Privacy and semi-permanence

Remember Merton, the chat roulette improv musician? I checked his youtube page today to see if there were any new videos (lo and behold, he uploaded one a few weeks ago I hadn't seen), and I eventually watched the older ones again.

I remember the first one was really amazing because it was both funny and touching to see how people reacted. I recall when the random woman requests "fireflies" that she almost looked like she was going to cry, and it brought out an emotional response from me while watching it the first few times. There's something amazing about making someone laugh and almost cry in the span of a minute that makes you an instant fan of their work.

What's weird is that if you watch the original video today, you'll see that woman is now a giant blur. You don't get any emotional connection that was there. Later in the video a guy in a backwards ballcap is kind of made fun of and he's now blurry too.

I understand the need for privacy and it's not like the guy behind these videos got model releases from everyone, but it's sad to see a major internet meme take a hit by blurring a really touching scene in what was otherwise an innocuous appearance by a random person.

update: the unedited original is on Vimeo. See how different (and better) that version is?