Friday, April 3, 2009

Modern Madness: Youtube Edition

When asked 'what defines today?' in class. I could really only come up with one word:

youtube.

This is actually pretty sad, because the words that I would use to describe youtube would be:

Cesspool of Free Speech.

A lot of us spend a lot of time on youtube. I'm not immune to this accusation, which is part of the reason I'm so angry about it. There's a couple of users that I've addicted myself to, and I like checking up on them. The vast majority of these posts on youtube are VLOGS.

Video Logs. Also a play on the word Blog.

The vast majority of video logs feature some person just staring at the camera talking about mindless bullshit.



This was actually a webseries that I was addicted to for a very long time. About two years. Because the above video eventually turned into this.



What kinds of birds chirp at 2:40 AM? I mean really. There's a flock nesting outside my window or something.

Anywho.

YOUTUBE!!!!

Youtube is mostly what a certain internet community has deemed 'youtube poop'. These are crappy Vlogs, horribly edited music videos of people mouth syncing to Ashlee Simpson (or shitty anime music videos), along with the multitude of skateboarding accidents.

Despite the nickname 'youtube poop', this poop gets a lot of smells... er... views. I try to avoid it, but sometimes I like the skateboarding accidents. Those were classic before youtube even existed. (ah the days of Stupidvideos)

But, sometimes, even among the lame vloggers, you have people that are true gems of the internet.



Anywho. Beyond just the shitty or not shitty vloggers that spam youtube with their boring lives, you occasionally get some people with actual editing skills on youtube.



Youtube has built itself the reputation that if you want to find a video of it, it's on youtube. With the obvious exception of porn, which youtube doesn't like. Youtube has terms of use that you HAVE TO READ (not) before posting a video. These terms of use are very vague and sometimes used to delete seemingly random videos because they are 'not suitable for minors'.

If a video is flagged a certain number of times, you have to click a button that says you want to see a video that is not suitable for minors. Like this one.



As you can see. Youtube is a little arbitrary about this kind of thing. This video got flagged like crazy by creationist votebots that vote to take down pro-evolution or anti-creationist videos. It's an interesting mini-war that rages on youtube and is quite similar to the war between Anonymous, an internet group, and Scientology, a pseudo-religion.

The subject of youtube is far to vast to write a complete work on in a blog post. This is much like our modern society. We define ourselves by the vastness of our opinions and ideas, most of which have a representation on youtube.

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