Embedded Files
Page constructed by Jamie Hemenger
About YouTube
YouTube is a free-to-use social media platform with the built-in capability to social network out to those you share common interests with. In addition to social networking, you are able to market or advertise on the website.
YouTube was founded in 2004 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim with hopes of being a place where people can share and post videos (Soukup, 2014, pg 3).
Within just a year the website was booming and caught the eye of Google -- who purchased the website (Soukup, 2014, pg 3).
(Flickr)
Just by simply typing in the search bar what you want to see, you are connected with a plethora of other people with similar interests.
Can't remember how to solve a math problem?
There are plenty of walkthroughs to help you relearn the concept!
Have you always wanted to take up a new hobby, like crocheting or knitting, but have no idea where to start?
There are thousands of tutorials at your fingertips!
Just looking for some mindless entertainment?
YouTube still has you covered! From gaming to commentary to skit videos, there's plenty of entertainment readily available for you.
Social Networking
YouTube is unique in the fact that users are able to use the platform to create and generate user-generated content. YouTube makes it simple for anyone who wants to join the platform -- with an easy-to-use format it is incredibly simple for anyone to post to their channel and share it with the whole world instantaneously.
The lack of reputation mechanisms and formal moderation has allowed YouTube to become a social interaction empire that is self-regulatory (Susarla, 2012, pg 23). The demographic nature of the website also plays a hand in this.
(Ito, 2007)
YouTube Founder Sees Social Future for Video
YouTube Founder Sees Social Future for Video
Click on the photo to check out this article written for Wired magazine by Ryan Tate that discusses how YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley sees a future in using video distribution websites becoming more like other social networks.
Social networking has two key components...
information being provided that aids in discovery and product search
impacting potential experience by spreading social influence
(Susarla, 2012, pg 24)
YouTube is essentially allowing content creators to create a community that surrounds their likes. Because of this, creators are given opportunities to reach beyond YouTube and have the opportunity to grow their platform on other forms of media (as communities generally like to keep up to date with what their favorite creators are doing).
Check out these creators below who started on YouTube and branched their content out to different forms of media!
(Distractible, 2023)
Distractible Podcast
Mark, Wade, and Bob decided to branch out beyond their YouTube roots and created this podcast for their fans.
Click on the photo to check it out!
Adam Ruins Everything
Starting out as a comedy series on YouTube, this idea was picked up by truTV and was made into a television series.
Click on the video to check it out!
Pop Culture - Memes
Pop Culture
When taking into consideration the general user of YouTube (not a company), videos that are being produced are not inherently made to be messages or advertising. Rather, they are mediating mechanisms that are retained in social networks -- the originating place for our cultural practices (Burgess, 2008, pg 2).
In other words, the content from these videos is what makes up our culture, and how we act and behave. Certain videos, if popular enough will truly become a part of pop culture... turning into memes.
The Meme
A meme is a viral form of content, that is viewed by a large number of people due to the talk of the content by word-of-mouth (Burgess, 2008, pg 1). Much of the content on YouTube (especially in the beginning) had become a meme. Videos would go viral by people watching and sharing it with their friends.
Some examples you may remember...
Currently sitting at over 203.7 million views
Currently sitting at over 70 million views
Both videos were shared repeatedly and were spread by word-of-mouth, with people talking about the viral memes.
(Dewey, 2015)
YouTube at 10: How an online video site ate the pop culture machine
Caitlyn Dewey wrote an article for The Washington Post about how YouTube became the pop culture machine it is today.
Click on the image to read the article!
Click bait -- what a waste of my time!
With the constant need for instant gratification, we are using online social media forms such as YouTube to consume video content rather than cable. YouTube garners nearly one-third of the Internet population a day – with billions of views each day to the platform (Shang, 2019). However with the spread of clickbait – it has become difficult to know what kind of content you will actually be watching.
More often than not, when someone clicks on a clickbait video, they feel as though their time has been wasted.
Despite this being a very common issue among multiple sites (including YouTube), there are few solutions to clickbait besides learning how to recognize it.
(Schrader, 2016)
Click bait has been defined to be exaggerated titles or headlines that have the main motive of misleading the audience to click on them (Shang, 2019).
In the case of YouTube… click bait is when the title, description and photo vary from what is actually presented in the video, it is done to generate more clicks with the hopes of more views on the video.
(Shang, 2019)
What's the difference?
(A) is clickbait as it will not deliver the content the viewer expects to see.
(B) is not clickbait as it will provide you with content you expect to see.
Click the image above to read research done by Shang et al to learn more about clickbait, and how you can avoid being fooled into clicking on these misleading videos.
Click on the down arrows to expand the text box so you can see information about the author and references.
About the Author
About the Author
My name is Jamie Hemenger and I am dual majoring in Psychology and Communication Studies. I am currently a senior at SUNY Fredonia and will be graduating in Spring of 2024.
I grew up using YouTube -- not as a creator, but a user or consumer of the content created. I love how versatile the content is on the website -- from tutorials, to informational videos, to music videos, or even just for entertainment. If I can not figure out how to do something, I find myself looking up a tutorial on YouTube. I loved being able to show on this class Wiki what a milestone YouTube was for our society, the ability to have fun creative content or tutorial base content at our fingertips will help us not only succeed at what we know how to do, but help us learn something new along the way.
The most interesting thing I learned what makes social media websites social networking sites. Though I had already learned it in class, seeing the true application to a site such as YouTube really solidified the concept for me.
References: Sources
References: Sources
Adam Ruins Everything (2017, July 26) The Real Reason Hospitals Are So Expensive. truTV (Television Clip) https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=CeDOQpfaUc8
Burgess, J (2008). 'All Your Chocolate Rain Are Belong to Us?' Viral Video, YouTube and the Dynamics of Participaroty Culture. QUT Digital Repository. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/10886518.pdf
Dewey, C (2015, February 15) YouTube at 10: How an online video site ate the pop culture machine. The Washington Post. (Newspaper)
Fischbach, M. et al (2023) Distractible. Wood Elf Media. (Podcast) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/distractible/id1567659047
Keyboard Cat! (2007, June 7) Charlie Schmidt's Keyboard Cat! - THE ORIGINAL! YouTube. (Internet)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J---aiyznGQ
Nyan Cat (2022, April 5) Nyan Cat [original]. YouTube. (Internet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4
Shang, L et al (2019, July 12) Towards Reliable Online Clickbait Video Detection: A Content-Agnostic Approach. Elsevier. (Research/Internet) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950705119303260?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=78aa4612dfad3320
Soukup, P (2014) Looking at, with, and through YouTube. Communication Research Trends, Volume 33. (Research) https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&=&context=comm&=&sei- redir=1&referer=https%253A%252F%252Fscholar.google.com%252Fscholar%253Fhl%253Den%2526as_sdt%253D0%25252C33%2526 q%253Dhistory%252Bof%252Byoutube%2526btnG%253D#search=%22history%20youtube%22
Susarla, A. et al. (2012) Social Networks and the Diffusion of User-Generated Content: Evidence from YouTube. UT Dallas, Eugene McDermott Library. (Research) https://utd-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/10735.1/3218/SOM-SR-JHOh-310708.7.pdf?sequence=1
Tate, R. (2013, March 11) YouTube Founder Sees Social Future for Video. Wired. (Magazine) https://www.wired.com/2013/03/youtube-founder-goes- social/
References: Visuals
References: Visuals
Dewey, C (2015, February 15) YouTube at 10: How an online video site ate the pop culture machine. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/02/15/youtube-at-10-how-an-online-video-site-ate-the-pop-culture- machine/
Fischbach, M. et al (2023) Distractible. Wood Elf Media. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/distractible/id1567659047
Freepik. Realistic multimedia player template. Freepik https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/realistic-multimedia-player- template_4264535.htm?query=youtube#from_view=detail_alsolike
Ijeab. Content service internet online editorial connection. Freepik. (Title header) https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/content-service- internet-online-editorial-connection_1235345.htm#query=youtube&position=42&from_view=search&track=sph
Natanaelginting. Pile of 3d play button logos. Freepik. (Headers) https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/pile-3d-play-button- logos_1191373.htm#query=youtube&position=6&from_view=search&track=sph
Schrader, J. (2016, December 8) Clickbait. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/145619152@N04/30673019884/in/photolist-NJtfbq- 2k4zDdy-2iydtyi-Pif2zA-288jZKU-28vuwHJ-Pbw3oE-2mymVDo-2geNNA8-2anzQ3Q-2mAK1FK-QhBTCG-Sn1QbW-2ksWqZn-2n1yWvF- 2cPYfFt-WbmN2x-RHfwHx-UU47X7-2o31kZY-26LsbRd-2kTKPRt-2mW8wyX-2nnb5Hk-CU8Sme-2nWC3tS-2bobXaK-2inXfay-2j5KNKb- 2dVw9AK-qoXx8F-S46yWB-UPJJXq-PDMgcn-26KZNK8-2c5ro7J-2mcTxAc-25eKLRz-ZzzpyN-2botJAn-2bQipKp-YmUP9m- 2gisFfM- 2jfqwy1-ZjSRAa-LCAvWm-2nrok7A-2birYCW-2mPwmxC-2eJ1dSz
Shang, L et al (2019, July 12) Towards Reliable Online Clickbait Video Detection: A Content-Agnostic Approach. Elsevier. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950705119303260?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=78aa4612dfad3320
Page updated
Report abuse