An anthropological introduction to YouTube

presented at the Library of Congress, June 23rd 2008. This was tons of fun to present. I decided to forgo the PowerPoint and instead worked with students to prepare over 40 minutes of video for the 55 minute presentation. This is the result.
more info: http://mediatedcultures.net

0:00 Introduction, YouTube's Big Numbers
2:00 Numa Numa and the Celebration of Webcams
5:53 The Machine is Us/ing Us and the New Mediascape
12:16 Introducing our Research Team
12:56 Who is on YouTube?
13:25 What's on Youtube? Charlie Bit My Finger, Soulja Boy, etc.
17:04 5% of vids are personal vlogs addressed to the YouTube community, Why?
17:30 YouTube in context. The loss of community and "networked individualism" (Wellman)
18:41 Cultural Inversion: individualism and community
19:15 Understanding new forms of community through Participant Observation
21:18 YouTube as a medium for community
23:00 Our first vlogs
25:00 The webcam: Everybody is watching where nobody is ("context collapse")
26:05 Re-cognition and new forms of self-awareness (McLuhan)
27:58 The Anonymity of Watching YouTube: Haters and Lovers
29:53 Aesthetic Arrest
30:25 Connection without Constraint
32:35 Free Hugs: A hero for our mediated culture
34:02 YouTube Drama: Striving for popularity
34:55 An early star: emokid21ohio
36:55 YouTube's Anthenticity Crisis: the story of LonelyGirl15
39:50 Reflections on Authenticity
41:54 Gaming the system / Exposing the System
43:37 Seriously Playful Participatory Media Culture (featuring Us by blimvisible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yxHKgQyGx0
47:32 Networked Production: The Collab. MadV's "The Message" and the message of YouTube
49:29 Poem: The Little Glass Dot, The Eyes of the World
51:15 Conclusion by bnessel1973
52:50 Dedication and Credits (Our Numa Numa dance)

The Numa Numa quote is from *Douglas* Wolk (not Gary Wolk as I mistakenly said in the talk).

Category:

Education

Tags:

• YouTube
• anthropology
• presentation
• ethnography
• digital
• ksudigg

[Elinious]

I wonder what this presentation would look like today? So much has changed in only a couple of years. The internet moves so quickly! LisaNova and lonelygirl15 are replaced by other people. What did they bring to the table and who's going to eventually replace them?

[biasamenjadi]

nice video

[WinKevin1]

01:11 IT´S OVER 9000!

[jaxattax100]

i watched the whole THING

[mush1ify]

good thing to watch

[steopsucks]

watching this maid me realies evan more how glad i am to have picked anthopologie as my major. and how much i enjoy humanethology (human behaviour etc)

despite this being from 2008 it still rings true to me so much. especially now that i am much more settled in nerdfighteria. fathered my john and hank green "vlogbrothers" they created a community where forgetting to be awesome never even crosses somebodys mind.

dftba and best wishes

[Evija3000]

lol I have to go but even though its sort of outdated I really like this and can't stop watching. I don't think I've looked at the internet from this perspective.

[Armoniam45]

i loved it! Thank u! :)

[qTyler50]

at 29:30 lol i stare at people in real life all of the time...

[NickGreyden]

Fantastic presentation! I hope this is still an ongoing study and we can get update results of it one day.

[NLDVideos]

moving, engaging account of what youtube is all about

[PandasAreEatingMe]

tl;dw