status anxiety and other animations at The School of Life

The School of Life website was recently created to ostensibly address important things that are typically not taught in the formal process of schooling (see "about us"). The above video is among the rapidly growing TSL collection on YouTube. It defines what status anxiety is, why it's so common in modern societies, and concludes with suggestions about insulating oneself from its negative effects. An in-depth treatment of status anxiety is available in Alain de Botton's book of the same name, and his documentary film also available at the TSL site. Note: there are additional stratification-relevant videos at this site, including those on the works of Marx and Weber, and several on capitalism.

viral homeless vet video

This timelapse of Jim Wolf, homeless Army veteran, has had over 7 million YouTube hits since Nov 6. It was placed on the Internet as a fundraising vehicle by Degage Ministries and has already generated more than $15,000 of its $20,000 goal. The Grand Rapids, Michigan charity claims that Wolf's participation in the project has also transformed his life in other ways as he is now involved with AA. 

wealth inequality: perceptions and reality

Although uploaded to YouTube last November, this animated video has gone viral in recent days. It provides a graphic overview about current inequalities in the U.S. by considering disparities in wealth in terms of (a.) how Americans think wealth is actually distributed, (b.)  how Americans believe wealth should be distributed, and (c.) how wealth is actually distributed. Of particular note is the great discrepancy between perceptions and beliefs versus reality: actual wealth inequality is so much greater than how we perceive it to be distributed and how we believe it should be ideally distributed. The video is an excellent example of how video can transform complex, abstract ideas into compelling, understandable terms. Read this story in the Daily Kos for the possible role of such videos in sparking public action and social change. For a conservative critique of the video, see this article from National Review Online.