I just watched Commercial Breakdown on the tellybox and thought I’d just go through YouTube a bit before I went to sleep. I was going on a bike-ride with Timi tomorrow, so I wanted to get an early-ish night. As some of you know, I wanted to get into vlogging at some point during the holidays, but none of the people I was going to base my style on had made any videos. Bummer.
But what I did see was this video on Social Media which is pretty much what I want to do at university. It’s a seminar done by Mike Wesch, a sort of God in the field (and is even a doctor).
He talks about the growth of the whole YouTube thing, bringing with it it’s new army of socialites who want to be public by being private – Talking to themselves to a webcam. He mentions ‘Context Collapse’, the whole shame and "What the hell am I doing?" people feel when they start vlogging for the first time, which is what I seem to be experiencing.
He also mentions the bad parts of the whole anonymity of YouTube, and the whole ‘Never meet strangers you meet on the Internet’ you got drilled into your skull when you first heard that annoying modem noise. Such an example being Lonelygirl15, who captured the hearts of many being a bored teenager locked in her room by her parents, and who turned out to be 3 wannabe film directors just testing their skills. Least to say, people were annoyed.
But there’s also some awesome people on YouTube. The video mentions one, bnessel1973 – a well known comedian on the site – losing his child. He documents his life before the event and basically says ‘Well, after looking at how happy this site and this community has made me, I’m not going to get bogged down about it’. It helped his life. And that’s awesome.
On the 1st of August, one of YouTube’s major vloggers charlieissocoollike held a YouTube gathering in London. He invited fellow vloggers and YouTube members to just meet up and have fun. It’s probably the opposite of what your mind has been programmed to do on the Internet for the years it’s been mainstream. I’d only been watching his videos for, what, not even a week and if I’m honest I really wanted to go. I felt I knew the guy, yet all he’s doing is talking to a small camera, and all I’m doing is watching a moving picture of him at that moment in time.
That’s essentially what that video is about. You see sides of people you probably wouldn’t usually see simply because you’re "allowed to stare" over the Internet. I know many people reading this blog, and people who’ve read it before, have seen a completely different side to me, simply because I can say what I like without the fear of social rejection on here. So it’s all good. 
Yesterday, Brittney had a whole theory about how being yourself on the Internet can help you to become yourself in life too… or to discover who you are. I’m not sure if I will look at the video or not (55min is long, in my book… the longest video I’ve watched on Youtube was probably around 10min ; I’ve short attention span for videos…) Perhaps on a bored day…
V. You reminded me of something I forgot to mention.
See, for me, I’ve made friends all over the place. From different places in Britain, as far away as Australia and as remote as places in Eastern Europe. One of the things I want to do when/if I ever get enough money to do so is to just turn up on their doorstep and say “Hi. I’m the person behind those words you see everyday” and stay around for a couple of days.
People on the Internet aren’t always who they appear to be. I know that people I’ve talked to on MSN, for example, I’ve imagined them to look completely different to what they actually do when they manage to get the courage to show a picture of themselves.
=o I could beat you to that now that I has my passport! lol. Awesome idea though
People should just always be themselves, and stop to care about what they look and what people think of them… because it doesn’t matter! People will continue to speak in your back anyway! Rwar!