Is YouTube....bad?
 

In LSPE's wedding thread I got a bit derailed on a conversation with NA that I thought I'd bring out here.

To me, the fact that anyone from anywhere (who has an internet connection) can currently publish their creations in a format that anyone from anywhere (with an internet connection) can instantly see is beyond awesome. This includes - writing, painting, sculpting, filming, you name it.

Obviously if you allow the masses to be heard, there is going to be some crap in there. There are going to be plenty of people who feel talented who really aren't. But to me, that is only a minor side effect of the awesomeness of pure freedom of expression and the ability to be heard.

I was surprised to hear that people might think that totally democratized content was a bad thing. That because there's crap in there, YouTube is not great. As if Hollywood is made up of only wonderful projects? Never mind that you don't have to pay 10 bucks to just see someone else's (possibly crappy) creation.

Anyway - I want to know what you think. I don't think the free internet is to be taken lightly. I see it as a revolution of the most liberating type.

Crap is such a subjective thing. I think any outlet for creativity is nearly always great, and YouTube is a wonderful way for people to put their stuff out there. I'm just waiting to see the first big breakthrough for an artist or director that stems from YouTube exposure.

I think this is not in the spirit of CP's point.

As an outlet for creative product I think it is great.

However, I also think it is a further blurring of the line between the public and private spheres that I generally abhor. But since I only go to YouTube when pointed to it by someone else (I wouldn't have a clue how to track down my own "you must see this" posts) that half isn't really in my sphere of consciousness.

As a consumer of popular culture I am very much in favor of filters and passivity. In a couple very narrow areas I'm willing to do the work to find the quality things that are good fits for me, but otherwise I like to know that there have been several filters before a movie hits the theaters, or a TV show gets on air, or (more theoretical for me) a song gets on the radio.

A case could be made that it is also an extension of the decline of our attention span (though this is more perceived by me than having any evidence). I recently had a coworker say she liked watching YouTube videos because they're funny and TV shows are too long. She literally just watches YouTube **** whenever she has time. This means that for the most part she has cut herself off from narrative entertainment, hell even from entertainment with a context. The only actual contact with news she's probaby had recently is the video with the Krispy Kreme suck dick graphic.

But she is, I'm sure (and I really hope), and extreme outlier and I don't know if this would make YouTube bad.

But put in the context of an extensively "socialized," decontextualized and isolating online culture I can see it becoming a brick in a wall that is a bad thing for many people.

On the otherhand, as a tool for illegally recoving the electronic ephemera of our past, it is great. Except for the illegal part.

Oh, come on, Alex! The illegal part is what makes it juicy! I kid! I kid!

There's a lot of crap out there - and by crap, I mean crap as I define it for myself and not for anyone else. I filter what I watch, and usually what I watch is filtered for me by other people.

I had a friend once make a stupid video with him doing the peanut butter-jelly time dance with his friend because he knew we'd all find it funny to see it on YouTube. 99% of you guys would probably think it was retarded, but I thought it was really great that I was able to see that video without downloading some huge amount of content, without waiting for him to put it on a DVD or having him serve it somewhere. That he could do that was awesome, IMO.

Of course, none of this replaces going to the movies, renting DVDs or at least attempting to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Get down with what you get down with. If you like it, it's good, if you hate it, it's bad. It's true with everything, and that's probably the end of the story for me.

In a moral sense? No

Quality-wise, my experience has been more bad than good.

I'm fine with people posting anything and everything on it, I just don't want to see most of it. Usually, I will only follow a link that's been posted by someone else, and then usually only if enough people have commented about it to make it sound worthy. (I generally also do this for posted links to websites.)

The problem I have with You Tube, is I haven't discovered how to easily skim the content as I would a blog or other textual document. Sure there are plenty of long winded boring blogs out there, but the nature of the written word makes it east for me to skim through the paragraphs to pull out any of the content I might enjoy. I can't seem to do that with video - or haven't figured out an analogous behavior yet.

I just wish people would describe links better so I knew whether I really wanted to click on it - "This is funny" doesn't work anymore. But that's my issue and no body else's - clearly people are cracking themselves up over these things and some is even making it to network TV. Honestly though, I confess this delivery method is much better than getting a "funny" video in an email.

I find still images easier to digest, rarely use the video feature of my camera, and when I do it's usually for one viewing before I delete it. Maybe if YouTube had porn I'd be more interested.

I think they have a PornTube - or something like that.

And knowing the internet - that is where the technology for YouTube was probably developed and perfected ;)

Now that I think about it, for many people spamming a friends list with a funny YouTube video is somehow once again acceptable. Just after they were all trained to stop sending me that crappy email joke of the day or the glurgy partriotic tribute or the latest "your couch could be killing" urban legend.

Surprisingly no, the porn versions are rather useless.



So I've heard.