Tag Archives: YouTube

Lauren Briggs-What YouTube Means To Me

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9cbde6RUmAFDASl_By4A4EH0rUBF_gpi[/youtube]

My Top 15 playlist demonstrates a selection of videos that I not only enjoy watching, but also that represent what I use YouTube for. While I don’t post videos on YouTube myself, I do enjoy watching videos that other people have posted, and I have found that sometimes a connection can be generated just by watching the videos.

Generally, my use of YouTube is to find humor or something to distract me from schoolwork. This is represented in eight of the videos I included, which range from clips from Saturday Night Live to a parody video made by a user named Chris Fleming. My videos also include compilations, such as selected clips from the television show The Office, and news bloopers that happened to reporters and anchors from many different locations. The variety in these types of comedy clips reflects what I look for in YouTube videos; some days, I will prefer to watch a longer, compilation video that features many short, funny clips, while other days I will be more invested in watching longer comedy sketches or parodies.

Outside of looking for laughs, another category that I discovered in my YouTube playlist is that of videos that are based around celebrities. While they don’t make up a huge portion of the YouTube videos I watch, I do enjoy viewing celebrity interviews and lip synch competitions, which are some of the videos I included in my playlist. Though I enjoy insights into the lives of famous actors and actresses, I also generally find that after a few of these videos, they begin to blend together. There is typically some sort of comedic aspect to keep me interested, but I definitely watch fewer of these celebrity-based videos than I do comedic ones, simply because after a certain point, they all can seem the same.

In addition, I included several videos centered around music in my playlist. I find that some of the most common ways I listen to music in general is through YouTube. When I am doing work and need background noise, it is very easy to put together a playlist of some of my favorite instrumental music to help me to study. Specifically in my playlist, I also included some covers of famous songs done by a group of sisters. I have been watching their videos for several years now, and I find their videos and music to be interesting ways to connect with them. Though I have never met these sisters in person, I enjoy listening to both their covers and their original songs, and I feel that I have gotten a unique way to connect with them through their vlogs as well.

Lastly, I included a workout video in my playlist. I only included one workout video, since that it fairly proportionate to my viewing of workout videos on YouTube in general. While I don’t watch or use many videos when I workout, I do find them useful as free and easily accessible ways to switch up my workout routine. Overall, that is what YouTube is really all about for me: a free and accessible way to be entertained, informed, and hopefully made a little happier.

YouTube’s Place in My Life

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I use Youtube for a variety of things.  I use it to listen to music for free, but I am also subscribed to a number of video game related channels.  Beyond that, I use Youtube to watch videos I find amusing for one reason or another.  There was a show on TV years ago called “Man vs Beast.”  This show featured humans competing against animals in a variety of challenges.  They had a team of midgets compete against an elephant to see which could pull a 747 faster.  They put Kobayashi against a bear in a hotdog eating contest.  Every matchup comes complete with a commentary team of “expert” analysts treating it like it’s a boxing match or football game.  I didn’t watch the show at the time, but I have seen a number of clips from it since then.  It doesn’t make for a very coherent TV show, but more of a compilation of silly unrelated videos.  For this reason, the show was cancelled.  The internet, on the other hand, is the perfect place for that sort of thing.  One of my friends stumbled on the midget vs elephant battle and sent it to me.  I loved it and looked up more from the show.  Each segment was only two to five minutes long, making it the perfect length for a Youtube video.

I was looking through my liked videos before writing this.  Most of what I had favorited was either an obscure piece of music I didn’t want to forget, something weird I found funny, or a stupid joke that lasted less than a minute.  Youtube, for me, is a personalized blend of music with a variety show and vaudeville.

The Monopolization of Internet Platforms

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a reoccurring idea coming up in class. That idea is the monopolization of the internet. Platforms are used to connect people, and in today’s world, technological platforms are on the rise. Technological platforms are those that don’t require physical presence to connect people, and that includes the internet.

There are most definitely powerhouses in the platforms of the internet that relay the idea of a monopoly. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, YouTube, and Pandora/Spotify are among the most prominent. Now, a lot of the time,  the monopolization of the internet is treated as a negative, but I feel like it’s very much the opposite. The monopolization of the internet is something that helps move it forward.

Now at first that may sound absurd. Monopolization can be seen as hindering the growth of smaller entities, and possibly stunting development. But with the internet, I feel it’s different. With the internet, things come and go, take memes for instance. The same holds for monopolies. Look at MySpace, Limewire, Yahoo, AIM, and others. They used to be considered the biggest platforms in what they did. But now they’ve bowed out, and moved over for the new top dogs.

Looking at it, internet platform monopolization isn’t necessarily a bad thing. All these new big names had some improvement over their predecessor. The old apps becoming the biggest name of their platforms put them in the spotlight. This allowed people to be shown what was good about the current era, and what needed improvement. The next monopoly takes that information and improves on it. People often say that Facebook was a massive improvement over MySpace, and Google’s results are generally better than Yahoo’s.

Now to some, monopolies like this are bad, as they don’t feel they promote new ideas and improvement. Maybe it sounds like I’m saying that “I for one welcome our new overlords” in some regard but I honestly feel like these waves have their benefits. “Out with the old, in with the new” as the saying goes. I feel that saying fits this trend very well. It’s the nature of the internet to grow and improve and I feel that the monopolies have played a part in that.

 

 

YouTube Playlist

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While trying to compile a playlist for this assignment, I sat for a while and tried to think of the last time I went on YouTube to watch something. I recently remembered looking up an album by one of my favorite rap artists, and I remember looking up choreography inspiration for a dance I am creating. These searches while over a month ago, was the last time I remember being on YouTube for a substantial amount of time. Anything beyond that was old searches and videos that I used to watch over a year ago. By trying to compose a playlist, I came to the realization that I do not actually use YouTube as much as I thought I did. Whenever YouTube comes to mind I think about this area of internet space where every video imaginable can possibly be found and I often take for granted this accessibility. I am not sure if getting older has made me less inclined to use it, but when it was first a “thing” I would look at hair tutorials, use it for karaoke sessions, and most importantly to me apparent in my playlist, my love for dance and how I would use it for inspiration. Class discussions  has also opened up a new world of YouTube to me where webisodes exist and viral videos live, something I never thought about before. Perhaps I will try to browse YouTube more and explore some of the options it has to offer.  Below on my playlist is some of the videos I spoke about, J Cole’s album which I recently listened to over winter break while cleaning my room, doing chores etc. While I do not use it often, Youtube is where I can access albums for free and listen to them easily. I have also used it to look up diy. There is a makeup tutorial, how to install a broken coat zipper, and as I mentioned a whole lot of dance videos which used to be my main use for the site.

Key Term: Nichetube

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The term nichetube is introduced by Alexandra Juhasz in “Learning the Five Lessons of YouTube” and can be defined as:

  • A video that falls off the radar, undeserved and unobserved by YouTube’s system of rankings

“Niche” – a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing; a distinct segment of a market
                         (to find one’s niche…)

YouTube is so large and vast that it is easy for unique, less-popular videos to be lost in the depths of it’s content. The way it’s ranking system is set up is comparable to high school popularity rankings. The more popular videos, that may  be lacking in substantial or original content, push aside the less-favored underliers into the “weird cliques” and might as well be lost.

In order to find videos within “nichetube,” users must know exactly what they are searching for. Popular videos about certain topics reflect and reinforce the standard views of society. The most radical, ideological videos are flagged, reported, and typically removed from the site.

  • With YouTube being one of the most visited archives of videos, the idea of “nichetube” brings up the question of democracy, and how democratic is it of the site’s algorithms to favor mainstream content
  • Not a an equal forum for discussion or expression of opinion

 

Disputing-and-Appealing-Video-Removals-on-YouTube

 

Key Term: Sponsorship

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Dude-Perfect-Bubble-Wrap

A sponsor is “a person, firm, organization, etc., that finances and buys the time to broadcast a radio or television program so as to advertise a product, a political party, etc.”

Although some YouTube channels go without sponsorship, there are many channels that have made deals with sponsors. These deals are settled outside of YouTube and just between the sponsor and the sponsee.

Some examples of sponsored YouTube channels include:

  • Carmilla-Kotex
  • Grumpy Cat-Friskies Cat Food
  • Dude Perfect- Bubble Wrap

Recently, YouTube (Google) is speaking out against brand-sponsored videos (see article here). Their argument is based on the fact that Google should receive compensation for the companies advertising as sponsors for videos. “Video overlays of sponsor logos and product branding are no longer allowed — unless the sponsor pays Google to advertise on that channel.”

The site has changed their policies to deter advertisements such as the one in the image above unless the company buys a media package through Google. This will likely be difficult to enforce due to the plethora of videos uploading each day and the amount of existing sponsors. YouTube will mostly rely on users to flag the videos that violate this new rule.

Key Term: Web Series

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A web series is “a series of scripted videos, generally in episodic form, released on the internet, or also by mobile/cellular phone”

  • part of a the newly emerging medium called web television
  • a single instance of a web series program is called an episode or (more cleverly named) a webisode

Many producers of web series use platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo in hopes of attracting as many viewers as possible and look for potential partnerships or sponsorships to make a profit from their creative product.

Producing and distributing a web series is a generally cheap way to reach a global audience.

  •  Jenna Marbles: began as a writer for StoolLaLa, the female counterpart to Barstool Sports, later created vlog-style  videos and became an almost-instant YouTube success

There is a wide spectrum of what is considered a web series, from amateur productions to bigger media conglomerates. For example, there are smaller shows (still with a pretty significant following) such as “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries,” but also much larger companies diving into this new media form.

  • Netflix, for example, creates series released only online for its subscribers
    • i.e. “Orange is the New Black” or “House of Cards”
    • However, these are typically released one season at a time, rather than one episode at a time

 

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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: 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.

Every-Frame-A-Painting

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 – Laughs, Scares and Grooves

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I have been using Youtube regularly since I was 15, a freshmen in high school. I think it all started when I was trying to find new music to download, via a YouTube to MP3 site. I was particularly into an artist that goes by the stage name “Flying Lotus”. He has dozens of tracks that are not on albums or eps that you obtain through iTunes, if not hundreds. But, for some reason, they get uploaded to YouTube. I always enjoyed that about this website. Not only is it primarily user driven, it also allows for artists (or “leakers”) to release music in a different area than the regulated sites of iTunes and record label websites. It also is a great way to discover how an audience of dedicated fans will respond to your new material.

Flying-Lotus

 

Most casual listeners will not go beyond the standard methods of obtaining music. I think that, generally speaking, the die-hard fans are the ones who are ready to scour the depths of vinyl stacks and bootleg websites so that they might find that unknown gem of the artist’s library. It is a great method for artists to either test out new tracks on the fans that really matter, or to release old tracks that they enjoyed making and listening to, the ones that didn’t make it on to the ep or album due to the professional process. They can check the number of views and read the comments to gauge its popularity or lack thereof, and if it’s a hit, suddenly they have a new popular track that could go viral and increase their renown. Basically, YouTube is the new “B-Sides” album of every modern artist that is willing to provide their music for free. I say this because it extends far beyond Flying Lotus. I have found countless tracks from many artists that aren’t on iTunes, BitTorrent, or vinyl. It seems to be most popular amongst electronic musicians to use this internet based release form, but it also extends to other genres, especially if someone has a recording of a song that the said band only plays live, or something of the like. Digging through YouTube has yielded many treasures in my time exploring.

My other favorite aspect of YouTube are the “Web Series”. These are usually short, episodic videos that are uploaded by either individuals or corporations, whether they are previously popular or not. The first web series I really got into was “MarbleHornets”, when I was a sophomore in college. For those of you who don’t know, MarbleHornets was originally created by a couple of film school students with a 500$ budget, which they used to shoot the first 26 episodes. I thought I knew what it was like to be scared watching a movie from my experience with “The Shining” and “The Grudge”, to give some perspective. But I have realized that I, in fact, did not know shit. Marble Hornets would release, each week, a video simply titled “Entry #..” with the appropriate number following it. These videos, usually no more than nine minutes, would scare the living hell out of me, especially alone in my dorm room with a bowl of far too hot ramen ready to spill on my lap. They essentially did the same thing as “The Blair Witch Project”, with their “recovered footage” sort of premise, which makes it feel all too real. But they also use methods of both sound and film manipulation to accentuate the horror. Every time “The Operator” (notoriously known as Slenderman from the Something Awful forums), we see a brief image of the horrifying figure, followed by the camera going haywire and emitting awful high pitched frequencies, only to snap back to normal footage once the being had left the frame. Scary stuff, let me tell you.

slenderman-11

So I guess what YouTube means to me is that it can provide for a very intimate experience, almost person to person, or perhaps even more importantly, stranger to stranger. When I download that hidden track, I feel closer to the artist. When I share it, I feel like I’m letting someone in on a wonderful secret. When I watch a webseries episode, especially one made from a KickerStarter fund or with a very small budget, I feel like I’m seeing a truly personal and artistic creation that hasn’t yet been contaminated by media. Yes, there are ads, but these support the uploaders. I’m a huge fan of YouTube, and I think it allows for a new and excellent means of connecting people across the globe, who otherwise would never know that the other existed.

Here are my top 15 (beware, the first five are Marble Hornets!):

My Digital Reflection

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In the reflection I wrote on my experience of YouTube at the beginning of the semester, I described it as ‘a platform whose very purpose is to democratize the exchange of ideas and give voice to the otherwise average citizen.’  In light of what I have learned during the course, I can identify aspects of this evaluation which can be problematised.  While earlier I viewed YouTube as an example of the power of new media to redistribute power more fairly than traditional media, I am now more aware of ways in which race and gender permeate this seemingly new and neutral institution called “New Media.”

I have learned through the readings, our class discussions, and through my own research in my group’s project on web series that YouTube’s “democracy” does not always equal meritocracy; that the government of YouTube by the consent of the governed is results in many of the same problems found in traditional media.  YouTube is like the company of which it is now a part, Google, in that promoted the most popular content, which is consequently viewed far more often than most unusual or transgressive content.  It gives people what they want (or what they think they want).  I learned that this type of popular consumerism is a major concern for the creators of webseries (not just on YouTube but on all platforms), whose content often deals with persons of colour, women and LGBT people.  The need to hold the attention of the masses means that those who want to create challenging material are taking a risk, and may ultimately fall prey to homogenising effect of mainstream culture which tends to either remove nonconformity by natural selection or simply absorb and compromise it.

This was a growing and sobering realisation for me over the course of the semester.  I, who had always thought of myself as critical of consumer culture, began to point my attention more towards new media, which I had thought of as the haven and weapon of the kinds of people who would not reduce racial minorities to offensive stereotypes, who would not reduce women to mere sexual objects and who wish for a more fair and inclusive system for distributing opportunities and protections.  Over the course of the semester I was forced to think about how technology has affected my life and influenced my decisions.  I confronted the fact that I have allowed Google to wield so much power over me since I was old enough to consider myself “computer literate” that I now picture the face of George Orwell’s Big Brother whenever I think about this seemingly harmless, benevolent organisation.  This Sunday when I sit down to watch my favourite network television show, Game Of Thrones, I will be more troubled than ever by the fact that all of the major characters seem to be white, heterosexual and conventionally attractive.  I wonder what it would take for the stories being told in web series about the less visible people in our society so reach such a large and rabid audience.  Ultimately, I understand that as a society and as individuals we can choose to use and interact with new media in ways that dismantle the power of homogeny in our society, or we can allow the resistance to be crushed by the heavy hand of consumer culture.

Developing My Digital Literacy

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When I signed up for this class I had no idea what to expect. I decided to enroll because I wanted to take an English class that was not literature-based. Although I did think that the class would require us to interact more with technology, I enjoyed learning about new media and the impacts of technology from an academic standpoint.

In the beginning of the semester we discussed our broad opinions about new media. I remember referring to new media, specifically the internet, as a faceless equal playing field where race and gender do not matter. Throughout the course of the semester, I realized that I was misguided in my original interpretation of new media.

Contrary to my initial view, we learned that often new media perpetuates racism and the objectification and degradation of women. In class we discussed racist memes which, due to the ease with which they can be copied, rapidly spread and thus widely and quickly promote their racist message.

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We also discussed how video games degrade women through hypersexualization while also over-representing white men by almost exclusively portraying white males as heroes. While in these two instances new media popularizes negative stereotypes and creates new negative stereotypes about women and about different races, new media also offers a place for misrepresented and underrepresented groups to express themselves. We learned about how web series offer a place for these misrepresented and underrepresented groups to create shows that focus on the specific problems that their groups face unrestrained by the tenants of traditional network television.

In addition to learning about race and gender in new media, we also discussed how Google and Youtube dictate our searches and thus dictate both our knowledge and who grows popular on the internet. I used to view YouTube and Google as places where anyone could have their blog discovered or could post a video and grow famous. Now I realize that YouTube and Google are, at their core, businesses, and, that advertisers rather than users exist as YouTube’s and Google’s customers. Because advertisers are Google’s and YouTube’s customers – YouTube promotes videos and Google promotes websites based on which websites or videos receive the most views, or based on who pays for promotion. While I appreciate the existence of Google and Youtube as free services, I recognize that the validity of information or the quality of content is not Youtube’s or Google’s first concern when yielding search results.

Overall, this course taught me to recognize the importance of digital literacy and to develop my own digital literacy. While the internet does offer a place for anyone to have a voice, the business-minded nature of websites that control our searches, namely Google and YouTube, makes some content difficult to discover. In addition, I learned that it is important to recognize that while the internet gives misrepresented and underrepresented groups a place to express themselves, it also promotes racism and degradation and objectification of women by idolizing white men and by perpetuating negative race and gender stereotypes.

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Here’s a trailer for the film “Miss Representation” which outlines many of the themes we discussed this semester:

 

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UZZV3xU6Q[/youtube]