Burgess and Green Article: YouTube Pop Culture

I will be the first one to admit that I am a YouTube fiend.  Yes, a fiend.  I could spend hours upon hours watching the ridiculous videos of stupid people and funny dogs. This article talks about YouTube in general, and the popularity between how much is user created with how much is traditional media.  When discussing the ones that were watched the most, they broke it down into categories which consisted of most responded, most discussed, most popular, and most recent.  The only time that I ever watch YouTube for the traditional media, is when we watch a clip from a movie or something like that in one of my classes.  Other than that, I'm all about watching the user created :)  In the article, it says that "user created content makes up more than two-thirds of the content coded in both the most responded and most discussed categories" (51). I believe that the only reason YouTube is as popular as it is, is because of all of the people who watch the clips.  Who would have thought there would be over a million hits for the little girl who thinks the monster is "gonna kick my asssk."  What happened when there were millions of hits with her?  Ellen DeGeneres brought her on her show to interview her because she was the cutest thing in the world.  It makes me think about how YouTube is similar to facebook.  Facebook is so successful and so popular, and making so much money because of us, the consumers who tag pictures of ourselves, who post on each others wall, who update our statues, etc.  We comment and watch a million times over hours of YouTube videos, and people become popular because of it.  Bottom line:  YouTube is the greatest thing to do when you're bored since sliced bread.  OK, I may be exaggerating, but it is still awesome to see people make fools of themselves.