As an avid Netflix watcher, I thought I would live tweet myself watching the first episode of Kanye’s new documentary series, called Jeen-Yuhs. I am a fan of Kanye’s music and how vocal he is about his faith in God, so I thought that his new series could be a good watch.
Kanye’s friend and video producer, Coodie, shot all of the footage for this documentary series. They started filming it back in 2000, when Kanye was still at the beginning of his career journey. The fact that this documentary had been filmed for just under 20 years was intriguing to me. Kanye KNEW that from the start, he was destined for greatness. From the start of the story, we come to love the person that Kanye is and feel that we can relate to him throughout his struggles to fame.
Themes of an engaging story:
Like all engaging stories, this first episode had themes of relatability, emotion, authenticity, urgency, and suspense. We rooted for Kanye’s success from the second the show started, and it was because of his authenticity and relatability. It was easy to be invested in Kanye’s journey because of his tenacity and perseverance.
The not knowing if Kanye would get signed for a record deal as an artist was suspenseful to watch. We watched him fail multiple times, but always rise up stronger than before. This humanization of Kanye made him a likeable character.
When Kanye finally succeeds in getting a record with his top chosen record label Roc-A-Fella Records, I genuinely felt so happy for him. Seeing him persevere through his journey made me emotionally invested in his story. His reliance and faith in God was a prominent theme throughout the episode, which I think is relatable to a lot of people. The episode ends with him closing the record deal, but the narration alludes that his story has only jus begun (again, utilizing the element of suspense).
I am beyond excited to watch the next episode in this series.
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 