This was originally posted on blogger. Exactly four weeks ago I released my animation How to Change the World about Rosa Parks… and today I finished rendering this baby shark parody, Big Bad Jeff.

My gosh, this was time-consuming. I used software called Synfig, which is designed for 2D animations and allows for skeletons, vector graphics, and any number of objects moving around the screen. I thought it was the right tool for the job – much better than hand-drawing each frame – but it was really complicated! A large part of these 4 weeks has been, in different ways, learning how this software works properly. Hopefully if I use Synfig in the future, it’ll go a lot faster.

Now, the actual topic: Jeff Bezos. Amazon’s a company so many people know, there’s no shortage of media about him, and no shortage of attacks on his company. Amazon provides a great service but, honestly, a company that big shouldn’t exist. And a person that rich shouldn’t exist either. Personally I enjoyed watching Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act video about this, and a kick-starter to create this video came from Is Amazon Unstoppable in the New Yorker.

Of course, this is the first time such commentary has been offered via Baby Shark parody (to my knowledge, at least). Baby Shark is a kids animation / dance video with 5.5 billion views on Youtube. That’s a ridiculous amount of views. I first saw it doing morning workouts with kids in China. It’s quite an ear-worm (believe me, I’ve listened to the audio over a hundred times now) – though honestly I don’t know why it’s so popular. The natural thing to do was to combine the Bezos/Amazon critique with a Baby Shark Parody. Anyone could have thought of it! But really, I’m not sure why it occurred to me… and I’m even less sure why I spent four weeks working on this darn video.

In recent weeks Amazon’s predatory nature has become really obvious to me. The way they bully companies into marketing on their website, bully factory workers, buy out businesses or put them out of business… It’s shark-like. Also, the amount of wealth CEO’s like Jeff Bezos are getting during the Coronavirus crisis – while millions others are starving on the streets – is staggering. Wealth inequality is staggering. I commend the recent efforts to curb the Amazon monopoly, limit merges and acquisitions, and place a vigorous wealth tax on the rich (spearheaded by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex and Elizabeth Warren).

I tried to be light-hearted and really poke fun at Jeff, rather blatantly attack his company. I think “the left” (whatever that is) can be overly-harsh and negative sometimes… Critiques are important, but they’re best given with a smile on your face. Mr. Bezos on $100 bills, or him hanging out with Mr. Coronavirus is meant to show the ridiculousness of it all. There’s tons of anti-Amazon pieces out there, I think my animation falls in a different space. Something that makes you smile, is made for kids, and points out injustice.

Thanks for reading and watching. If you’ve read this far on the blog-post you may as well give a comment below :D. Right now, I’m excited to rest for a few days and then tackle my next creative project!

2 comments captured from original post on Blogger

**Unknown said on 2020-06-21** super cool! **Unknown said on 2020-06-21** meaning the animation, not amazon’s predatory nature