Hi! My name is Corey,
and if you're watching this video right now
there is a really good chance
you've heard of a website called:
YouTube.
YouTube was started in February of 2005
and one of the reasons it did so well so fast
was because it allowed anyone to upload an
unlimited number of videos and
watch as many videos as they wanted for free.
As YouTube has grown, all of the features
they've added to the website have also been free.
And as I think about the many changes
they've made to YouTube over the years -
some good and some not so good -
it does become obvious that there's one thing
at the forefront of everybody's YouTube experience:
interactions.
Your interactions are everything you do
aside from actually watching a video.
Rating videos, leaving comments,
subscribing, making playlists -
these are all things you do to YouTube
that changes YouTube to fit you.
I guess that's why they call it
YouTube.
But I find the word 'interaction' starts
to lose its meaning after a while.
It's this new buzzword that's trying to
force you to join every single social media site
and connect all of your profiles to everything else
so everything you do is connected.
So you can't browse, or breath, or eat, or sleep
without sharing absolutely everything
you do with everyone.
I think that something that much more accurately
describes my relationship with the website
I'm using and the videos I'm watching
is not 'interactions.'
They're connections.
You see, 'cuz when I watch a video on YouTube
it's not a lean-back experience
the way television and movies are.
YouTube is a much more lean-forward experience
where I'm not just watching a video,
I'm reading the comments and
I'm clicking on the annotations
and I'm looking at the related videos
and seeing what other people have to say.
And by me connecting to YouTube,
to the videos I watch and the people that make them,
I am engaging in a type of connection that
was never possible before the internet.
You see, because YouTube is a new form of media
and it gets quickly defined that way
when people compare it to television and film and radio.
Oh, YouTube is the new t.v.!
And there's this big comparison between
new media and traditional media,
as if YouTube is going to somehow replace television.
Well, guess what?
For hundreds of years, the theatre
was the primary form of produced entertainment.
Then in August of 1877
Thomas Edison completed his first phonograph,
a new invention that would allow the recording
of audio for the first time in human history.
But what seems like such an incredible
progression of human invention
was not met as warmly as you might expect.
You see, up until this point in time,
every musician that ever performed ever
had to do so live.
There was no such thing as recording audio.
So to have a musician be able to be recorded
and then play that back without
the musician being needed
felt like piracy.
And believe it or not, a lot of people
thought, "This is the end of live music."
And again with the invention of the motion picture,
the ability to film something and then
play that something back,
meant of course, theatre is dead!
And then when television came out,
people were able to take the theatrical experience
and put it in their homes.
So of course then, movies are dead!
Time has proven to us that theatre,
radio, television, and film haven't gone anywhere.
So even in a world where YouTube might
become your or I's primary form of media
I don't think it's fair to say that
older forms of media are dead.
YouTube is just a new form of media,
one of our favourite kinds of media.
But when we look back at the interaction that
we were talking about earlier,
you realize that the video portion of YouTube
is only one small part of the site.
You see, because while YouTube is a
form of media, it's also something bigger than that.
YouTube is a form of communication.
Now don't get me wrong, television
and film are a form of communication too.
However,
for the past hundred years
most forms of produced media were being
done so in a top down structure.
That means that the studios and the networks
and record labels produced the content
and then you chose what content you wanted to consume.
If you didn't like this show,
maybe you'll like this show.
And you don't like this movie,
maybe you'll like this movie.
But either way,
we didn't have much say in the creation
of the content.
We just sat back, consumed
and handed over our money.
But now
things are different.
It is not top down anymore,
it is bottom up.
We are living in a time
where anyone who has access to a camera
and an internet connection
can put something online and have it
seen by the entire world.
For the first time in human history
the playing field is equal.
And what are we doing with this oppurtunity?
We are creating, and we are communicating.
We are investing our time in entertainment,
in filmmaking, in vlogging, in pets,
in gaming and teaching,
but most importantly
we are investing our time in each other.
And these connections and these communications
and these investments
are the best thing
that has ever happened to me.
YouTube isn't a website that I visit,
it's a community where I live.
Thank you guys for watching.
Click the thumbnail on the left
to see more of my videos
or the thumbnail on the right
to be taken to a different channel
where I post daily vlogs.
You guys are awesome.
I'll see you again soon.
Bye.