A culture of "making of"

I spent some time watching the music+visuals of the various artists under AVmotional and one in particular got me thinking about the importance of the "making of".

But first things first, without any background I tend to credit MTV for the concept of "making of" simply because that's where we all started going behind the scenes of videos and what not. The idea of "making of" created the first real bridge between artefact - which was the musical or in any way artistic work, and the public. You could see how things were made and that created a form of intimacy with the artist. It also made the whole process more exciting because you got the see the workings behind the final result and sometimes even facets of that work you had not considered. It gave you a different perspective.

Somehow as time passed by "making of"s became as important as the product itself and with Internet I tend to think that the Making of is just as important as the work itself. Witness the Sony Bravia campaign where the first commercial was followed up by a teasing of the making of the second commercial. Also think of most of the eepybird experiments which are always presented in conjunction with the "making of'. The same works for Post-It experiments done by the same team. And of course, now we have "How it's made" on Discovery/Science.
In all instances the way the thing was made is just as interesting as the things itself. The making of becomes ... well, a thing in itself.

[PS: that's what you get from watching modern art projections all evening...]