The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube and the Politics of Authenticity

presented at the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum at Jazz at Lincoln Center. About 10 minutes of it is a minor update (rehash) of An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, but the rest is new. The gathering may have been the highest concentration of amazingly creative and concerned global citizens I have ever been around. Hallway conversations were different than your typical conversations. Instead of lots of people saying, 'You know, somebody should ...' there were lots of people saying, 'So I did this, this, and this, and now Im working on doing this, this, and this and we should collaborate ...' In other words, it was a bunch of people blessed with what I once heard Yochai Benkler and Henry Jenkins call critical optimism. Nobody there was blindly optimistic, thinking technology was going to make everything better. They were all continually trying to figure out where we are, where we might be going, and the possible downsides and dangers of new technologies so we can use the new technologies to serve human purposes. In other words, it was my kind of crowd. Special thanks to Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej for organizing the conference.

• Category

  News & Politics

[datachip]

I'd recommend it to anyone - get rid of your TV for 6 months; it will change the way you see things.

But internet, and youtube in particular, has recently played the same role for me that TV did in the past. The speaker presented eloquent expressions of the good that the medium can effect, but there were such examples on TV too. Perhaps this new medium is not so unique in after all, but just another discouraging reflection of our society, mostly irrelevant, whatever...

[irishdancerv8]

<3 I found myself agreeing with a lot, if not all, of this video.

[JohanAwesome]

This was really interesting and funny too

[CrossWolf2]

I really don't understand what he is getting at... I honestly refuse to watch TV, I have gone 5 months no technology at all, including my flip phone. I have learned nothing.

The future of the world is in technology, society is changing, whether or not for the better, your decision. Who are you, ledites or innovators.

[nick hayes]

wow this is so interesting i watched the whole thing

[Kimalee Borgert]

This video interested me, but as usual I got distracted and started reading the comments on it. It is sad that so many people think the negative has some kind of auroic power to spin our world. The changes of the future do not have to be sad, mad, idiotic. Back to the video...I'm not learning much from myself these days as after 24 months of no t.v. and no internet and no newspapers, there's a lot to catch up on.

[Anna Covone]

his arguments are so funny and so deep

[luc59457]

Perhaps? The new medium is not new, it's simply a reflection of mainstream media. Google and Youtube are spotlight what mainstream media would approve of (junk food) and trash what they would not approve of:Many science channels and videos,many channels and videos exposing government and the organizations above them,all trashed. Even Ron Paul videos,nearly all trashed!He'll fade away just like Jack Layton,I promise that.There's no surprises in this system, just corruption.Sorry to break it to ya

[luc59457]

God is not us, only the few that widely control in negative ways, the few that corrupt and the few that destroy. Look at god in the bible, you don't think God destroys? Look at the Tower of Babel

[ThaGodWeCreate]

you are me, i am you...we are god...god is us