The Era of the Vlogger

In this past week's readings, we read an article about the entrepreneurial Vlogger by Jean Burgess and Joshua Green. In this article, they talk about YouTube and how the vlogger, or video-blogger, has shaped the YouTube community. According to the article, "vlogs make up almost half of the top thirty Most Subscribed channels on YouTube." To the people who don't quite understand what a vlogger does, basically they create videos that are "typically structured primarily around a monologue delivered directly to the camera, vlogs are characteristically produced with little more than a webcam and some witty editing." So how can someone doing something so simplistic become some of the most popular people on YouTube and even the whole Internet? Unlike videos uploaded by big networks or other professional companies and people, vloggers are a lot more direct and personal with their viewers. Like the article says, "More than any other form in the sample, the vlog as a genre of communication invites critique, debate and discussion. Direct response, through comment and via video, is central to this mode of discussion." Vloggers are able to be entrepreneurial because they put out their content and stay very active within the community.

When I think of vloggers, one big name comes to mind: the British twenty-some year old vlogger, Charlie McDonnell. This article talks about how "Charlie McDonnell has become an international star with his web channel charlieissocoollike by becoming the first British person to generate a million regular viewers on YouTube." I started watching his videos back in 2010 and he fully deserves the views and fans. The beautiful thing about a successive vlogger is that it is their own content and work that has gotten them to where they are in life. Charlie has worked on multiple collaborative projects with other people like producing three albums, two of which are with some of his friends about Doctor Who and all three can be found on iTunes, but he creates all of his videos. No one else is scripting what he says or does. It's purely him talking to a camera in his room or wherever he may be. Just like in Burgess and Green's article, Charlie McDonnell is also very keen on being direct and personal in his videos. He says, “When people watch YouTube videos, they're usually just one person sitting in front of their computer, and so with that in mind, I try to make my videos more personal, like I'm speaking to one person rather than a big audience." Charlie has not only succeeded as far as a fan base goes, he's also made money from YouTube. Often a viewer will hear him say how making videos is his job and he doesn't need to work anywhere else. Because of his earnings, he has been able to skip university and start his media career in London where he also purchased his first house all paid for from the money made from YouTube.

Charlie McDonnell has been a huge inspiration to me as I have started up my own vlogs. He was just a normal teenager and now he's a celebrity and making money by doing what he loves. Going back to the first article, it says "that amateur and entrepreneurial uses of YouTube are not separate, but coexisting and coevolving." This is completely true. People often start on YouTube as amateurs, but as they improve and their viewership increases, they become more involved with the community. If they're lucky enough, they may even get paid for the videos they produce and many vloggers from that point create better content and sometimes like to give back to their viewers. They appreciate your subscribers and often ask for requests and ideas to please the audience. Vloggers run the YouTube community for a very good reason. They have imagination that only they can have and we live in a time where original content is preferred. So many times TV shows and movies are knock-offs or remakes, but vlogs are full of completely original works.

"I Live on the Net."

One section of last week's reading of Fred Turner's From Counterculture to Cyberculture talked about how we live on the Internet. Our generation of people are getting busier and we are all over the place. Some people are constantly moving from place to place never really having a solid address. Esther Dyson's quote, "I live on the Net," is so true. Like many of us today, "It's the medium I use to communicate with many of my friends and colleagues." The Internet has become the one place where people can be contacted no matter where they are.

I myself connect with this statement. For one thing, I'm in college now. I no longer live at home. My address is no longer what it was three weeks ago. Now it's something new. And it will be my address for a time, but then break will roll around and I'll once again be back home and my address will change once more. And this process will repeat over the course of 4 years. And then the rest of my life will begin and my place of residence will change yet again. It would be quite difficult to give someone a long term address to use to send me mail. However, through all that time, there is one place that you will always be able to find me: the Internet. My email will not change. My usernames on social networks will not change. I will still be very much alive on the Internet. I will still be checking messages and emails coming in. For another thing, I've built up a large group of Internet friends and they've become a large part of my life over the last couple years. The problem is, they live all over the world. They all have different addresses. And every now and then they move. There's no way I could keep track of them all when I wanted to contact them. But I can rely on Twitter and Facebook to send mass messages to all of them if need be instead of writing individual letters to each one and I can connect with them and Skype and have real face to face chats even though they may live across the country. We live on the Internet. That's where we can find each other. And on occasion we may even meet in person, but for the rest of the time, that's how this generation can keep in touch.

John Perry Barlow sums it up perfectly. He says, "I live at Barlow@eff.org. That's where I live. That is my home. If you want to find me, that's the only place you're liable to be able to do it...there really is no way to track me." So often these days we're on the run, always going to different places getting involved in different things. "Home" tends to move around now and then and you can't always rely on a street address to find someone. But if you have an email address or someone's account on a social network such as Facebook, you have a much greater chance of getting a hold of them. Society is raising us to constantly check our emails, and send text messages to our friends. We have to keep up with the times if we want to keep in touch with our friends and family. Earth is a large place full with 7 billion people. They are scattered across 7 continents, but there is one place that they can all come together and live. That place is called the Internet.

Introduction to Digital Cultures

Just a simple update and I'm sure it won't be a big issue for those who do read my blog since I rarely post here anymore. From here on out, at least for the next 10 weeks or so, this blog will be dedicated to blog post assignments for my class Intro to Digital Cultures. I suspect whatever I am to write on should be relatively interesting so keep checking 'em out when they show up.

DFTBA