YouTube Holds First Annual Music Awards Mainstream Vs Homegrown (Video)
Following hot on the heels of Google’s recent reveal that YouTube will start competing in the world of digital music, the media site has announced their first annual music awards event. The ceremony will take place on November 3 in a contest of mainstream music vs “homegrown” local, and not so local, internet artists. The video at the end of the article talks about the upcoming event.
So I get up this morning and as usual I start skimming the web. I am looking for news that I find interesting, funny, exciting, irritating or just strange. This morning I found a wealth of headlines that made my eyebrows shoot up towards my almost non-existent hairline.
Entire firework display explodes – this was a video that fit the bill of funny and irritating. Of course I would find it funny, I didn’t fight crowds of people to see it live. Nor did I have to pay for parking and then have to fight to get back to my car when the fifteen second display finished. But for the folks who attended, I think maybe irritated would be the order of the day, or in this case night. I wonder if San Diego will try to make it up to the citizens, legal and illegal, who attended the show.
Imogen Thomas shows cleavage – I don’t know who Imogen is, but, I am pleased for her I guess. This one falls straight into the irritating category. If I hadn’t seen the other “headlines” I would have thought it was a slow news day.
Man dies as road swallows car – this one is brilliant. The mental picture you get while reading this one is funny. I got an image of a road sprouting a mouth, opening wide and working it’s muscles literally swallowing the car. The reality, while nowhere near as graphic or fantasy filled, is just as strange. Two people driving in China and the road literally opens up into a five metre hole “that about thirty some odd feet for you non-metric folks out there). Funny with a touch of sad, since one of the unfortunate motorist died.
Pencil Pierces Brain of Two-Year-Old Girl – Pretty self explanatory this one. A toddler on her way to bed falls and almost gives herself a DIY Lobotomy. Luckily for her it did not result in a more fatal injury. Strange and a little interesting. It kind of feels like a ‘human interest’ story in shorthand.
Base jumper survives 120m fall – Another ‘it does what it says on the label’ type story. Guy’s jump goes wrong and he free falls 393 feet and survives. Luckily he landed in snow, so he only fractured about every bone in his body. But…he lived. Another strange and interesting one.
Okay, so admittedly, these ‘headlines’ were all about the video news. These items were all produced by ITN (aka ITV 3) and they were picked presumably because of their diverse nature. Well they certainly caught my eye.
They funny thing is, all these stories made me think of the video equivalent of The National Enquirer. The “newspaper” that used the tagline, “Because inquiring minds want to know,” has been a supermarket favourite for years. *About fifty in fact.*
A lot of people, mainly celebrities, despise the Enquirer. I’ve always found it quirky and downright weird. With is old ‘yellow journalistic’ style of writing I’ve always been drawn to it if for no other reason than to give it a quick scan while waiting in the check-out queue.
The Enquirer used to boast great eye-catching headlines like: Toddler eaten by rats while horrified mother watches, Elvis is alive and living in the back of my car, and Freakish sea monster eats entire ship. I mean just the headlines alone, made for great imaginative skim reading.
While those video ‘headlines’ I saw this morning don;t quite match the tasteless ingenuity of The National Enquirer they are, at least, the spiritual blood-brother of the paper. It is nice to see that with all the horrible, scary and depressing news that we are usually bombarded with someone has made time for the weird and the wonderful.
I eventually started uploading videos to my first channel because I like to talk about films. My daughter kind of nagged me into it. I also game so some of the YouTube gaming community sort of adopted my little channel. I started the second channel because my daughter and I have pretty much the same taste in films(with the obvious exception of Moulin Rouge, which I cannot stand). I say little channel because that is what it is and will always remain so. Why?
Well, as much as I enjoy doing my vids I don’t have the patience to keep editing and re-editing the videos because of the crappy capability of the Windows Move Maker software for one. Secondly I am a little long in the tooth to become wildly popular and thirdly I don’t feel I bring too much to the table. Like I said, I talk about films I like. I am not the next Ebert or Siskel.
Don’t get me wrong, I love doing my videos for my little channels. I get excited every time I get a new subscriber and another video view. I also shake my head and wonder who on earth enjoys my ramblings?
But I do love YouTube, even with all the irritating things it does (especially now that Google has control of it). I am always amazed at the amount of views that my daughter gets on her channel and the amount of subscribers. I’m not saying that she doesn’t earn these, she does, but I look at other channels and I scratch my head (metaphorically scratch my metaphorical head) There are a load of channels out there that have millions of views and millions of subscribers. I sub and watch them as well. But looking at those numbers I always think the same thing. Where do all these folks come from and why do they sub who they do.
The answer is obvious of course. The channels that get that kind of response are good (for the most part) although there are some that I am still mystified as to why they are so big. But we’ll forget about those, I just want to talk about some of the good ones.
The Community Channel, RayWilliamJohnson, Nigahiga, KevJumba, ShaneDawson; well the list can go on and on These talented folks work hard for their views and “subs” and it shows. My daughters channel, Kawaiiprincess01 is growing steadily(also quickly, I might add) and she works hard on her channel as well. But the whole thing has an unrealistic feel to it. I still look at her channel and the amount of subs and views she gets and always say the same thing. You’ve got how many?
I wrote in a previous blog that I felt that YouTube was turning into the new television. I still believe that to a degree, but I think it is in danger of getting boycotted by a lot of folks who just aren’t very happy with how Google is dicking around with the ‘Tube. They always say, “Don’t mess with success, If it ain’t broke don’t fix it…” You see where I’m heading with this, don’t you? Google wants to make money off their purchase (take-over) of YouTube, but they are screwing around with the subscriber counts and view counts on channels. It has now gotten to the point where I look at YouTube channels I am subbed to and think. “You’ve lost how many??
Still I am sure that once Google stop dicking everyone about, the growing pains and transition period will calm down and things will get back to normal. Until then I think I am going to have to do more vids so my “inactive” channel doesn’t get closed.
I eventually started uploading videos to my first channel because I like to talk about films. My daughter kind of nagged me into it. I also game so some of the YouTube gaming community sort of adopted my little channel. I started the second channel because my daughter and I have pretty much the same taste in films(with the obvious exception of Moulin Rouge, which I cannot stand). I say little channel because that is what it is and will always remain so. Why?
Well, as much as I enjoy doing my vids I don’t have the patience to keep editing and re-editing the videos because of the crappy capability of the Windows Move Maker software for one. Secondly I am a little long in the tooth to become wildly popular and thirdly I don’t feel I bring too much to the table. Like I said, I talk about films I like. I am not the next Ebert or Siskel.
Don’t get me wrong, I love doing my videos for my little channels. I get excited every time I get a new subscriber and another video view. I also shake my head and wonder who on earth enjoys my ramblings?
But I do love YouTube, even with all the irritating things it does (especially now that Google has control of it). I am always amazed at the amount of views that my daughter gets on her channel and the amount of subscribers. I’m not saying that she doesn’t earn these, she does, but I look at other channels and I scratch my head (metaphorically scratch my metaphorical head) There are a load of channels out there that have millions of views and millions of subscribers. I sub and watch them as well. But looking at those numbers I always think the same thing. Where do all these folks come from and why do they sub who they do.
The answer is obvious of course. The channels that get that kind of response are good (for the most part) although there are some that I am still mystified as to why they are so big. But we’ll forget about those, I just want to talk about some of the good ones.
The Community Channel, RayWilliamJohnson, Nigahiga, KevJumba, ShaneDawson; well the list can go on and on These talented folks work hard for their views and “subs” and it shows. My daughters channel, Kawaiiprincess01 is growing steadily(also quickly, I might add) and she works hard on her channel as well. But the whole thing has an unrealistic feel to it. I still look at her channel and the amount of subs and views she gets and always say the same thing. You’ve got how many?
I wrote in a previous blog that I felt that YouTube was turning into the new television. I still believe that to a degree, but I think it is in danger of getting boycotted by a lot of folks who just aren’t very happy with how Google is dicking around with the ‘Tube. They always say, “Don’t mess with success, If it ain’t broke don’t fix it…” You see where I’m heading with this, don’t you? Google wants to make money off their purchase (take-over) of YouTube, but they are screwing around with the subscriber counts and view counts on channels. It has now gotten to the point where I look at YouTube channels I am subbed to and think. “You’ve lost how many??
Still I am sure that once Google stop dicking everyone about, the growing pains and transition period will calm down and things will get back to normal. Until then I think I am going to have to do more vids so my “inactive” channel doesn’t get closed.
There may be some folks out there who have never heard of or even experienced YouTube. But the basic principle is this. Anyone who has access to a video camera and a computer – or a combination of both – can make videos and post them on the web via their channel on YouTube .
This can and does lead to an astronomical amount of videos featuring cute pets, babies, and toddlers. These type of videos tend to go viral. *viral basically means that HUGE amounts of people click on the video to watch it* The other type of video that usually heads into viral territory are the funny ones. You know someone falls, trips, screws up…well you get the idea, I am sure.
What fascinates me are the different kinds of videos available. Make-up channels, alone, with their self-styled guru’s must run into the thousands. Movie review channels, Game review channels, in fact just about any subject you can think of crop up as multiple channels. Comedy is very popular. Guys like raywilliamjohnson, kevjumba and nigahiga all use comedy as their channels format. All channels have subscriber counts that range from none to the millions. The highly popular channels (the ones with the most subscribers) propel their presenters into “celebrity” status.
But the principle of YouTube is the same for everybody. You film your stuff and people watch it, hopefully, and then subscribe to your channel. A lot of channels on YouTube seem to be trying to get partnered. Getting partnered, I understand, is a lot like getting into heaven; lots of folks want it but only a few get it.
The popular channels result in the presenter getting partnered. These partners then get money from advertisers (like television) and grants from YouTube. Not to mention freebies from companies who want the presenters to feature their products on their channel (like television again).
A channel’s popularity is judged by the amount of views each video gets and the amount of subscribers the channel has. Also each video has a “thumbs-up or down” to show how many folks actually liked or disliked the video. There is a comment box for viewers to say what they think about the video. This can result in trolling. Trolls are disagreeable folks who put nasty, mean, or just plain rude comments on channels. They will also give all videos they watch a thumbs-down.
Unfortunately because anyone can use YouTube it also has it’s fair share of strange, nonsensical, garbled, and offensive videos. These videos are the ones where the channel presenter cannot talk without swearing every other word or shouts so loudly you cannot really understand what they are saying. Of course mumbling or talking in an incoherent fashion also fall into this category. There do seem to be more of these channels than the really good ones.
That is where the problem of communication or the lack of it comes into play. If the presenters can’t communicate the point they are trying to make it becomes a waste of time to watch. Of course for a lot of presenters, practise does make perfect. But these channels generally never reach the dizzy heights of nigahiga or raywilliamjohnson.
Some of the popular presenters go on to do other projects. Projects that became open to them because of their status as a YouTube celebrity. It also leaves presenters open to that dual edged sword of fan/subscriber identification. Because the subscriber sees the presenter on a regular basis and in a more intimate setting than they would on the ‘box,’ they feel like they know them personally. Again a lot like television, where soap opera stars are accosted on the street because the public feel like they know them personally.
I implied that YouTube is becoming the new television in my title. I think to an extent it already is. With copyright issues becoming more prevalent and intrusive and lawmakers trying to control what we, the public can watch or post on the internet; I fear that soon, just like television, YouTube will be so controlled that we will no longer have a choice of channels we want to watch.
Just like television, YouTube will be controlled by governments and sponsors and we will have to watch what they deem fit.
You must be logged in to post a comment.