YouTube: Key Facts

• Founders- Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, Steve Chen

• Owned by Google

• Audience: More than 1 Billion users, 54% of all teens are on YouTube,

• 62% of men between 18-24, 55% of women between 18-24 are on

• YouTube.

• YouTube is localised in 75 countries and available in 61 languages

• 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

• 60% of a creators views come from outside their home country

• Half of YouTube views are on mobile devices

• More than a million advertisers are using Google ad platforms; the

• majority of these advertisers are small businesses

Why has Youtube become such an important part of (some) peoples lives?

It allows people to create an identity and in some cases Youtube acts as a place where people can escape and express themselves. Wesch says that Youtube gives

people a stronger voice and presence. Youtube is important in peoples lives as they can be creative and connect with the

world. 88% of videos are new and original content and one video can lead to a ‘craze’ where people copy/ collaborate together in order to feel like they are part of a

community. An example is ‘charlie bit my finger’ which went viral and lead to people replicating the video.

People can watch Youtube videos without the creator actually knowing therefore meaning they can learn about others.

Some audiences feel that Youtube allows for a deep connection and by talking to a webcam for example, people can speak to an invisible audience as they have no idea

who will be watching their videos in order to express opinions and feelings. Youtube offers enjoyment to people whether it is through watching or creating

videos and for some people creating Youtube videos becomes part of their life where they upload weekly in order to keep viewers entertained and up to date with

interesting things they are doing.

Summary of Wesch’s Ideas • Anthropology – The study of people• Wesch said 18-24 year olds were creating the most content on YouTube• It took producers 60 years to programme 1 million hours of content but

YouTube did it in 6 months. • Integrated media scape – interconnected / web 2.0 (through blogs etc)• Networked Individualism – people being together through sharing but also at

the same time being alone. Authenticity crisis. Shift in behaviour caused a decline in real life community meaning people crave interaction

• Cultural Inversion – people being individuals but also want to be part of a community

• User generated content – people creating content themselves• User generated distribution – people distributing their own content

themselves opposed to having producers do it • Context Collapse – lack of audience/purpose• 200,000 videos uploaded daily• Creates a community for the users of YouTube allowing them to feel

important/enabling them to express their views/opinions freely. • Wesch paints an extremely positive picture of YouTube which could be

criticised in the sense that not everyone views YouTube as a community that only has benefits, some individuals use the website purely to be negative (e.gcreating hurtful videos or commenting negative things)

Examples of Vloggers & Application of Wesch’s Ideas

PewDiePie / Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg

PewDiePie / Felix Arvid Ulf KjellbergSwedish producer of Let's Play videos on YouTube As of March 2015, PewDiePie has over 35 million subscribers ‘In June 2014, PewDiePie, announced that a fourth charity drive for "Save the

Children" raised over $630,000, surpassing a $250,000 goal’

This highlights that although PewDiePie creates videos purely forpeoples enjoyment, he has used his success to raise money for thosein need by engaging with his fans. The Wall Street journal states that in 2013, PewDiePie earned $4million which supports the Wikinomics theory of how his creativity isearning him money Rob Walker of Yahoo: "While he can be raucous and crude, it always comesacross as genuine.”

charlieissocoollikecharlieissocoollike(Charlie McDonnell) was the first UK vlogger to get 1 million YouTube subscribers and since May 2013 has had over 2 million. This supports Wesch’s views that there has been a shift in behaviour. According to Wesch, we now crave interaction and community and YouTube and following vlogs allows us to be part of a community. Wesch also said that we want to express our freedom and identity and thousands of people do this through YouTube and Vlogs.

However…

Wesch says that we use vlogs to show our true identity but with the likes of charlieissocoollike it could be argued that they are displaying a fake identity, in order to be popular, especially once a pay cheque is involved.

Jim Chapmanhttps://www.youtube.com/user/j1mmy

b0bba/featuredhttps://twitter.com/jimstweetings

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJimChapman

Jim Chapman

• Jim Chapman is an English vlogger, blogger and model and is best known for his pop culture, vlogging and men’s fashion.

• He started his Youtubechannel in 2009 and now has 2 million subscribers.

• This fits the idea of cultural inversion as people feel the need to be part of a community, where they can comment on videos

• The use of an integrated media scape with links to other pages with his content such as his website and Facebook. This allows the user to interact with Jim and fits the idea of the blogosphere.

Vloggers: Alfie Deyes

• Alfie Deyes runs the Youtube channel ‘Pointless Blog’, PointlessblogTV and AlfieGames. Alfie has over 2 million followers on Twitter and 2 million on Instagram. As of December 2014 he has over 3 million subscribers. He was featured on the cover of the January 2014 edition of company magazine for the ‘Generation Youtube’ feature.

• Deyes has collaborated with other Youtubers including Tyler Oakley, Tanya Burr and Joe Sugg.

• He was included in the 2015 Debretts 500 most influential people in Britain under the new media category.

• Deyes creates a community of people who are those that watch all his videos and enjoy them therefore supporting Weschs view.

• https://www.youtube.com/user/PointlessBlog

These are vlogs. There are many of them. People talk into a camera about any subject they can think of in hopes of becoming popular.

“”• Daniel Howell• Vlogger• 4.5 million subscribers• Active since 2009

Some vloggers, such as Dan Howell, create characters for themselves when they create their vlogs to give there videos an individual identity.

His fans try to relate to and warm up to the character he’s created, relating to the idea of Authenticity Crisis as this is not really what the person is like.

Most of his content revolves around his personal life, with little community interaction:

This video is community interaction

https://www.youtube.com/user/danisnotonfire

FunForLouis (Louis Cole)

• Daily vlogger, documenting his life and travel experiences. Louis has 1,224,134 million subscribers, 791 videos and 107,072,293 video views. This therefore illustrates Wesch’s idea of community as over 1 million people are subscribed to him and his most popular video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oPa3GJJDDA) has almost 2 million views. Louis also highlights Wesch’s point about collaborations and being able to collaborate with any one from all over the world. Louis has collaborated with other YouTubers from South Africa and America.

Opposition to Wesch’s Perspective(Andrew Keen)

Andrew Keen is critical of Web 2.0 sites as he believes that user created content is taking power from professional, traditional media and experts.

He argues that Web 2.0 sites are threatening the work of talented professional writers, musicians, filmmakers and journalists, giving more exposure to amateur content.

Cult of the Amateur

Keen argues that the internet is filling up with meaningless, amateur content which begin to take priority over professional quality content and genuine talent. A recent example of this amateur and meaningless content is this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYORZMMd9q4

A counter argument may be that though content such as that previously mentioned is not professional, it may be amusing and provide entertainment for viewers.

Keen’s viewpoint on Web 2.0 leans towards favouring professionals and pushing out amateurs. This is much less of a convincing argument, as it means that people will be discouraged to be creative and share their content, which would leave it to traditional media companies. It is however much more critical of negative points of the internet and Web 2.0.