American Biotechnologist got a hold of the video’s producer Nathaniel Krefman and asked him for some feedback on how his musical parody has been received by the research community and how it’s impacted on his research career. Below is an excerpt of Nathaniel’s response:
I’m flattered that you are highlighting my video on your blog. Yeah, someone pointed out to me yesterday that PZ Myers posted my video on his blog, and since then the view count has more than doubled, and I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback. It’s funny how much of a difference a blog posting can make in the traffic a video gets.
I can’t say yet, however, that this video has made a difference in my research career. I receive most of my positive feedback from fish geneticists, so unfortunately I may not be reaching the type of biologists who can help to advance a career in mitosis! Haha. I do think that Phil and Andrew (the two “actors” that appear in the video) are “famous” in their fields already and will be recognized at conferences as a result of this video. The video has definitely made the rounds among fish people.
Actually, for your information, I am making three new videos this year that will be posted to YouTube in two weeks. They are all also parodies, and this time they are all more general interest, just related to graduate school and laboratory work in general. I wrote and sang in two of them and directed the third that it was written by another student. I anticipate that these videos may be more popular than “I’m Bringin’ Stickleback,” because of the general nature of the topics.
We thank Nathaniel for his response and look forward to sharing his upcoming videos with you as well.
