YouTube is an interesting artifact. Anyone can create
an account and upload or watch videos. The videos can range to anything
from documentaries, short animations, or even clips from blockbuster
movies. It allows for the sharing of personal ideas and beliefs and
critical knowledge. It’s essentially an encyclopedia that takes advantage
of the eyes and ears to convey its contents. It is an important part of
our current society, allowing a new level of connection. You can watch
narrated videos of the same person regularly and you start to feel a connection
with them that they are a friend you have never met.
Let's
take a step back and ask just what YouTube exactly is. USA Today argues
that perhaps it was inspired by the picture sharing site such as Flicker, but
with videos instead. It is a means of people to share their experiences,
but now with videos. This is useful since in the same time period YouTube
was made in 2005, videos on phones became rather popular. YouTube also
was different than the other video sites at the time in that it was free, not
charging a monthly fee. It was a way for anyone to upload videos, a
community that consisted of everyone who could afford a computer and a camera
of some sort. USA Today continues, saying that with the embedding tool,
it was possible for people to make video blogs.
Another
side of YouTube is the monetization, allowing for anyone who can make videos
that people want to watch, get paid to make those videos. The settings in
YouTube directly mention this as an option, the up-loaders can decide if they
want YouTube to display ads during their videos, and if they themselves want to
get some of the income from the ads. This provides for a large audience as a
community. You can have those who just want to make a single short video
about something they love, professors posting videos, or gamers doing walk
throughs of their favorite games every week. Chances are, if there is
something you want to see, it is probably on YouTube.
Much
of the content on YouTube is digital media, with computer generated graphics
and modularity of the images. The videos themselves can be duplicated and
embedded indefinitely. All these are qualities given by Manovich (Language),
for what makes up the "New Media". The YouTube logo can be seen
as a watermark in the bottom of every embedded video, and each channel on
YouTube has the same default layout. This doesn't mean that all the
content on YouTube is digital media, but the site itself, is. Manovich
gives other qualifications for digital media as well. One is that it must
fulfill an automated process. YouTube, is automated. Scripts have
been written so that a person can upload a video and they don't have to wait
for a staff member to view it, confirm it, and manually post it to the
site. YouTube says that it has more than 72 hours of video uploaded every
minute. With that much content going, it would be near impossible to have
the site function without it being an automated process.
In
the book, "The Medium is the MASSAGE" by Marshall Mcluhan and Quentin
Fiore, they argue that certain parts of our society become extensions of our
selves. YouTube has done this, if someone starts to have a memory
of some movie, or place, someone (depending on the generation) will say look it
up on YouTube. It is a tool that we come to expect to have on hand.
Many people may go without cable anymore, opting for YouTube where they just
have to watch short commercials every 15 minutes or so, and the price of
viewing is part of their internet bill. Our society is making it easier
to access these videos too. Tablets and phones allow people to view
videos on YouTube from anywhere they can find an internet signal. Just
like how Wikipedia has become an extension of our mind as a universal free
encyclopedia, YouTube has become a near endless library of videos we can access
at anytime. This idea of all this information is very similar to the
"Memex" thought of by Vannevar Bush (As We May Think), where pictures
were stored. I'm sure if he had anticipated motion pictures, he would
have envisioned them being stored on the Memex.
Part
of the reason why YouTube is so big, is the ease of use. To upload a
video, all a user has to do is have an account on the site, and have the video
accessible by the computer, and click a button. There is no programming
knowledge necessary, no experience, no tricks. In some cases, it is
possible to have software automatically upload videos to YouTube. Another
site called TwitchTV, has a service which will first save any recorded video,
including live stream, and once the video is finished, it will upload to a
connected YouTube account.
YouTube
is much more than a place to post videos. It is a place to display your
interests. It has an entire community where users can subscribe to video
blogs or learn more about a topic of their choice. It is in a sense, the
start of a new era. Now it is possible for videos from around the world,
or above (Space Rip) it, to be shared
within minutes of its filming. It brings our world together in a way that
would have never been possible a decade and a half ago. YouTube is an
extension of our selves now, without it, an entire culture would be lost.
Works Cited
1.
"As We May Think." The Atlantic. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/4/?single_page=true>.
2.
"The Language of New Media (Leonardo Books)
[Paperback]." The Language of New Media (Leonardo Books): Lev Manovich:
9780262632553: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2012.
<http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-Media-Leonardo-Books/dp/0262632551>.
3.
McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. The Medium Is
the Massage. New York: Random House, 1967. Print.
4.
SpaceRip. "The View from Space - Countries and
Coastlines." YouTube. YouTube, 21 Dec. 2011. Web. 26 Sept. 2012.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPyl1LgNtoQ>.
5.
"Twitch Makes Playing Games More Fun." Twitch.
N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2012.
6.
USA Today. Gannett, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2012.
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-11-21-video-websites_x.htm>.
7.
YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2012.
<http://www.youtube.com/>.
No comments:
Post a Comment