Today, anything on the Internet is accessible to anyone. This allows new media to foster creativity. People can use existing media in combination with their own to create even newer media. For example, open source software is opened to the public and people who are using open source software can incorporate that software into their own applications. Therefore, new media encourages people to generate ideas from other people’s work.
People have demonstrated their creativity in the use of media by creating mashups. A mashup is the combination of two pieces of media into one. The article “Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?” by Brook Barnes published in the New York Times discusses an example of a mashup. It explains that a YouTube user had combined a rap song “Crank That” by Soulja Boy with Disney characters to create a parody. This is creative because people do not usually associate rap songs with Disney characters. When they are combined together in a video, it creates a funny visual. The article also stated that there is another version that uses SpongeBob SquarePants characters that has been viewed more than seven million times. This speaks about how popular these mashups can be. Anyone can create a mashup using any media and if they are funny or interesting enough, it can go viral on the Internet.
It's certainly interesting how New Media borrows from Old Media to create mashups. What is funny to the new generation may offend the older generation. Disney characters were created to be funny and innocent but in today's times with the creation of memes and pornography via the internet, they have been transformed into something else. I guess this is where the downside to New Media comes in. It fosters creativity but some use the creativity in a negative way.
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