YouTube: Entertainment at its Finest

Seena reclaims his chair silently, as the class stares in disbelief at the paused video broadcast on the wall. Did that really just happen? No one knows for sure. Then a comment without a speaker echoes across the walls of Lowney’s MB 213, “is that what you do with your time, Seena?” He only chuckles, and we know, that he does in fact use his time to memorize every dance move and lyric to the ever-popular YouTube song, ‘What what, in the Butt.’
And so the debate rages: is YouTube a productive, useful site; or a meaningless, waste of time? The video sharing website allows for users to post their videos for any user to view online, and for viewers to interact, by leaving comments, subscribing to a user’s video posts, or rating videos. The site has met undeniable success in the world of modern technology and internet interaction. The videos YouTube showcases range from TV shows, to music videos, to home videos, to videobloggers, to newcasts, to shortlived home-filmed pornography, to young children yelling, to hilarious clips of famous SNL skits, and the content is, for the most part, depressingly, horrifically terrible. But what redeems the site is the ease for which it promotes searching, displaying, and finding desired videos, and the hilarious, helpful, and interesting nature of those one-in-a-million finds of young children filled with demonic glee as they scream “NINTENDO SIXTY FOOOOOOOURRR,” at the top of their lungs.
Its popularity is undisputed. YouTube was sold to Google in November or 2006 for $1.65 billion. Within a year of its launching, in July 2006, YouTube reported that it had over 100 million videos viewed daily on its website, and at least 2.5 billion views per a month. Though the company is no longer releasing usage or profit statistics regularly, there is no doubt their audience has grown, as they have expanded internationally, and their popularity has soared.
YouTube is a perfect outlet to display, criticize, and view other artist’s work, but also a place to relax and enjoy hilarious sketches. The ease with which the site provides video sharing capabilities is not only attractive for those wishing to share, but also makes audiences more inclined to view the millions, even billions, of videos posted on the website. Furthermore, YouTube provides a perfect cross section of American Society: from the crazies to the critics: they’re all there, and they’re all free. Clips of movies and TV shows can appeal to the numerous fans of various programs, while videobloggers and home video displayers portray a different, more personal, yet still widely varied view of American lifestyle. Comedy sketches capture American humor in all its forms: dry and subtle, loud and obnoxious, and everything in between. Serious or controversial videos provide a perfect nesting ground for heated debate over certain issues. For example, a erroneous call during the 2006 Kings Academy/SHP football game that led to a loss for the Gators was posted on YouTube, and the call was debated by the league as a result. Because YouTube provided an outlet for these events to be reproduced with any viewer with an internet connection capable of seeing the call for themselves, the call could be debated by the league officials, parents, students, and administration alike.
Aside from the quantity of the videos, and the variety they encompass, YouTube can be quite annoying and cumbersome with the many useless, and, for lack of a better word, dumb videos posted. However, these uninspired presentations can be easily avoided with a quick and easy search. The positive aspects of YouTube fully eclipse the negative, and with modern interaction so rooted in internet communication and file sharing, the site could not do what it does better. It is a perfect cross-section of American, computer-owning society, and a valuable resource for anyone from a bored teenager looking for a laugh in the ‘what what in the butt’ video, to an inspired fan looking to recap a show they missed on TV.