1. Anthropological Introduction to YouTube Name:
55:34 minutes Mike Wesch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU
Directions: You will be studying the culture of YouTube-
Plan to use the pause feature.
Type in answers to the questions AS YOU VIEW. Note form is quite acceptable.
What happened 60 years ago on TV ?
How much of YouTube content in new and original? (%)
Who is Gary Goldman and why was his video (2005) important?
When did YouTube allow everyone to start uploading?
Who are these NumaNuma people dancing in front of?
Web 2.0 is about linking people. How?
What do we need to rethink?
What is “Digg it?
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2. What is “User generated content” ?
User generated filtering?
People Tag on Del.icio.us. How?
What is User generated distribution, commentary?
Technorati…. What does this one do?
What is at the center of this “MediaScape”?
They study YouTube each spring in this graduate class. (!)
Who is on YouTube (highest percentage?)
What is on YouTube?
Most common?
List 2 examples of groups who join the remix of the “dance” in April 2007:
Loss of community…. Why do people address the YouTube community?
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3. How has community become disconnected over time (1 example)
Networked individualism: comment on this concept (what is it, your thoughts…)
Cultural inversion. More individual we become, the more we crave community. How
does YouTube fit in? (hint: What is participant Observation)
Talk on a web cam = invisible audience and it is asychronis. What does that mean?
Context Collapse is…. What?
Everyone is watching… and no one is there! (paradox!)
(Great place to study self and identity.)
What is the “looking glass self”?
New forms of self awareness. Comment:
Who is Marshall McCluen?
What does he say about “replay”?
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4. The anonymity of watchers. Lev Grossman is funny. One observation here:
What creates hatred?
Is it the same thing that creates a feeling of relaxation?
Aesthetic arrest (James Joyce’s term). What is this?
Cultural Tension, built on what.?
Connection = constraint
How to do this without tension? (YouTube!)
How does this sometimes allow us to connect more deeply than ever before..?
(Deep profound experience???)
YouTube Free Hugs. Have you seen this one?
What is Vlogging?
Did you see Avatar? How was vlogging used in that film?
Media class students need to try this. How would you start a weekly video blog?
Macs have a web cam. Generate ideas together to help get started.
YouTube Drama deal. What is this?
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5. YouTube Stars (Matt 2006) Early “stars” Not the emo kid from Ohio!?
Authenticity Crisis! Explain that:
LonelyGirl15… Fake? What happened?
Fake or not? Are we fake when we interact in person?
“You don’t know what is real and what isn’t real” Do we?
“Gaming the System” to get more views. How do Thumbnails affect views?
Seriously playful participatory culture. Name 2 examples:
Context Collapse again… Never know where a camera is going to be.
Pay attention to the Chevy Example. (make own commercial- remix what is being
thrown at us)
Re-mixing is illegal. Lawrence Lessg “Can’t kill… only what?”
Corrosive, Corruptive. A Democracy, we ought to be able to do better!
Mass Collobaration. Which hand sign did you like the most?
Anonymity is powerful, isn’t it?
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6. What is the professor reminded of?
Google this: Carl Sagen…. Pale blue dot Connects to “Little Glass Dot” Poem.
Bnessel1973
Jot some notes down here about what you found:
Using these notes, participate in an electronic discussion. Each student needs to open a
thread (new post). Ask a question.
What did you think about……
Have you ever wondered about……
Why do people……
(based on your notes… fill in the blank or come up with your own!
Each student needs to respond to every other thread at least once. Some of these should
“take off”. See which threads catch.
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