An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube

0.00 Introduction, YouTube’s Big Numbers

1889 Tim Burdens launched the foundation of the World Wide Web.

Stephen Weiswasser founder of ABC said: “You aren’t going to turn passive consumers into active trollers on the internet”.
1948 ABC started broadcasting 3 networks, they have been broadcasting for 60 years:

3 networks * 60 years * 365 days per year * 24 hours a day= 1.5 Million hours of programming.

HOWEVER!!
YouTube produced more in the past 6 months, and they did it without producers.

YouTube now are at: 9232 hours/day videos uploaded per day

385 always on TV channels

200, 000 3 minute videos (however it’s not mass media)

88% of the content is new and original, better then some networks

2.00 Numa Numa and the Celebration of Webcams

In 2003 a big hit was spread all across Italy, the Numa Numa video By Gary Brolsma. This video travelled across the whole world from Japan to the Suburbs of New Jersey.

Douglas Wolk commented on this video and said “Brolsma’s video single handily introduced the use of webcams.
Statistics suggest that this video has been viewed 600, 000, 00 times on YouTube.

In February 2005, YouTube was created and then launched in April 23rd 2005. This created a new platform to the web. After the Numa Numa video, people have been able to upload videos very easily across the whole world and over 58, 00 people uploaded their own version of the Numa Numa video.


5:53- The Machine is us/ing us and the New Mediascape

This video stated with text on paper, the moved on to digital text. When you unpack the impact of digital and separation of forms and contents of blogs this becomes a new term. This video gives us an idea of what the internet is really about, it doesn’t only show us information but it also shows us how people can be linking together through:
• Sharing
• Trading
• Collaborating
THIS IS WHAT WEB 2.0 IS ALL ABOUT

This video has been spread from different people across the world, from something called ‘user-generated distribution’ this is where people can tag a video and place it on a website so that people across the world can link back to the website ( e.g. Technorati) if they want more information about the video or another name for this is ‘user-generated organization’.

Throughout the entire social networking sites, such as YouTube, Google, Blogger, Facebook, MySpace etc it shows that technology has reached so far that we all live in an integrated Mediascape.

Media is not a content or a tool of communication but media is a mediating human relation, this is important because when media changes, human relationships change.

12:16- Introducing our Research Team

The research team would watch a YouTube video, and on another screen they would upload another video, then it goes to a database. Once they do that they can upload a video and then analyse that video.


12:56- Who is on YouTube

Who is on YouTube is analyzed from the percentage of videos featuring people of different ages. YouTube is not only viewed by the younger generation but it’s a fact the 25% of 35 and over view and upload videos on YouTube, and it’s the same percentage of the number of teenagers that watch and upload. 50% of videos have been viewed by 18-24 year olds.

13:25- What’s on YouTube? Charlie Bit My Finger, Soulja Boy. etc.

The most commonly videos that are uploaded on YouTube are home videos a famous example if the Charlie Bit My Finger video was astonishingly viewed 30 million times on YouTube and was redone and remixed over 2000 times. Approximately 15% of videos on YouTube are remixes or remakes of other videos and most videos are view less than 100 times.

Another video that hit across the whole world was Soulja Boys famous song “Crank Dat Soulja Boy”. It was recreated thousands of times by people making a video of them self and doing the dance routine, but making it their own version. EVEN prisoner in the Philippines would do this dance routine. Some other examples are the Crank that Harry Potter, lion king and even Simpsons. This doesn’t only benefit viewers by entertainment by it shows that the artist’s song is a world phenomenon.

17:04 - 5% of vids are personal vlogs addressed to the YouTube community, Why?

All most 10, 000 videos are addressed to the YouTube ‘communities’ everyday

Vlogs = normal video blogs but it’s broadcasted by someone so that all the users of YouTube can see what they have to say, it can be a response to another video on YouTube or just someone wanting to express their feeling in front of millions of people.

17:30 - YouTube in context. The loss of community and “networked individualism” (Wellman)

When women were giving the chance to work they didn’t really have time to spend with their families which resulted in them having more free time, people back then were connected through roads or TV connection.

Barry Wellmen believes “from places-to-place, to-person-to-person is network individualism” and now the use of mobile phones, internet and TV has made people extremely networked, however we still remain as individuals.

18:41- Cultural Inversion: individualism and community

The more individual we become the more we value and want our communities this is called cultural inversion. Robert Putnum 1995 says “My hunch is not the meeting in an electronic forum is not the equivalent of meeting in a bowling alley”.

19:15-Understanding new forms of community through Participant Observation

Michael believes that to actually understand the core of methodology, you have to experience it this is called participant observation and he and his students introduced themselves to the YouTube community by uploaded videos of themselves expressing what an anthropologic person actually does.

21:18 YouTube as a medium for community

Michael and his students went back to the idea of media changing human relations, but choose to do it on a YouTube platform and to see how communities were built through the use of webcams.
One of Michael’s students posted a video about ‘YouTube as a medium for community’ she says how looking at the webcam defines that people don’t actually know who they are talking to, but are really talking to an object not the community of YouTube’ an invisible audience phenomenon’, and Michael called this the context collapse .


23:00- Our first Vlogs

When people start their first vlogs, they feel the need to look prefect for an audience they can’t even see, for example they prefect their hair, make up clothes and the environment they are in. although some do feel awkward to being with but after a couple of tries they start to feel natural in front of the camera.

25:00 -The webcam: Everybody is watching where nobody is ("context collapse")

People feel a deep experience of context collapse, because they feel awkward talking to an object because they don’t feel like that they are talking to people. Mitigating the collapse of context, this is where people’s new identities are formed in the basis of their rooms and how they portray themselves on the camera.

Charles coolly idea of the “Looking Glass Self” is meant that people look at themselves they:
• Imagine how we must appear to other
• Imagine the judgment of that appearance
• Develop our self through the judgments of others