YouTube is an online video posting website, where people can upload their own personal digital videos for the whole world to watch for free. Videos can then go on to be rated by other users, have comments left, and also be tagged as favourites. The number of times a video is made someone’s “Favourite” is shown along side the total number of views. YouTube is not only host to personal videos, but also music videos, television show clips, advertisements and general event clips from around the world. These can then be searched and found by typing in keywords to the search bar, which seeks out titles or tags featuring said words.
The front page is a neutral white and blue colour scheme, with the videos catching the eye as opposed to the general text. The most popular clips - judged by the number of views - of the day are then listed along with large thumbnails and brief descriptions. This is one of the ways in which YouTube allows anybody to become famous in their own right, by giving them an outlet for their brand of entertainment and making it stand out on the front page. The member login for YouTube is not as essential as on many other websites, as non-members can still view all the videos posted on the site, however do not have the ability to upload any videos for themselves.
“Channels” are also very popular amongst YouTube’s community, with the top channels also featured on the front page. Channels are video threads that are from one specific user, which can be subscribed to so if a new video is posted by that user, the subscriber is informed and can then watch it. As a result of these channels and highly viewed videos, there are now many people who have become famous purely from YouTube and have gone on to do other things, for example Brooke Brodack signed a contract with Carson Daly’s mainstream media company.
Key concepts:
- Immediacy
- Personalisation
- Flexibility
- Democratisation
- Online surveillance
Example video: Robot Chicken - Final Fantasy VII spoof
This is a sectioned-off clip from an episode of the popular American animated sketch show Robot Chicken - created, produced and usually voiced by Seth Green and Matthem Senreich. The style of the show's animated is stop motion, using clay characters. Each sketch makes a humorous reference to something in the media eye, whether is be a celebrity, a television or radio show, a film or a videogame. In this case, the reference is a videogame, and prods fun at the battle system of the game, as well as the soundtrack and functionality. The jokes made in this specific sketch are ones that only people that have played the game would understand, meaning that it is able to narrowcast to that niche audience. This narrowcasting is then balanced out by the sheer number of sketches in each show, with some lasting only a couple of seconds.
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