Tech reviewer MKBHD, for example, uses a $50,000 RED video camera to record his videos. Popular vlogger Casey Neistat uses his previous experience in advertising to create videos with cinematography that would be impossible for a novice to create. This influx of money and experience to the Youtube scene is a far cry from the early days of the site when videos such as Charlie bit my finger were all the rage

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Still, even with this influx of money and experience to web 2.0, it still operates around the principle of individual creation. I believe that this will change with the advent of Web 3.0, and I think that we have begun to see the start of Web 3.0 already. Web 3.0 will likely be defined as the introduction of corporations into the web, who create their own content and charge for it. The most obvious Web 3.0 candidate right now would be Netflix, which charges for access to their catalogue of movies and shows, which include their own television shows published on the service.

Other companies are starting to experiment with broadcasting their content on the web first. VICE media has deals with Snapchat, Go90, and Apple Music to produce exclusive series and publishes their flagship television series on HBO, which has recently developed HBO Now, a Netflix clone that publishes HBO’s series at the same time that they come on TV.

Even sports, traditionally a stalwart of cable TV, has begun to move to the web. The NFL reached a deal with Twitter today to broadcast its Thursday Night Football games on the app. The ability to stream NFL games without a cable subscription, which this deal will likely entail, will be groundbreaking for the web.

Hillary Clinton’s image has been the cause of a lot of conflict for several decades now, and the her efforts and struggles with the media to influence it have gone on for just as long. However, the power dynamic between Clinton and the media has changed significantly since she was just a presidential candidate’s wife.

When Bill Clinton was first running for president in 1991, the media decided to paint Hillary Clinton as the poster child of the new wave of feminism at the time. She was a far cry from the stay-at-home wife that was the norm in the 1990s, with a lot of experience practicing law and campaigning under her belt. The media portrayed her as a very volatile person and described her as a “political animal.”

This image was not helpful to Clinton, and gave the public a very negative perception of her early in her career. Hillary took steps to take her image back from the media, which can best be shown in her white house bake-off which painted Hillary as a good housewife who cooked and performed other domestic tasks. This is the first example of Hillary taking steps to control her image.

Fast forward to 2016, and Clinton has become very experienced with the media, and manipulates them very skillfully. In a recently leaked communication between a member of Hillary’s staff and journalist Marc Ambinder, Ambinder was offered prior access to one of Hillary’s speeches, under the condition that he wrote a favorable article that praised her and used certain adjectives, such as “muscular” to describe her speech. The journalist in question complied with all of these requests.

This occurrence shows that Hillary has come a long way from the time when she held a bake-off to appease the media and the public. Hillary is now very well-versed in dealing with the media, and has figured out, at least in some cases, how to make the media work for her.

In recent years Hillary has faced a new opponent in her struggle to control her image: the internet. Ironically, just as Hillary has managed to create a dominant relationship with the media, an entirely new medium comes along which is impossible to control, therefore making Hillary’s struggle to control her image similar to Sisyphus and his boulder.

The internet, and specifically media, have allowed anyone to post their opinions, which can create new narratives completely independent of traditional news media. Things such as the Bernie v Hillary meme can influence an entire generation’s perspective of Hillary, and online her foibles, such as her infamous appearance on The Ellen Show where she hit the Nae Nae, can be amplified and criticized on a scale that would be impossible on a 24-hour news channel. The irreverence of social media can also create narratives that are a lot more angry and rude than a those that a news channel would create. It’s hard to imagine an anchor on a cable news channel would insinuate that Hillary’s “failure to please” her husband would mean that she could not please America, but that’s exactly what Donald Trump did on twitter.