Category Archives: YouTube Playlists

Youtube Top 15

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYHOMJAEzqX4a2Ah7zUbEIArI6L9pCTG[/youtube]How I Use Youtube

1. To find shared interests with friends: This Ed sheeran video was shown to me by someone who I was just meeting and as we were getting to know each other, they asked if I seen this video. I hadn’t and I really liked it. It made a good impression on me and I think if we become good friends this video, and youtube’s sharing ability in general will be a factor.
2. For Mashups: I love mashups, personally my favorite is when rap songs are dubbed over cartoons or anything in general really. This is a parody of a song by Bobby Shmurda, from the hit Hot N*gga. over a Bob the builder montage. They are related obviously by surname but also by action if you trust what you see.
3. To Catch Up On News: I find alot of my news through blogs and sites like digg, which will embed youtube videos left and right.
4. Youtube is the new Podcast: I like that podcasts and radio broadcasts are now moving to video. I never really listened to podcasts or radio interviews until they showed up in video form on youtube now I can’t get enough. The Big Sean Interview and Rembert Browne Podcast are just some recent examples.
5. To Follow Other Media: Most other media, no matter the outlet, will have their own youtube site and post something so that you will then come to them. I like to follow these outlets to stay up to date with news on shows like House of Cards. I also use youtube to the media itself. The Too Many Cooks video was aired on Adult Swin at around 12:15am but because of its availability on youtbe, it became a viral video that I had to endure to be in the loop of the joke.
6. Music: I love listening to music through Youtube. The suggestion bar is perfect for find songs you never heard of. The next three songs are all examples of what I find through youtube. The array of current songs to slightly old to songs I would never have heard on my own show the power of Youtube.
7. Web Shows: I think it is amazing when small web shows make it big either through going viral or getting found by the industry. This web show tured cable TV Show on Comedy Central is an example of exactly what makes Youtube so great. Without it these funny girls would not have had such a simple outlet, and I would be deprived of their comedic genius now on the TV screen.
8. For education: After watching a compelling documentary on Netflix for my class, I wanted to get more information on its subject, so I went to Youtube and found interviews and footage all about him. This video is of Gore Vidal, and he is explaining something that was slightly touched in the documentary i saw which helped me get a full grasp of the issues he was speaking of.
9. For Inspiration: There are tons of videos that can inspire and uplift on this site, and I am a first hand attester to the power that youtube has really made me a better person. This video of Jim Carrey is just an example of one of the many ways that you can be inspired, and all of these ways are found in youtube videos.
10. Creating my own community: Youtube has been great for me personally because it has helped me and my friends work on things we really have interests in doing. I help my friend with a clothing line he created and we do a lot of marketing and promotion through youtube videos. The videos are one of the main things that gave us even the little notoriety that we have, and has even allowed my friend to start making videos for other under his same name and channel, giving him a brand. The last two videos are a couple of examples of the things we have done

YouTube Playlist

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURxTRZmNAgSKk5tsnscXszlWM66SkOI-[/youtube]

 

To be honest I think most of YouTube is just Bad. I’m probably just awful and pedantic and it sounds really arrogant but I’m just not that into most popular media. And like we were reading, YouTube is all about popular. Of course there are niches for everyone, and there’s tons of stuff on YouTube that I really enjoy. It was really difficult for me to put together 15 videos from YouTube, mostly because I was trying to get a range of different types of videos. I don’t really go on YouTube to find videos that much, mostly I just get there from links, and I only care about the regular uploads from maybe one channel, so it’s harder to find things that I care about or even really know how to find them. The main things are Mountain Goats songs, video games, and animation.

 

Probably the biggest thing  I use YouTube for is looking up Mountain Goats songs. So, I’m a little bit obsessed with the Mountain Goats. They’re a folk rock band that have been around since the early 90s, and for a long time it was just one guy, John Darnielle, plus sometimes some of the musicians who are around him. Since they’ve been around for so long, and since Darnielle produces an absurd amount of music, they have maybe over 500ish songs. And though I’ve done my best, I certainly haven’t heard a lot of them. He’s released a lot of songs once, years ago, in the band’s forums, or only on the Japanese album, or on a tape, so YouTube is the only place a lot of these things are available to people who don’t want to spend absurd amounts of money on imports or limited cassettes. So I use YouTube a lot to just search for songs that I know, then find a bunch of songs in the related videos that I’ve never heard of before. One of the songs I put in the playlist (Used To Haunt) I’d never heard of before today. Anyway, that was a long winded way of saying that I wanted to make an entire 15 video playlist that was just Mountain Goats songs but figured that would be bad form.

 

I also use it for video game things. One of the videos I posted was Errant Signal, who’s just some dude who talks about games. His channel is probably the only one I really care about or keep up with. He mostly criticizes specific games, but also talks about different trends and aspects of games. The video I added was one about how video games are political no matter what their message is, and that common criticisms about video games being “too” political, or that people shouldn’t talk about feminism, racism, or queerphobia in relation to games, are all in themselves political, and just because something doesn’t push your boundaries or make you question society doesn’t mean that it isn’t furthering a political message. There’s also the HL2 commentary, which was made by some oil painter who has since disappeared off the internet, though his commentary is remembered by a surprising number of people as an important analysis of the game. The video I included is actually an “HD Remaster,” meaning that the dude who made it went and rerecorded each of the scenes from the original commentary (which was uploaded back when YT videos all looked like blurry messes of artifacts) and edited them all back in the exact same way to go along with the audio. The other video game stuff is a couple speedruns, one is an OoT one by Cosmo Wright, who’s one of my favorite speedrunners, and the other is from this year’s AGDQ, of some guys playing Tetris who are really good at Tetris. So, speedrunning is basically just trying to finish games as quickly as possible, which is surprisingly less boring than it sounds. AGDQ (Awesome Games Done Quick) is an event that goes on twice a year where a bunch of speedrunners get together and spend a week straight running a bunch of different games, while raising money for either cancer research or Doctors Without Borders. Mostly it’s just fun to watch people be really really good at a thing, especially when they’re breaking video games.

 

There’s also some animation, Bee and Puppycat, Manly, The External World, Baa, and the DyE music video. I don’t really know what to say about them other than I really just like animation especially when it’s pretty and creative. Then there’s a review of some knockoff PSP that plays awful games and has amazing box text. The dude that does those reviews it is pretty unfunny but it’s cool to see a bunch of shitty knockoffs and bad toys they sell at dollar stores. I don’t really know why. And there’s that dog and wolf one which is just great. Amazing stuff. Sometimes I just spend hours watching this on loop and laughing at it. The last one is the docfuture one. I’m not sure what docfuture is doing with YouTube, but I like it.

YouTube Playlist: Alex Nguyen

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhC0AQToJaV8ZxgzPjiLKHl2q56oz_uDa[/youtube]

Over the years YouTube has been my source of entertainment, motivation, sports, and music.  It has helped me learn new skills, find new role models, and discover new hobbies. As you may have noticed, many of my videos are sports related (specifically football). For me it is a great way to relieve stress and challenge myself mentally and physically. When I play football I am able to get away from everything that is bothering me and simply compete. I watch highlight videos to study the habits and moves that professional players to improve my own game. When I feel like skipping the gym, I watch pump up videos and convince myself to go.

In addition to highlight videos, I watch interviews and documentaries about people that I admire. They all come from different backgrounds and inspire me in different ways. Youtube is the medium for me to interact with some of the players I look up to. Despite their fortune and fame, few are able to remain down to earth and be the same person they’ve always been. Through their interviews, I pick up on the traits that I admire and try to emulate them myself. Different channels allow me to adopt different “identities”. One of my favorite channels is Munchies which is a channel by Vice that combines cooking and food with hipsters and drugs. I have a very deep appreciation of food because its a universal language; everyone can relate and enjoy it no matter where they’re from. Each chef has a their own style of cooking and its fun to see their creative interpretations on traditional dishes. Munchies is much more raw than most cooking channels because the people they interview are much more candid and have little to no filter with what they say. They swear, smoke, drink, etc. and I love it. I think it gives the show much more of a personality because you really get a better sense of what kind of people they really are. They are not the generic professionals that read off of scripts and that pretend to be someone that they’re not.

I have noticed that many of the videos in my playlist are very mainstream. (mainstream being measured by its number of views). After our discussion in class about how popularity is power, I started to notice that the popularity of the video does have an impact in the way that I perceive it. The new ranking system (likes/dislikes) on YouTube affects my decision on whether or not to share a video. I am more likely to share a video with my friends if it has high ratings. Sometimes when I see that the video has a large number of views but many dislikes, I won’t even bother finishing it. This bothers me in a way because its as if I don’t even judge for myself whether I like it or not anymore. I let other people do it for me. Its also sad because when I read the ignorant, racist comments, a part of me wants to give up on humanity (I can’t tell if these people are serious or just trolling). Yet I entrust these people to tell me if a video is worth watching all the way through or not.

The first two videos are simply songs that I can’t stop listening to at the moment. I have this unfortunate habit of listening to songs and repeat until I can’t stand them anymore. The Alex Honnold video is about one of the most talented rock climbers in the world who solo climbs (no harness or anything) and lives his life travelling from place to place living out of his minivan. I’m drawn to this video because its just about a guy who does what he loves. He lives a very minimalist lifestyle and seems very happy travelling around the world. He participates in an extremely dangerous sport in which less than 1% of the population can sustain for more than a few years yet he isn’t afraid to die because he genuinely enjoys what he does. I hope that one day I discover a passion that I can pursue that relentlessly.

Youtube: A Personal History

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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.

 

 

YouTubing

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[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.

 

YouTube: All This and Only Some of That

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Youtube is probably the most used website on my browser next to Facebook and Twitter. It’s the go-to site when everything else seems less inspiring or if I need a distraction and have wifi. I think it’s pretty interesting that about six years ago using the term “youtubing” was foreign on my tongue, but now it slips out as easily as “googling” does instead of searching. The term shows up in urban dictionary as a site that started this month seven years ago, it’s crazy to think that that’s how long we’ve been using this platform. It really changed how we connected to one another and like google had the ability to give us what we want in video form. Now, that it’s under Google though there’s this underlying ominous presences I can’t seem to pinpoint. I think thanks to much of the negative hype I’ve been crippled from using any one platform extensively if it’s plugged into the Google account somehow. Yet, I don’t exactly know what it is I should be afraid of. It’s kind of one of those “I just won’t enter territories” where I find myself trying to just dodge anything that can possibly be harmful on a trial and error method. It’s kind of sketchy, but it’s how I’ll tread lightly in accepting policies, use what I want, but hopefully won’t give more than that.

These days YouTube acts as my personal music player more than a video player. This means my recent history will list a few songs with lyric videos. If I ever do watch something it’s often instrument covers of songs I like or something under the umbrella of comedy. I’m also part of fan culture so I find fancams (fan videos) of events I never went to and enjoy a few minutes of them. I guess there’s so much to do with YouTube and an overwhelming list of it, but after the switch to Google I feel that using it more than puts me off trying to create my own videos or recordings. It’s a big platform that does run on popularity, sometimes it takes a couple of years for a video to finally make it a million views. Since everything is always changing and those “lost” videos will sit around until they become relevant again, but how would they be viewed differently in the future context? Will it even mean the same thing? I think about my friends who have recently started blogging about their lives abroad or their current fashion hauls and their finely made videos. They only get a hundred or so videos, but throw out names like nigahiga or domics and you know who they are and how their views are about a thousand a day at the least. There’s a disadvantage there. When we talk about monetizing and the minimal requirement of a certain viewership it sounds rather discouraging. I’ve started to notice how different youtube faces have been making cameos in other youtubers’ videos. My own friends have linked their accounts to other I can see how it feels rather elitist from the outside looking in. It’s a group of people with the same goals, bringing each other’s names up while hoping their audience grows and implements other groups of people, all with the goal of making $$$. I guess that moral is if it works, use it and exploit it.

And end scene.

Here’s my 15 videos playlist where I drop in some of my high rewatch value videos including: my favorite music videos, fanmade video of a dancer I like, my friend vlogging about Universal Japan and the Attack on Titans section, and a Korean movie that I had watched recently. They’re in no particular order, but I’d say as far as it goes it gives a good scope of what most people use YouTube for and how I’ve taken a personal touch on it. It was actually a bit of a cruncher because I hardly think of what I watch, but witht he change of perspective I wonder what sorts of data Google has on me.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0BdnO5Pn-o3yxjUkeg0w_bq4CqcA3wzy[/youtube]

Interacting With The Tube

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiFXWQ7bldr2uJx7S9mDAqDLRUuSlkssO[/youtube]

 

Pure Commercial (Star Wars Trailer, Majora’s Mask 3DS Trailer)

The first two videos are YouTube serving as a minuteman advertising agent. Often, I’ll find myself looking up video trailers on YouTube before or right when a video game or movie has come out so as to help me decide on if I wish to engage in consumerism of these works. Their existence doesn’t reflect negatively on YouTube in my mind. I see the place advertisements occupy as simply a matter of course because of the ubiquitous nature of YouTube and the Internet.

 

Online Transmission of Engaging with Existing Media: Reviews (theneedledrop on an Iron Maiden album, grumpyjiisan on The Tatami Galaxy)

The next two videos see YouTube as a platform for individuals to partake in the age-old tradition of sharing opinions. There’s an innumerable amount of people on YouTube who do review vlogs for all sorts of media but the only one whom I keep up with today is Anthony Fantano aka The Needle Drop, a music reviewer who covers a wide breadth of musical content of the day and occasionally will opine on old favorites. My all-time favorite reviewer of the universe though has to be Grumpy Jii-San, (Jii-san being Japanese for “old man”) a bespectacled elderly white man living in either Arizona or New Mexico who would regularly go out for hikes in the early morning, set up his camera mid-hike, and record his self giving anime reviews. His description is too weird to make up and that’s what I love about this channel. Unfortunately, he’s retired from the reviewing scene for reasons not everyone is sure about.

 

Online Transmission of Engaging with Existing Media: Exposition (Every Frame A Painting on Texting And The Internet In Film)

One of the channels I subscribe to actively is Every Frame A Painting, which does these incredible breakdowns of film-making techniques, with emphasis on the editing. This channel is sparse in terms of quantity but abundant with quality through his concise yet eye-opening expositions. I would not hesitate to call this my favorite channel.

 

Online Transmission of Engaging with Existing Media: Lists (License to Review on George Costanza’s Best, WatchMojo.com on Top 10 Video Games With Customizable Characters)

Top-X Lists are a mainstay of the Internet mediums of brevity. I tend to avoid banal ones that I would be able to easily predict myself, and instead I gravitate towards those that I feel offer a comprehensive collection of the most note-worthy examples in a field, whether it be through a long list or a list for a niche.  I view these lists as almost the complete minimum level of engagement with existing media.

 

Video Essay/Articles (PBS Idea Channel on North Korea and Hackers and SciShow on The Giant Crystal Cave)

 

YouTube as Artistic Media: Experimental Video (Donald Glover’s “Clapping For The Wrong Reasons” and The Weeknd/xoxxxoooxo’s “The Flower Shop”)

YouTube can act as a fairly low-risk platform where creative video can be readily disseminated.  As such, creative types can use YouTube to show off their potential in acting and/or film-making. I’d like to take this opportunity to note that YouTube has been extremely integral in getting the career of The Weeknd off the ground. His channel, xoxxxoooxo initially served as his sole personal broadcast station where he uploaded each of his first three mixtapes’ songs, all featuring an eye-catching background image for the video, with almost complete anonymity.  In turn, he came to build a persona shrouded with mystery and that control of his public image fueled his rise in the music world.

 

YouTube as Artistic Media: Music Videos (Breakbot’s “Baby I’m Your’s” and The Notorious B.I.G.’s “One More Chance (Remix)”)

As a kid, I loved watching music videos on MTV. MTV doesn’t do that anymore, ironically enough, so now I use YouTube to instantly look up music videos new and old. I believe that the greatest set of cameos in any music video ever is contained in the “One More Chance (Remix)” video.

 

YouTube for the Fans: Clips (Mulholland Drive’s “Llorando” Scene and Serial Experiments Lain’s Opening Credits)

Regularly, I’ll think back on excellent moments in visual media and I want to be taken back. Sometimes, YouTube is nice enough to do that for me.

YouTube Love

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When thinking about my relationship with YouTube and what I use it for, the only thing that pops into my head is music that I can’t find on Spotify. I figured that I would have to dig a little deeper to see if I used it for anything other than music and the occasional funny vid that a friend had suggested to watch. Perusing my YouTube playlist history was the only way I could really get a grasp of what I exactly use YouTube for.

I discovered these 15 videos that I would consider my “Digital Playlist”:

1.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrjJbl7kRrI

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5vGclenONQ

4.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OQMsaWX3o

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdwchohlMjI

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGfY4Zzq2fI

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTxq1PSm6kM

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW7PKjH5LR8

9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAQtbTqDefw

10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM

11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HB9DvJWCIQ

12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuOgaFnpTB0

13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuuxs9gO8C0

14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTA7MnI4F7U

15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c

I have realized that this accumulation of videos can be separated into categories. YouTube can be used for so many things! Way more than just music, my list also includes a “How-To” video, Educational clips, Philosophical talks, comedian performances, movie trailers, and show teasers.

It was really interesting to go back through my history, I found myself nostalgically loading more into the past to see what I was watching days, weeks, months, even years ago! It is almost like a diary of your interests. While I would say 80% of the videos were music videos, I could see my change in taste of music and also appreciate re-listening to “throw backs”.

It is funny because I can almost recall why I was looking up certain videos as well. I came across #6, a video highlighting the Information Age and explaining Brunel and I thought back to my study abroad experience in London and how I researched who exactly this engineer was and why he was so famous.

Videos like #15 help me to recall that I watched this video of famous comedian Louie C.K. and he was able to articulate so well my feelings for cellphones and general technology. That video influenced me so much to even write a paper and use it as an example for my Digital Culture class. In which video #10 was also related. I remember my Digital Culture professor told us to watch the Ted Talk on the positive aspects of gaming and how it might not have a negative effect on society but rather a positive one, how it enlightened me and gave me a different perspective. While on the topic of watching videos for educational purposes, I recall that I watched #13 in order to gain a better understanding for a concept that I did not understand very well from a textbook and looked to YouTube for some answers.

Writing this reflection right now makes me appreciate how I’ve used YouTube over the past few years and how many purposes it has rather than just silly animal videos or.. silly human videos. It is a fantastic source of education for professors to help their students learn, it is a community encouraging more DIY projects, it is a source for self-education, a source for news, and for entertainment. So thank you YouTube, for providing the public the ability to learn, laugh, and reflect.

Youtube Playlist

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Searching youtube on a daily basis I realized I have a wide range of things that catch my interest.

One of the most random things that interest me are anime. Even though it is not my go to website for anime, it is easily to locate old episodes and episode that are in english (dubbed).

Another thing I constantly look up on Youtube is hair and makeup. I had just recently locked my hair into dreads so styles and products that are best from my hair is easily learned from this website. Also tutorials on how to do those styles or what brush to use for foundation is quick information that is easily accessed.

It is also a great avenue for old tv shows and old movies. They usually have full movies from the 90s and all the episodes from the early 2000s which was easy for me to search. The movies are uncensored and the full affect can be brought from youtube sometimes.

I also think that some web series that just ordinary people decide to make. One of them called awkward black girl had me dying of laughter but I gravitated towards it more because it was known as this funny awkward person and her daily life.

Talk shows also inform me about someone’s new movie or bring back people who have been washed up. I tend to look for Ellen’s interviews or The Real as my go to talk shows.

I excessively searched cars online to see what type of car I want. It has been awhile for me since I’ve had a car. My anticipation sets in and me looking for cars soothes me and I realize patience is a virtue.

Youtube is just great in several ways for almost anyone. One of the reasons why youtube is a great website is because it is easy and it will most likely give you what you are looking for. The things I look up are things that range from when I’m bored to when everyday obsessions. Youtube is a great platform for easy access but it also acts like google. You search it you can most likely find it but in video form. After this evaluation I have noticed I use Youtube too much.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8433oSQGjg&list=PLyqjugJLc-yWG8NU31H0zPk95o-kugKd7[/youtube]

Youtube: Community and Art

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXYIEEq-v0VC5HYoezYiWdQRYEiJXj2zx[/youtube]

Youtube for me has always been about community and art. It has often worked for me as a way to discover different forms of cinema, rather than what I was just finding during television advertisements. By delving into Youtube I was able to explore different parts of both movie making, and the general entertainment factor of watching movies as I could look at what trailers I wanted to watch, rather than what the different channels wanted me to watch during designated advertisement slots.

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By watching things like “[the films of] David Fincher” and “Quentin Tarantino – The Works” I was able to better understand what made these director’s films so good. Youtube has allowed me to join a community of like minded movie buffs and fanatics, as well as acting as a learning tool for what makes cinema aesthetically pleasing, beautiful, and great. This was expanded by channels such as “Every Frame A Painting” which is dedicated to the analysis of film form, which allowed a great way of understanding how film works as an art form. Access to director’s commentaries and interviews has granted me the possibility to better understand my favorite director’s art styles, and some of the more intricate details of my favorite movies. Youtube has become equivalent with understanding and exploring film as an art form, and truly allowed my experience with movies to truly blossom.  Another part of Youtube that increased my love with film was the discovery that short movies could be uploaded to Youtube, increasing the platform’s ability to host artistic content related to cinema. The discovery of short film’s such as “I’m Here” and “In a City” on Youtube led to the discovery of boundless cinematic content. With the ability to freely upload any creative content at any point has created a door through which artists can stick their foot and force their art through.  The discovery of these various takes on cinema as an art form created a community I could silently be a part of, while also expanding my knowledge and appreciation of film.

However the other side of Youtube for me, lies in the small hobby of fingerboarding. Starting in early middle school I discovered a small toy that emulated a skateboard, known as a Tech Deck otherwise known as a fingerboard. The hobby surrounds the recreation of skateboard tricks with the use of a small skateboard and fingers. While at first seemingly a dumb plastic toy it soon gets a lot more detailed. Without Youtube, I would have never discovered the massive group of people that follow and are dedicated to fingerboarding. After watching a bunch of videos from so called ‘pro riders’ I got an actual wooden fingerboard, bearing wheels, and actual metal trucks, all parts required of a real skateboard on a miniature scale. The fingerboard community relies on youtube to share full length fingerboard parts or ‘minis’ which are short videos of fingerboarding sessions. The discovery of this community through Youtube led me to make a bunch of new friends, and discover a talent I didn’t know I had. While insignificant and kind of childish, fingerboarding is truly a community that would not exist without Youtube, to advertise for upcoming meet ups, montage videos, and other things of the sort. Just as with skateboarding it has a community of riders that like to session together, however with a much smaller community, which is where Youtube played such a vital role. With the ability for riders to upload videos they’re able to receive feedback on how to improve their tricks and technique, thus allowing for the betterment of the community as a whole. Fingerboarding would hardly have the community it has today if not for Youtube.

Youtube is truly a website that has inspired within me a sense of community and artistic expression, as I have been able to find a community of people that share interests in things such as film and fingerboarding. With these specific examples showing how a small toy can evolve into a full scale community, and how an artistic form can be accessed, critiqued, and practiced, by millions for free.

 

 

 

Youtube Playlist: Samantha McGarry

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqKWPJoAPyLZwoXlr4wwLCrI2scssm6lG[/youtube]

I checked out my youtube history for this assignment and found that I watch a wide assortment of videos. I always thought I used Youtube for mainly music. However, I think it’s safe to say that I watch a lot of videos on TED talks, out door videos, feminist women speaking about their views of acceptance and beauty, and dogs. I did not realize how many adorable videos I have seen of dogs. Apparently those types of videos catch my eye. After looking through my history it made sense how I actually use this tool of social media. I use Youtube mainly as an educational tool to learn and expand my mind. Youtube has really helped me learn about a variety of perspectives on a lot of different types of topics.

The first type of videos I mainly search are TED talks. I find these videos so educational and most are extremely interesting. I think it is such a wonderful thing that everyone has access to these types of videos through Youtube. I think Youtube is the most effective source of social media. I do not think there is any down fall about Youtube. Being able to access videos on about almost any topic inspires me to learn more. It is also comforting that I can do that. It’s nice to know that if I do not know how to do something that I can “youtube it”.

I also really enjoy mashup videos. Mashups are my favorite type of videos to watch on Youtube. I think music is so important and I love seeing the talent people have mashed up into one video. I always look forward to seeing the “Mashup of 20__” because it makes me remember everything that has happened that year in the musical business. I associate Youtube and Mashups because of the enormous number of mashups found through youtube.

The last thing I mainly use Youtube for is watching videos about outdoors related activities. I went snowboarding for the first time in four years last weekend. I “youtubed” a video about snowboarding for beginners because, I could. I was able to research and physically see the tips I needed to get back into it. I was able to review any types of tricks or tips I forgot because I had an entire video to help with all the starting information. I think it is a pretty cool thing to be able to do that. 

YouTube: A Place of Acceptance

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlM_B521Oegbl7hAWCE9oOPZ_GjfsU1Aq[/youtube]

A long time ago, in a middle school far, far away is when I began using YouTube. It was initially my love of anime that attracted me to the medium. Not only could I watch and re-watch my favorite episodes, but I found an environment where I could creatively interact with the material. It was then I began creating animated music videos (AMVs). With a little music and a few clips, I could express myself and my feelings for the show. Most of these feelings included a crazed attraction to a fictional character. Unfortunately, this infatuation was seen negatively by my real-life peers, but not by YouTube. I discovered others who had my same passion. Through AMVs, we communicated with each other on anything from our take on certain plot points, passion for character couples, and—in some ways—how we viewed the world around us. The angst-y, heavy metal paired with sepia scenes vicariously conveyed our misanthropic feelings.

Around the same time, I discovered another one of YouTubes uses: the parody. In my search for more Yu-Gi-Oh inspired AMVs, I found Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series (YGOTAS), a parody on the television show. For the first time, something other than television gave me a regularly scheduled episode to look forward too. Furthermore, it better represented my interests—unlike television. Here was a show that poked fun, seemingly with me, at a medium I felt a part of. It was as if I was sitting on my couch next to a best friend. Though the creator, LittleKuriboh, went on to become Internet famous, I continued to feel a personal connection, a niche where I belonged. To this day, I still wait in anticipation for the next YGOTAS episode to brighten my day.

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(Above: LittleKuriboh, Creator of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series)

As my personal time dwindled and my interests changed, I no longer made AMVs, but I still kept YouTube in touch. I’ve noticed over the years that my taste in music, cartoons, and comedy have combined with each other in interesting ways. For example, I watch Ninja Sex Party, a band that uses music to parody the classic macho man paradigm. Most of the “What’s Wrong With This Movie” I watch criticize my favorite animated movies.

Another musical usage of YouTube is the ability to expose myself to foreign culture. This allows me to see an aspect of a society I might not otherwise have the chance to discover. What’s more, if I watch one K-Pop video, 10 recommendations usually follow, allowing me to watch even more.

With growing up came more adult pursuits. I now follow John Oliver, a social commenter and comedian. His videos connect me to current events and enlighten me on their pros and cons. Unlike the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, I can easily follow Oliver’s programming on my own time and without worrying about his content being flagged since the copy write holders upload the videos themselves.

Overall, YouTube allows me to connect with other people, whether through common interests or a curiosity for life across the globe. I find these connections necessary, as a human being. Where my hometown felt small and unaccommodating, YouTube provides a wide environment to create, play, and expand my views. It was—and is—the place I could belong.