YouTube is marking its fifth anniversary. The main attraction of this video site is the opportunity for instant fame it presents to ordinary people, simply by putting a video up on the site. Humour and entertainment are the main categories on YouTube, but there has hardly been any research into the phenomenon.
Hugely popular on YouTube is a video entitled Leave Britney Alone! in which a crying and moaning Chris Crocker beseeches the media and "you people" to leave US pop star Britney Spears alone. The 2007 video, two minutes and 12 seconds long, has notched up nearly 30 million hits.
Touching as well as mad
And yet the emotional appeal immediately raises many questions. The reactions to the video make that clear. Who is Chris Crocker? A man? Or maybe a woman after all? Was Chris Cocker mentally stable at the time of recording? Are the emotions so prominently put on display real or fake?
According to Dagan Cohen of Upload Cinema it is exactly these questions which have made Leave Britney Alone! such a hit. “This is moving and mad at the same time. People who get emotional about an issue and express their feelings passionately before the eyes of the world can count on appreciation and sympathy.”
Canon of YouTube
Upload Cinema is an organisation which takes the best videos from the web and puts them up on movie screens. There are four cinemas – one of them in Germany - which each month screen Upload Cinema’s feature-length programme. An editorial staff evaluates viewers’ tips on the basis of a varying theme.
The company has come up with something special to mark YouTube’s fifth anniversary. On 22 February, the Canon of YouTube will be presented in the Stadsschouwburg (City Theatre) in Amsterdam. A panel of experts will select the 30 best internet videos so far. The title is a joking allusion to the historical and cultural Canon of the Netherlands published last year. Leave Britney Alone! is sure to be high on the list of nominees for the YouTube canon.
• Most viewed on RNW's YouTube channel: About Fitna, the Netherlands and Wilders
Laughing at Hitler
A Dutch YouTube video expected to do well is Der Untergang – Hitler’s Company Outing. The video shows a dramatic scene from the film Der Untergang featuring actor Bruno Ganz. However, the sound track has been altered in a comical way. According to Dagan Cohen, the fact that the video was a professional production by Lucky TV will certainly improve its chances of success.
Kinds of humour
So who is watching all these YouTube videos, and why? Academic research into YouTube is still in its infancy. Language and Communication Professor Luuk Lagerwerf of the Free University in Amsterdam wants to change that.
“I want to research the different kinds of humour in the videos. Entertainment – music and songs – and humour are the two most important and most watched categories on YouTube. But which kind of humour is most appreciated? And does it differ form the kind of humour found in commercial messages on television? These are just a few examples of the questions I have.”
Visitors to the site influence each other by recommending YouTube videos. People send mails round including links to funny videos. Luuk Lagerwerf wants to know more about that process: “Peer influence plays a huge role in the popularity of videos. What types of personality make these recommendations and who clicks on them? In short, YouTube is just begging to be researched.”
• Most popular YouTube video of all times, according to www.readwriteweb.com: Charlie bit my finger, again! (159,172,089 views, yes, more than 159 million!)
RNW translation (gsh); RNW graphic (tv)
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I don't see the fuss about Hulu. Yes, it's offering some cool shows free but in my opinion there are plenty more better online video sites out there. Just take a look at the youtube video site and you'll see it's got almost everything nowadays. Actually YouTube is continually evolving and has the feature of user-generated channels and corporate video sharing . All the biggest shows, movie clips and classics can be found there. I'm not sure if Hulu is worth all the hype. It may be one of the top streaming sites on dozenvideo.com but it is not as good as HD video sites like Vimeo. In short, I'm not hooked on Hulu… yet.
I think youtube is a great tool for anyone interested in watching or uploading videos. I have been using the site for years now, and still think it is doing a good job. Ok, so sometimes it gets criticized for being too easy to break copyright laws, but youtube's online security is getting better. The best thing about the site is its great video search engine and database. No wonder it made it as the top sharing site on http://www.dozenvideo.com this month. But there's some tough competition out there and as online video gets bigger and bigger, there's sure to be a backlash. Keep online videos free and easy to share!
Really watch all videos and search for the next ones to put in a playlist simultaneous.
Or just play related movies at random.
It's all possible in the TubeParade.com
On YouTube research, see the YouTube Bibliography at
http://www.strangelove.com/blog/youtube-bibliograhy/
and my book, Watching YouTube: Extraordinary Videos by Ordinary People (University of Toronto Press, 2010) available here:
http://www.amazon.com/wATCHING-YOUTUBE-Extraordinary-Videos-Ordinary/dp/...
Thank you,
Dr. Strangelove
University of Ottawa
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