As someone who has been an avid YouTube user during and after my withdrawal from the wonders of TV, I’ve made some key distinctions in what attracts me to the user-generated content as opposed to the professionally produced. I’ve found that although YouTube can and often does have content with high production value, the entire platform pushes a sense of intimacy that TV can never aspire to.

When I watch a show on TV, it’s scripted, it’s vetted a hundred times over and depending on what I’m watching it’s either diluted by mass appeal or it’s tame enough to be aired on cable. On top of that I have to sit through advertising for every 5 minutes of programming so that the executives can get their Porsches waxed on the daily. What’s worse is that unless someone is watching the show with me, I have to wait to talk about it to someone IF one of my friends happens to be watching the same shows. If YouTube is criticized for its populist format, I’d argue that TV is the dystopian outcome of such a flaw. If I’m not watching Homeland aired every week and I’m watching a more obscure show, my only hope of reaching a conversation about it is that I meet another fan of said obscure show at some point in my life.

No, I thoroughly believe that YouTube has an edge with the interactive element of commenting and
conversing with other users, liking videos and rating in an open system. Not to mention that the content that users generally create push for active community participation and address realtime topics. Whereas a TV season is a scripted series of events that dramatize a few aspects of life played by handpicked models/actors. They’re scripted based purely on mass appeal and entertainment and the closed door policy in the TV industry ensures that the same crap is churned into our screens at home. YouTube’s channel system allows truly appealing characters to air their specific views, opinions and ideas at the behest of real appeal from their audiences. Their income is based on the quality of content that they provide and not a deal with producers that will pay them even if the show flops.

Add to these things the interconnected and multicultural atmosphere the platform creates and the ease of access through mobile streaming, YouTube has made itself more and more pervasive in the few years it has been active. The spectrum of content on YouTube can keep me entertained for hours, nonstop…for free.