YOUTUBE social usage: intimate video blogs
Introduce myself to explain why I was interested by this aspect of Youtube: I am
interested in social documentary and anthropology therefore I am interested in people
and how they interact each other in their society and with their environment.
Since last year I have been engaged with several projects based on Youtube
videos, both theoretical and practical work for univesity and I have found a social use
to Youtube that caugth my attention.
During my research I found that what are called “videoblogs”, are a really
intersting social tool
VIDEOBLOGS:
A lot of the uploaded videos consist on one person speaking directly to the
camera just sharing their thaughts and feelings.
They are intimate monologues of people speaking about their experiences in
life and speaking about everything.
Some of them have a very deep content and act as a window to the world for
some people, allowing them to :
. open and sincere themselves, speaking to the world and
. a way of socialising and be connected with other people.
I think is really interesting how people open their heart to total strangers in the net,
perhaps more that with the real people.
One of the projects I am currently working in, the “Are You Happy?” project by
Mandy Rose, is a very good example of what I mean. People will send to the net
intimate thaughts, opinions and will open themselves speaking about a very intimate
question: if they are happy or not, and why.
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I was looking in the Internet for some examples of these videoblogs:
The ORIGIN:
- The archi famous Lonely Girl 15 (that finally was a fiction, is an example of these
intimate online monologues “videoblogs” and inspired thousands of them, creating a
kind of stream)
.first chapter 16/06/06 until 01/08/07.
. She was a teenager from a very religious family in United States, educated at home
by her strict parents.
. The blog was a “secret” to her very religious parents.
. She spoke about her daily life, love, family, her relashionships with the people that
surrounded her…and she had correspondence with her fans.
. In 12/09/06 she reveled it was a fiction
. Then it became a serie with different seasons about several characters, with action
secuences and an organization called “The Order” that pursue her and her friends. It
became EQAL under the working title The Children of Anchor Cove, the show gained
worldwide media attention when it was outed as fictional. Eqal was Los Angeles-based
independent studio behind the cult video series Lonelygirl15.
.Lonelygirl15 was the first Internet series to introduce product integration when the
episode "Truckstop Reunion" featured the characters eating and displaying Hershey's
Icebreaker's Sours Gum.
. The series had more than 110 million combined views and in 2008 the Boston’s Spark
Capital was the main investor in a $5 million funding round for Eqal, the studio
behind Lonelygirl15.
-VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll9xv69oX0s&feature=channel
Anyway, despite being a fiction this create a stream of real videobloggers that
shared their world with the audience, so I think is an important example to show
you.
I watched some interesting ones too like:
- Renetto (43161 suscribers)
. Paul Robinett :Middle aged man of Ohio, U.U.E.E.
. he started in mid 2006 until today
http://www.youtube.com/user/renetto
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http://www.youtube.com/user/renetto#p/u/1/nKyo_qc57-I http://www.youtube.com/
user/renetto#p/u/10/--_XM7fbXf0
-Miss Jackie (now not in Youtube, but in her website),
. 30 years old woman from Philadelphia
. started in 2007 until now
- Geriatric1929 was the most interesting one for me:
. He is called Peter, almost 80 years old, from England.
. He decided to record himself speaking about his memories, his daily life, his
experiences in the World Wide war II, and his thaughts.
. started in August 2006 until today
. By mid 2006 was the most subscribed user on YouTube. Nowadays he has 51607
suscribers.
. Now he has his own website and continues uploading videos to Youtube and his
website.
http://www.askgeriatric.com/
. He wanted to interact with the audience and he did, he asked questions to the audience,
he answered questions, he commented the interviews he had had for example in the
radio….
“ I still think that internet is a platform where I can be useful to demonstrate that
the elderly have a role in society and possibly influence a better understanding
between the generations. Which of course is the reason that I am involved in
other work behind the scene.”
Peter
Summary of his journey as a video blogger:
-“firsttry”(firstvideo):02:00 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_YmigZmUuk
-“Telling it all part 1” just 01:50 (thanks)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ6B2qOFp7Y&feature=channel
-his memories:1:40 (war) http://www.youtube.com/user/geriatric1927?blend=2&ob=4
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-advice and claims. 1:16 http://www.askgeriatric.com/new/
He has videos with his grandson, cooking, but overall speaking directly to the camera,
as having a conversation with a group of friends, in a relaxed and open actitude. He
even said a lot of time how much he appreciate his audience and treat them with
affection.
In my opinion, this is a very interesting aspect of youtube, since shows how new
technologies, used in certain ways can contribute to improve our life quality,
Encouraging socialization and interaction with others,
Not being an isolation tool but allowing the people to communicate, share and be
listened.
After watching all these examples I got the conclussion that this “confesionary” could
be a good “therapy” to people to speak, the ones who need to be listened, and to listen,
the ones who need advice, or just any company, in order to not feel alone and fight
against lonelliness, a big issue in our individualist society.
The only negative point is that we shouldn´t let this videoblogs substitute the real
social life. It should complement it, not replace it.
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