[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNbp1Yjfs6ohggxD9vHbqP-yeZL8uPyAa[/youtube]

I really cannot stress enough how much I love YouTube. I first discovered it in high school when I needed help with homework problems. Instead of “Googling” things, I began “YouTubing” them instead. YouTube was a huge reason why I made it through calculus alive. Somewhere in the midst of all of this educational goodness, I discovered that I could use YouTube for entertainment purposes as well. I began following a few web series, as if various TV shows didn’t consume enough of my time.

The YouTube experience was different though; these weren’t established actors I was watching. The videos were filled with hilarious, talented individuals who were (or used to be) just as average as I was. Many of them ended up being discovered through their videos and were signed to record labels or given their own shows. This journey was awesome to watch.

As YouTube became more and more popular, the more tech-savvy contributors started introducing compilations. They pulled popular clips from TV shows, movies, etc. and made comprehensive, searchable montages of them. For me, this was pure magic. Now I could see all of the outtakes from my favorite shows, all of the characters that my favorite actor played, or my all-time favorite, fail compilations. I started to identify YouTube with the most convenient form of entertainment.

Clearly, my preferences haven’t changed since then. My playlist includes a lot of frivolous videos whose only function is to entertain. I change it up every now and then and use YouTube for things like listening to music that I don’t want to buy but for the most part, I use it when I want a good laugh. My videos are a bit varied but mostly follow this humorous path. When I first looked at my list, I thought that comicality was all that my choices had in common. After opening each of them side-by-side in browsers, I realized another theme: popularity.

I had never realized how mainstream my YouTube channel taste was before this analysis. It’s actually kind of embarrassing. All of the videos I watch either have hundreds of thousands-to-millions of views or will within the next few days. I really enjoy clips from Ellen Degeneres, Jimmy Fallon, and other overpublicized shows. It’s not that I am not open to new comedians or web series; I just don’t usually browse through YouTube in that way. More often than not, I go to specific channels and watch videos from there. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with my browsing habits but it wouldn’t hurt for me to YouTube a little more broadly. If it’s even possible, I could end up loving it even more.