By Jessie Kastenbaum (jekastenbaum@vassar.edu)
As technology progresses, the world becomes more connected and communication improves dramatically. Wu’s The Master Switch follows the progression of communication technology starting with the telephone, going to the radio, then to film, and so on. With each new device, people become more connected to each other and are able to communicate in different ways. The telephone allows two people to hear each other across distances. The radio allows people to hear multiple types of media, from talk shows to music to presidential speeches from remote locations. With film, viewers can see and hear stories come to life. Wu mentions “the power of an open technology like radio broadcasting to inspire hope for mankind by creating a virtual community” (39). The first thing that springs to my mind when I think of a “virtual community” is the Internet, and YouTube in particular.
Through the Internet, we can share information and ideas with anyone else in the world who also has access to the Internet. This map, which shows the global connections via Facebook, illustrates just how connected the world is via the Internet:
This connectivity is extremely apparent on YouTube where an enormous community of video bloggers, or vloggers, has sprung up. Many people think of YouTube as just a site for video clips of adorable kittens and of people running into stop signs. However, there is so much user-generated content that goes unnoticed by the greater public. Audiences interact with vloggers through comments and making video responses. In addition to interaction between vloggers and their audiences, there is a great deal of interaction among vloggers. Most of the vloggers I watch are members of the same YouTube community, called Nerdfighteria. Nerdfighteria began when two brothers, John and Hank Green (the “vlogbrothers” on YouTube), began a vlogging project in which they would communicate without text for an entire year. They built up an audience around their vlogs and call themselves and their audience “nerdfighters” (because we fight for nerds and fight to decrease world suck, which is exactly what it sounds like). Here is one of John’s vlogs (which actually talks about community a bit):
Many of the vloggers of Nerdfighteria are friends through YouTube and through this community. The community has brought people together from around the globe, showing the connective power of the Internet and YouTube. One of the best examples of the YouTube community is the “collab channel.” A collab channel is a YouTube channel run by multiple people; typically, each person posts a video one day a week. For example, on the channel FiveAwesomeGirls each of five girls posts one video on a specific day of the week. Kristina posts on Mondays, Lauren on Tuesdays, Kayley on Wednesdays, and so on. The five girls do not live near each other and did not know each other personally before they began their collab channel, but have become close friends through the YouTube community.
Something I have noticed about video bloggers is that they tend to use similar techniques. For example, they usually use a lot of jump cuts, something that is frowned upon in movies. Why do vloggers use jump cuts? It could be because they simply can’t remember everything they have to say to do the vlog in one take, or it could be that it makes the video more visually interesting. After all, most vloggers are just talking to a camera, so they need to do something to hold their viewers’ attention. Furthermore, most popular vloggers use a lot of hand gestures. Again, this could be to make their videos more interesting or it could be to help get their points across. Here is a video from one of my favorite vloggers, Charlie McDonnell (“charlieissocoollike” on YouTube):
What do you notice about John and Charlie’s videos? Why are they interesting (or why aren’t they interesting)?
Wu mentions the “mix of both entrepreneurial and humanitarian motives” that “drives the opening up of a media” (36). YouTube is primarily humanitarian—vlogging is generally not an economically sound job (although you can earn money from running ads on your videos). Most vloggers make videos because they genuinely love doing so and have a message they want to share with the world.
There are so many different communities on the Internet—the YouTube community is just the one with which I am most familiar. Furthermore, the Internet is just the next step in connectivity. According to Wu, “what we call invention, while not easy, is simply what happens once a technology’s development reaches the point where the next step becomes available to many people” (19). Connectivity and communication will thus continue to increase as technology improves. There is an exceptional amount of global connectivity due to the Internet, but can we improve on it? What will be the next step? Can the world become even more connected than it currently is? Can we continue to build our global community?
As Genevive notes, “Going to certain places on the internet is a lot like joining a club: whereas in the real world, relationships are based largely on where people are and how well their personalities mesh, online relationships are more heavily based on common interests and activities.” This points to the fact that information technologies can form communities not actually based on direct communication, but through consumption. Unlike the telephone, and even early radio, Youtube is more like film in that communities form over shared consumption of vlogs and the like, not a dialogic meshing of personalities between blogger and audience. Of course, even dialogic-based information-technologies like the telephone or early radio require consumption. In any case, an understanding that consumption is required to communicate brings to focus to the neglected dark spots on the map: even “open” information technologies like YouTube are still closed to over two-thirds of the world’s population, if we are to believe http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
I get the impression that a lot of inventions come about from the phrase, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” New spheres of interaction are constantly popping up on the internet as people develop new technology or integrate old methods in new combinations. Remember when MySpace was a thing? It’s now been almost completely superseded by Facebook, and now seems to be used primarily by bands to spread their music. Vlogging is starting to overtake some areas of traditional blogging, and the spread of open source software and games shows the strong presence of independent developers and basement programmers. Like vloggers, most programmers who write open source codes will see little to no financial return for their time. They write the programs because they want to produce something cool or useful, be it a game or an in-browser notepad or a full-fledged application to mimic Microsoft Office. A lot of open-source material falls into various niche markets–for example, a program that allows you to create maps for RPGs–because the programmer sees an area that they feel is lacking or unsupported, usually in an area of their own interests, and they decide to fill in the gaps. Open source material is often buggy or in a constant beta phase, but the people who regularly download open source materials take that as a fair exchange for free programming and applications that do tasks that no other application does. Furthermore, communities begin to grow up around open source developers–people who come together on forums to discuss the pros and cons, to make suggestions, and sometimes to meet other people who share their interests. Going to certain places on the internet is a lot like joining a club: whereas in the real world, relationships are based largely on where people are and how well their personalities mesh, online relationships are more heavily based on common interests and activities. Communities online spring up around central themes, then grow from there, at least in my experience.
As I read this, I remembered how idealistic inventors of the radio and television had imagined it as a way of improving mankind as a whole through connectivity. What were the inventors of the webcam thinking? Did they foresee vlogging, videoconferencing, ChatRoullete?
It turns out, the world’s first webcam was made by a computer science department in 1991 so they could all monitor the state of the department coffeepot without getting up from their computers. When the feed went on the internet in 1993, it arguably became the world’s most famous coffeepot. In 1996, Jennifer Ringley of JenniCam documented her whole life via webcam (though not in video, but in pictures refreshing at set intervals).
It seems like the webcam never had an idealistic prospect for humanity- its original purpose inane and its growth egocentric. Have we stopped inventing communications technology “for the common good”?
Like Gretchen said, there are YouTube celebrities and YouTube one-hit-wonders. And both types create different types of communities. While the celebrities help perpetuate these online communities of viewers who share similar interests in what they’re watching, the one-hit-wonders give communities offline something to share.
Something may go viral overnight, and the next day we will most likely be talking about in class. A lot of our pop culture comes from the internet; specifically, YouTube videos that we share via facebook, email, or whatever form of social networking you choose. I think it’s interesting that even those of us that do not subscribe to channels or loyally watch vlogger’s posts, we still are connected to others by the shared experiences of watching YouTube videos.
Technology has really expanded our conception of what the word “community” entails. Previously, communities were based on the social relationships within a given geographic location; however, the advent and advancements of technology allows communities to extend beyond physical space. “Virtual communities,” like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, connect people through technological mediums, the implications of which are highly debated. These social networks promote the image of “connectedness” around the globe, like the picture Jessie provided; this image markets the powerful signification of drawing people from around the world closer together as a goal to which we should strive. However, many people criticize the lack of face-to-face interaction and the potential dangers of cyberbullying, sexting, and depression. Have we really improved communication? Or are these proclaimed hazards of virtual communication arising from an unjustified fear of change? Technology has fundamentally changed the landscape of communication and how we relate to one another. What are the benefits and consequences?
John and Charlie are two examples of YouTube celebrities. Unlike one-hit wonders like “Charlie Bit Me” or “David After Dentist,” YouTube celebrities release videos on a regular basis and gain thousands of views from loyal viewers (at the moment, John’s video has about 163,000 views and Charlie’s has about 1,639,000). Instead of banking on a video that is outrageous or bizarre enough to warrant viewers’ forwarding a link on to their friends and family, YouTube celebrities work to generate content that features a tried-and-true subject: themselves. These videos, commonly autobiographical, do feature different stories each time, but are often formulaic: “Hi guys, this is ____. Today I’m going to talk about ______.” Whereas “regular” YouTube videos need to showcase something strange and irregular, YouTube celebrities’ videos offer the constancy of a recognizable face and approach so that it is more like turning in to a favorite television program or talking to a best friend than watching YouTube.
On the Wu quote, very often YouTube celebrities attempt to become entrepreneurs by selling t-shirts or DVDs (the latter of which I cannot understand.) I’m not sure if people buy them, but to me it’s always seemed counterintuitive to YouTube’s by-the-people-for-the-people’s style of entertainment. Just like the original radio broadcasters in their garages, no one was expecting to get paid—just to get a few friend requests.