Day 10 of 'Mastering YouTube in Fifteen Days' by Jessica Kellgren-Hayes

Mastering YouTube in Fifteen Days

Jessica Kellgren-Hayes
University of Brighton
Film and Screen Studies, Year 2
HD2111; Screen History 1985-Present

'Discuss the way in which YouTube has been adopted by the public, and assess whether 'user generated content' offers any viable alternatives to corporate and commercial filmmaking.'



In my attempt to discover the essence of a viral video that I came across an article on TechCrunch; The Secret Strategies Behind Many "Viral" Videos, by Dan Ackerman Greenberg, a man who works to induce "virality". He creates viral videos; he makes sure as many people as possible see them as they are, inevitably, adverts.

He does this by getting the video onto YouTube's 'most viewed' page, as that is where the majority of users find their next clip. Over 50,000 views are generally needed to make the page, the higher your views, the higher up the page you climb. Greenberg manufactures the interest of those first 50,000 viewers. In fact, in his own words; "Content is NOT King." Everything is about the number.

The first 50,000 views are generated via five different areas; blogs, forums, MySpace, Facebook and emails. His company pay bloggers to link to their videos. They create multiple accounts on a forum and talk about the video to 'bump' the conversation higher up the page. They, effectively, 'spam' MySpace pages with the video. On Facebook they create fake accounts and fake events to get people interested and we've all, I'm sure, had experience of the endless circular email...

So, for ease of use, I'm going to refer to the two different types of viral video as 'natural'- those with high view counts because they are actually interesting- and and 'manufactured'- those that have just spent a lot of money to get their status.

Videos began to be passed around back in the mid 1990s, before YouTube, by email sharing. Today videos are instead linked to but hosted on sites- mainly YouTube. As of May 2010 YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day with just 30 per cent of uploaded videos making up 99% of the views on the site. In the entire top 10 of most-watched YouTube videos of all time, the only non-music-video entry is the classic 'Charlie Bit Me'.

As there is so much to get through I think I'm going to cover 'YouTube Fame' tomorrow and then 'YouTube Pain' the day after that. The failure of others is an incredibly popular topic in video trends. So much so that just the word 'FAIL' has become it's own internet meme. A 'meme' is a concept that spreads through the internet, although I suppose you could call it 'an inside joke for young people'.

Generally it involves the word 'Fail' being branded onto unsuccessful events or things (people) not living up to expectations, such as the contestant for Miss Teen USA.

There are thousands of 'after the dentist' videos, with children on legal highs, or a single user's series of similar videos such as 'Can You Blend...?' One of the most popular serial videos is the spoof of the viral music video- the most obvious being Beyonce's 'Single Ladies'.

For anyone interested in learning more about viral videos the American University 'Northwestern' offers a course in "YouTubing 101", which helps students to produce their own viral videos, focusing on marketing techniques and advertising strategies.




The Secret Strategies Behind Many "Viral" Videos
Dan Ackerman Greenberg
TechCrunch, Nov 22 2007

Dramatic Chipmunk
cregets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw

Charlie bit my finger - again !
HDCYT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

Dumpster Parkour FAIL
Failblog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGf0YzZ2GMk&feature=channel_video_title

Maxwell House commercial with Affirmation girl
Valleyrallyguy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kKswLd65Ws&feature=related

By Ben Whitelaw
Telegraph Newspaper, 20 Apr 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8464418/Almost-all-YouTube-views-c...

Lady Ga Ga Alejandro Translation... by GloZell
glozell1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nroUJEplPnY&feature=channel_video_title

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question
IRamzayI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

‪Beyoncé‪ - Single Ladies SPOOF (Barack Obama)‬
Alphacat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PqI12R8YNU

Sony Bravia - Play-Doh(The Making)
Dmnvinod
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz4DF1PpJ1o&NR=1

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[ElendilARK]

Naw, Jess has gone viral herself! =( Get well soon.

Again with the word making! Keep it up. =)

That Miss Teen video is still unwatchable... =/ Just cringe worthy, and makes me feel ashamed for humanity as a whole.

- B x

[MissJessicaKH]

@ElendilARK

I just feel sorry for the poor girl!

[steadyhandsunny]

Loving the Englishness!

Have you seen GloZell's video's? Now they are viral!... And Hilarious!

[MissJessicaKH]

@steadyhandsunny

GloZell is indeed hilarious. My favourite is 'Whip my hair' - why IS a 9 year old singing about partying?!

[standisher1]

Youtube is a great vehicle for talented people (such as musicians, singers, etc) to display their skills and equally for those seeking such talent to find it. Search, by track name, a piece of music & you'll find scores of singers and musicians with cover versions. Some are simply awful but quite a few are true talents.....and soon you'll be famous for your ...Fifteen Days series. ..Great idea. Well done!

[MissJessicaKH]

@standisher1

Thank you x

[hollieknows]

check you owt ..

[norse27]

pretty lady, nice hair!

[thebehtbeht]

She is fun to listen to, well spoken and entertaining. 399 views only? Surprising!

[steadyhandsunny]

@MissJessicaKH Mine has got to be ''Tips for Hair removal .... Nad's... by GloZell''