An anthropological introduction to YouTube

Intro
in 1948 abc was introduced
9232 hours a day
385 always on tv channels
200 000 3 minute vids
88% new and original content

Numa Numa and the Celebration of Webcams
created year 2004 december

The Machine is Us/ing Us and the New Mediascape
he started with text on paper and what it means
not just about people, about linking people in new ways
every 6months there is a new way.
when we change, media changes

Introducing our Research Team
10 undergraduate students,
data uploading, students can take notes and upload at any time.

Who is on YouTube?
over 50% of youtube viewers are aged between teenage and 34

What's on Youtube? Charlie Bit My Finger, Soulja Boy, etc.
92 year old playing piano
most commonly uploaded are home videos
viewed over 30million times
redone over 2000 times
15% are remakes of the video

5% of vids are personal vlogs addressed to the YouTube community, Why?
the loss of community over time

YouTube in context. The loss of community and "networked individualism" (Wellman)
less free time
isolation

Cultural Inversion: individualism and community
express: individualism, independant, commercialisation
value: community, relationships, authenticity

Understanding new forms of community through Participant Observation
the core of our methodology,
have to understand it to experience it

YouTube as a medium for community
build community through webcams
everytime you go onto a webcam, the person is unknown

Our first vlogs
people basically film themselves and post their videos on the net. they edit and retake to make it look perfect; hair, type of shot etc.

The webcam: Everybody is watching where nobody is ("context collapse")
the way that we look pose and remake ourselves for a webcamera trying to be somebody else when nobody is there, when in actual fact the whold world can see you.

Re-cognition and new forms of self-awareness (McLuhan)
everybody and anybody may be looking at you, including yourself.

The Anonymity of Watching YouTube: Haters and Lovers
"some of the comments on youtube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred."
Lev Grossman
time magazine. dec 13th 2006

Aesthetic Arrest
people are overwhelmed with what they have infront of thenm, so they just sit and stare.
cultual tension.
craving connection.

Connection without Constraint
people are connecting through youtube.
media do not just distance us,
they connect us in different ways.
but sometimes that distance brings us closer toegether.