Two weekends ago saw the low-key, zero-promotion release of a professionally polished trailer for a new documentary called American Blogger, in which a young filmmaker chronicles his forty-state road trip to visit forty of his blogger wife’s blogger associates. After receiving single-digit daily traffic in its first week of release, last weekend it soared to the kind of near-viral status that every blogger dreams of attaining. I wish I could say this sudden fame was due to the trailer’s proud, heart-swelling representation of an entire internet culture. Unfortunately, it was the other kind of fame.

In a world where millions vie for the attention of billions and the most innocent art projects can veer radically out of control when we least expect it, one young filmmaker would experience an apocalyptic shift that would thrust him into the burning limelight, shatter his innocent perceptions, pulverize his foundations, and transform his life retroactively from birth onward for all eternity. Along the way he would solidify old friendships, make new enemies, suffer hard choices at one crossroad after another, hold his ground against the forces of evil, stand on the bleeding edge between order and chaos, find himself the last repository of hope in a world gone mad, and scream “Vendetta!” at the infinite blood-streaked skies as the rage of a million exploding suns threatened to consume him from within.

Or something like that, the way his trailer narrator tells it.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s your chance below, assuming Vimeo works in all regions and it’s not taken down by the time you read this:

(Or check out the American Blogger Official Trailer from Chris Wiegand directly on Vimeo.)

This entry was my original plan for Tuesday night. Working titles included “What the American Blogger Trailer Gets Wrong About America, Blogging, Trailers” and “Thinking About Burning My Site Down After Watching the American Blogger Trailer”. Instead I put myself in time-out in hopes that I might find kinder ways of wording my reaction without sacrificing honesty for diplomacy.

If you’re not a blogger, this won’t affect you as deeply unless you’re the cynical sort who bookmarks blogs as part of his daily hate-reading, one among the high-minded literati who intimidate me in normal conversation to refer to my blog as my “site” and to myself as an “amateur writer” instead of as a blogger.

After watching this trailer, I think I’m not wrong to keep doing that.

Other online pundits have commented on the fact that his flawed sampling method (i.e., he only interviewed friends of his wife who said “yes”) has resulted in the “American blogger” overwhelmingly averaging out as an affluent white woman. Not all of them are white, and in the interest of granting the benefit of the doubt as a display of mercy, I’m willing to believe that perhaps the other couple dozen interviewees in the actual film might, one hopes, be more diverse than the trailer editor has chosen to showcase. With any luck, perhaps a few of them spoke to cameras in settings that didn’t appear to be extravagant creations from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Full disclosure here: I’m consciously soft-pedaling one aspect of this because there’s no version of reality where I get to complain about lack of male representation in anything and not look jealous, self-aggrandizing, and/or sexist. Heck, maybe one or two participants were male and were simply held back as surprises for the finished product. I wouldn’t know. Again, leniency is granted here for my own safety.

On the say-something-nice side, I approve of the road-trip aspect of this production, which should surprise approximately zero longtime MCC followers. I also think it’s not a bad thing that so many bloggers have found reasons and means to keep persisting in what they love to do. It’s important to know this curious pastime of mine has its success stories.

I would’ve let this go and filed it under “Things Not to Nitpick in Front of Other Bloggers” if it weren’t for one thing:

That blasted, overblown narration.

The dulcet yet urgent narrator evokes the sincerity of a sideshow huckster as he imbues his grandiloquent script with a refined rendition of the sort of hyperbolic swagger you rarely hear outside old-school rap battles. I tried to be patient on my first run-through, but kept stumbling time and again at various key turns of phrase:

…in his feature-film debut…

Read: someday the director will be really important on both sides of the camera, like Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, and here’s your chance to stake a claim to charter membership in his fandom-to-be!

…this feature-length documentary that will change the way you see an entire industry.

If you can convince rural America to watch a documentary, maybe they’ll learn what a “blog” is. Otherwise, who are we looking to educate here? Bloggers, who pretty much know what other bloggers are like? People who read blogs because they already like what bloggers are like? Are blog haters meant to be touched and brought to repentance by hearing these stories instead of reading them? Will this movie spearhead a new movement of troll reform? Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Beautifully filmed and artistically crafted…

The American Blogger narrator gives American Blogger seven out of five stars!

With stunning cinematography, this story is told against the backdrop of the great American landscape…

“Stunning”? Was this evaluation performed by a third-party cinematography inspection company? And does this mean you skipped Kansas? Stuck to the mountains? Tried to crop skyscrapers out of shots where possible? Opted for this “great American landscape” vague euphemism instead of chanting “U!S!A! U!S!A!”?

And come to think of it, if the bloggers are the subjects, who cares about the backgrounds? Yeah, they seem as pretty as a photography blog, but a title like American Blogger tells me I’m in for a movie about bloggers. Keep the road-trip footage for a separate follow-up called American Landscapes, maybe sell it to one of the Discovery Channel channels.

Follow along as he travels the United States, interviewing a range of bloggers who open up about community, about sharing, and about life.

Note the bloggers aren’t the subject; they’re the objects. They’re the MacGuffins sought by Our Hero, the writer/director/star of the film. The title might be justifiable for his one-man journey if he were the one true American Blogger questing for deeper blogging wisdom.

Entertaining and educational, this film will leave you feeling inspired…

Y’know all of that’s really for me to decide, right? In a way I suppose this petty diatribe counts as “inspired”, so okay, you got me on that one, and I haven’t even seen the film yet. Well played, you.

It will open your eyes to a thriving movement that potentially could change the world.

Dear World: you could learn a thing or two from us American internet users. Follow our example, heed our words, pay close attention to our product endorsements, and watch us blow your minds when we speak directly to you on important blogging topics such as blogging, other bloggers, the blogosphere, blog networking, blogging topics, blogging challenges, and other subjects that readers who never, ever blog absolutely need to know. Maybe then you can go have some world peace.

…

…I don’t think that time-out worked. And there go my chances of winning a spot in the sequel.

I’m not sure this vanity project will play well for any audience beyond its own participants, but I hope the final cut of American Blogger transcends what we’ve seen here. Best-case scenario: maybe there’s a second trailer in the works that dispenses with the unironic gravitas and assuages everyone’s concerns. Failing that, I’d suggest at least tossing in a few random Inception BWAAAAAAAs to lighten the mood. I think those are mandatory in trailers today anyway.