The D-List
the eye interviews sarah dooley
PrintSarah Dooley, a Barnard sophomore, writes the YouTube series And Sarah, which documents the college life of the naive and quirky main character (Rachel Mersky, also a sophomore at Barnard, directs). With over 120,000 collective views, the videos recently attracted the attention of a writer for the New York Times’ Freakonomics blog, who raves not only about Sarah’s acting and writing in the video series, but her original music accompanying the videos. Sarah has written and recorded over 30 original songs, and isn’t stopping there. As one YouTube comment says: “this may be the coolest thing on youtube; no joke, straight up, honest to god. never stop.” Zach Dyer sits down with Sarah Dooley to discuss her life as a semi-famous Columbian.
How did you feel when you found out a New York Times blog wrote about you?
I was really happy. I was actually really surprised people read the Freakonomics blog—I didn’t think that many people would. Guess I’ve found my target audience: economists.
Did you have any idea that your YouTube videos were as widely watched as they are?
Oh, absolutely not. I showed them to my friends, like, “Look what I did! Aren’t I nutty?” But I thought that would be the extent of it. I thought it might end up like those people who film their dogs doing something silly in a costume and, you know, 20 of their relatives watch it once and that’s it. Rachel Mersky had been making videos for a long time... I really owe it to her for any sort of viewers it gained.
What was your aim in making them?
I don’t even know. I was just really bored, and had seen all of Michael Cera’s videos, and liked them so much that I felt like I wanted to make some of my own. First of all, I didn’t think they would ever happen. Secondly, I didn’t really expect anyone to watch them. I don’t know what I thought would happen—I kind of did it for myself.
You mentioned Michael Cera, and, just browsing some of the comments on your YouTube and MySpace, I see a lot of them claim that you are no different from him or Regina Spektor. Personally, I see some immediate physical differences, but how do you respond to this?
I’m a lady. Michael Cera is a gentleman. So there’s that. But those observations are obviously valid—both Michael Cera and Regina Spektor influence my stuff, and it’s pretty apparent. But I guess I hope people can see that those two inspire me to make my own version of things— [to] kind of take what I love and admire and run with it in my own way.
Do you read all your YouTube comments? Have there ever been any strange ones?
Last year there was this person, this hater, who made all these YouTube accounts called “stopsarah101” or “sarahmustdie202,” not violent ones, but there were a ton of them that left comments like, “Sarah is a racist! We should boycott her!” ... it freaked my mom out, majorly. I went to his page and the only video was one of him on some mountain wearing a ski mask. My mom saw it and thought he was a murderer. But, I mean, he lost steam after a while and went away. And his accusations were just hilariously out of left field. I think he may have been out of his mind.
Once you’d gained a following, did you change the way you thought about your videos at all?
I definitely didn’t change how I wrote them, but I was probably a little more conscious of the fact that more people would be watching. I think I was probably a little more careful—I mean, especially after that skiing murderer came at me, I double-checked the script to make sure I actually wasn’t a racist.
Do you feel you’ve reached any level of fame on the Columbia campus?
People will tell me they’ve seen the show, and it makes my day. It catches me off-guard. ... Sometimes I’ll be doing something awkward, and someone will come up to me, and I’m left thinking, “Great. That person thinks I am the character.” One time, I actually was eating alone in the dining hall—-that’s OK sometimes, isn’t it? If you’re like, doing work or something? Frick.
Do you have any other outlets for your original music, besides YouTube?
I have a MySpace that I need to update, desperately. And I think some of my stuff is on iLike, but I don’t even really know what iLike is. I thought for a while, and I still consider music something I would love to pursue. It’s probably what I like to do the most—I play every day and I try to write every day. Ideally, I’d love to be a singer-songwriter, but that’s just something that I love at this point, and if it happens, I mean, that would be great.
Do you think Columbia provides an outlet for all your creativity?
Yeah, I do. At least the theater does. ... I’m happy with it—I feel like I’m always busy in that sense.
Do you ever feel like your more arts-related commitments on campus ever put your classes second?
Sometimes, yeah—a lot of times I will skip class, and it will be OK, but I usually never skip rehearsal. Which makes me wonder. But that’s normal, I think. Even if I didn’t have a lot of extracurricular stuff going on, I probably would still put off doing school work if I had, say, a really good cake to eat. Priorities.
What do you think YouTube and MySpace are doing for the world of music and acting?
[They’re] definitely making things more available to more people, which I appreciate. And it is a lot easier to find and connect with people who do the same things you do.
16 April 2009
vol. 6, issue 10
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