I have always wanted to write about YouTube. But I never had enough knowledge or interesting hypothesis about it. My best and worst attempt was during a new media course I was taking. I thought I found something to work on that could reveal some motivations about familiarity, sharing, and algorithm-driven consumption. It was about reaction videos. A man from Europe who was living in Asia was listening to rap music videos from the middle east and Asia, many from Turkey, that’s how I encountered his channel since I was listening to rap on YouTube. He was mostly extremely positive and in a praise-mode about all the music he was listening to. At that time, it was not something new, but was a bit niche for the platform. Now there are thousands of reaction video content creators in several different applications. I enjoyed watching his videos, but I was also surprised by the enthusiasm of the people who commented on them. The comments were permeated by nationalism, excitement, and sarcasm. After reading stuff about YouTube, I couldn’t find a way to structure my interest, then I failed the course. Maybe I should have done a vlog about it.
So, I’ll try to write some half-ass ideas about YouTube in this blog. One of the reasons is that I’m often trying or avoiding talking about YouTube videos with my friends who are not interested, and I feel I’m bothering them and stealing their time with this. Here I wouldn’t steal anyone’s time and detoxicate myself freely. For inspiration, I’ll read Raymond Williams’ book on TV. That’s enough as an intro, but there’s also a walker YouTuber that I want to share as a start. Is he Patrick Keiller of YouTube? I encountered him thanks to his walks through The Rings of Saturn.
