My playlist takes a primarily chronological approach to my experience with Youtube. The videos I have chosen reflect my use of Youtube for entertainment, community, creativity, and education both formal and informal.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLku5XHU2Dd40xEkPp0vl1AP0P3URYCbzi[/youtube]
1. Adventure Time
I remember watching this in middle school and thinking it was adorable and great and “SO RANDOM XD.” I watched it a thousand times and made all of my friends sit through it too. I even remember signing a petition to get it on Nickelodeon. It was eventually picked up by Cartoon Network, and has since gone on to be hugely successful, with two card-based games, merchandise, spin off comics, and video game titles. To me this video represents a simpler, sillier time when “Charlie the Unicorn” and Albino Blacksheep were the height of comedy and youtube was a wonderful new source of entertainment for kids.
2. Fiveawesomegirls
The fiveawesomegirls were an offshoot of the “Nerdfighter” fandom, following John and Hank Green. They had a similar project that looked to build relationships and communicate via youtube, in a time when vlogs and response videos were accessible and abundant. Five girls from all over the U.S. who barely knew each other found that they shared a love of Harry Potter and other nerdy interests and hobbies, and decided to each do a video for one day of the week. The video in their playlist is a message from after they had stopped posting regularly. Now the videos serve as an archive for the building of their friendships and a source of inspiration and advice for other young girls looking to make videos on youtube, start bands, write books, and even just survive high school and college.
3. Odd, Julia Nunes
Of the myriad performers who post their music on youtube, Julia Nunes was always one of my favorites. She did a lot of covers of some of my favorite artists (and introduced me to some I didn’t know), and she always had a unique way of performing them, involving editing together harmonies and various instruments to create a complex sound from a simple set up in a college dorm.
4. Odd, Cover
Sacrificing myself on the alter of dignity for the sake of academia, the next video is a cover I recorded for the Julia Nunes song. I figure if it’s on the internet anyway I might as well embrace it (it was posted for a friend, not because I particularly wanted anyone to see it). Julia Nunes inspired me so much that the first big paycheck I got from Newbury Comics went to the purchase of a ukulele from Guitar Center. I taught myself pretty terribly, mostly through youtube, chord diagrams, and TAB (that I had learned to read for guitar), and learned to play some of my favorites. It also allowed me to write my own stuff, both of which are important outlets for me to this day.
5. Girltrash
This is another one of those embarrassing additions. When I was in high school, I was so far in the closet I was hanging out with Aslan (Wardrobe? Closet? I need a better joke here), and watching movies and TV was a way to make sense of my identity when I felt like I couldn’t really talk about it. If you’ve seen a queer movie, you probably know the trope of the sad lesbian. They don’t get happy endings because initially these stories could only exist if they taught the lesson that being gay was evil, or because they are trying to tell real stories, and reality isn’t always kind to queer people. Angela Robinson movies, though, were light-hearted, campy, and funny, so they were some of my favorites. When I found her web series Girltrash, starring people who I had seen in other works (notably Amber Benson of Buffy fame and Riki Lindhome of Garfunkel and Oates), I loved it. Then I found out there was a trailer for a movie that was supposed to come out one or two years ago (but hadn’t), and I watched that trailer a ridiculous amount of times, just for the snippets of song.
6. those turtles
There’s a bell hooksian lack of capitalization for this video that I think appropriately conveys the fact that it is stupid and pointless, and I love it. This is the kind of lo-fi, hilarious stuff that my brother and I would laugh at forever. It’s almost a tiny Youtube Poop, showing the power of mashup for purposes of humor, and I think serves to represent the low brow comedy that is so essential to Youtube.
7. The Death and Return of Superman
This video is great because it’s funny, it’s educational about something that (because of geek gatekeeper mentalities and the sort of intimidating size of comic book canon to learn) isn’t necessarily easily accessible to a teenage girl, and in terms of production, it’s pretty well done (and it embraces the ways in which it is not, see: costumes and make up).
8. My Drunk Kitchen
Hannah Hart is part of the new school of vloggers post Vlogbrothers. There’s been a move toward the necessity of higher quality videos, but it’s comforting to know that Hart’s success started with a semi-viral video of her drunkenly cooking a meal. It was relatable and fun, and has since spawned an extremely successful channel and fan community known for its combinations community service projects and meet-ups.
9. Watermelon
Another Hart, this video is silly and it makes an important point. This is the kind of content that I tend to watch more now–vlogs made with more than a webcam but still with a lot of heart (and now with a lot more cross-platform presence with tumblr, twitter, facebook, and other social media).
10. The Like
In addition to allowing new artists to showcase their work, Youtube provides an opportunity to see performances of old bands that we would have never had access to in the same way before.
11. Sketch 22: Where to Live at UMass
Arguably the most important video Sketch 22 has ever produced, almost everyone has seen this video and considered it in choosing their housing freshman year, from those of us who grew up in MA and already know the stereotypes, to kids from Virginia who would have had no idea otherwise. It contributes to a cohesive UMass identity that is kind of hard to grasp with such a big school. It really gets the balance of loving, laughing at, and sometimes hating the stoner/bro/academic cultures of our university.
12. Black Female Voices: Who is Listening
This video represents the academic value of Youtube, characterized by crash course videos, TED talks, and university lectures. I have seen some of bell hooks’ New School talks in and outside of class, and they have proved invaluable in discussions of gender, race, sexuality, and the social implications of the aforementioned. I’m so grateful that I can just go on youtube and watch this, and that everyone has that same ability to educate themselves.