Social impact of YouTube

YouTube, by providing a video hosting service, has been involved with popularizing Internet trends in popular culture. Its users represent of society and it is part of a set of social networking sites that people and organizations often maintain a presence on. YouTube has created some internet celebrities in its own right. It has been recognized and honored as a global archive and bulletin board of socially valuable video messages. Some aspects of how the site operates, such as its video ranking system, have sometimes been the subject of criticism as users vie to achieve a maximum number of views for their videos.

Internet celebrities and breaking boundaries

Main article: List of YouTube celebrities

YouTube's popularity has led to the creation of many YouTube Internet celebrities, popular individuals who have attracted much publicity in their home countries (and sometimes world renown) due to their videos. The most subscribed YouTube member, as of June 2011, is Ray William Johnson with over 3.9 million subscribers.^{[citation needed]} On July 16, 2010, Justin Bieber's video "Baby" became the most viewed video of all time on YouTube, with over 245 million views.^{[citation needed]} The previous video to hold this title was Lady GaGa's video "Bad Romance".^{[citation needed]} For some users, fame has led to unexpected results and, in some cases, crossovers into traditional media or entertainment avenues. Former receptionist Brooke Brodack (Brookers) from Connecticut was signed by NBC's Carson Daly for an 18-month development contract in June 2006; Brodack was among the first individuals to transition into mainstream media through YouTube. Another discovery was the uncovered fictitious blog of lonelygirl15, now known to be the creation of New Zealand actress Jessica Rose and some film directors. In 2007, a Dutch vocalist and songwriter named Esmée Denters (esmeedenters) was signed to a recording contract by Billy Mann based on her YouTube performances. Another YouTube singer, 15 year-old Savannah Outen, was signed to Levosia Entertainment after posting videos of herself singing on the site.^{[citation needed]} Also, Canadian singer Justin Bieber (Kidrauhl) was discovered through YouTube and signed a record deal with Usher.^{[citation needed]}

On January 31, 2007, Fox announced that Lisa Donovan (LisaNova) would appear as a cast member during the 12th season of its sketch comedy show MADtv. Terra Naomi (terranaomi) has been signed with Island Records, a division of the Universal Music Group, one of the Big Four record labels. Brandon Hardesty (ArtieTSMITW), known for a popular reenactment series among his work, appeared in a GEICO television commercial running nationally in the U.S. and it consists mostly of a segment taken from his Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make III video. Brandon has also been contracted by an agent and was hired for a role in the independent film, Bart Got a Room.

Ysabella Brave (ysabellabrave and ysabellabravetalk) announced in two videos on June 3, 2007, in connection with a Los Angeles Times feature article about her on the same day, that she has been signed by Cordless Recordings, a division of the Warner Music Group, also one of the four major records labels. TheReceptionist announced in a video on July 9, 2007 that he will be providing content for Comedy Central's website.

Cory Williams (aka Mr. Safety of smpfilms) is the host of the first national television show to spawn from video bloggers. It's a "best of the net" type show called The FIZZ on DirecTV channel 101 in the United States. The show has been on air since September 2006 and features other popular YouTubers such as boh3m3, thewinekone, Kevin Nalty, TheHill88, and many others. Williams has also appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, MTV Scarred, as well as a few popular music videos (Bloodhound Gang and Against Me! being two of the bands).

Pat Condell's videos attracted the attention of Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. Subsequently, 35 of his videos were published to DVD, which was sold on Dawkins' website and Amazon.com.

Damien Rice invited Amy Kuney to perform with him at two shows in Iceland after he saw her YouTube cover of his song "The Blower's Daughter" in July 2008.

Before the launch of YouTube in 2005, there were few easy methods available for ordinary computer users who wanted to post videos online. With its simple interface, YouTube made it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to post a video that a worldwide audience could watch within a few minutes. The wide range of topics covered by YouTube has turned video sharing into one of the most important parts of Internet culture.

An early example of the social impact of YouTube was the success of The Bus Uncle video in 2006. It shows a heated conversation between a youth and an older man on a bus in Hong Kong, and was discussed widely in the mainstream media. Another YouTube video to receive extensive coverage is guitar, which features a performance of Pachelbel's Canon on an electric guitar. The name of the performer is not given in the video. After it received millions of views The New York Times revealed the identity of the guitarist as Lim Jeong-hyun, a 23-year-old from South Korea who had recorded the track in his bedroom.

Charlie Bit My Finger is a viral video and has received the most views of any user generated YouTube video. It had over 245 million hits as of November 2010. The clip features two English brothers, with one-year-old Charlie biting the finger of his brother Harry, aged three. In Time's list of YouTube's 50 greatest viral videos of all time, "Charlie Bit My Finger" was ranked at number one.

Sharing revenue with popular users

In May 2007, YouTube invited some of its most viewed users to become "YouTube Partners." This exclusive status, previously only offered to commercial content providers, allows users to earn revenue from advertisements placed next to videos. Ben Going (boh3m3), Paul Robinett (renetto), Lisa Donovan (LisaNova), Jessica Rose (lonelygirl15), Kevin Nalty (Nalts), Tony Huynh (thewinekone), Brandon Hardesty (ArtieTSMITW), Christine Gambito (HappySlip), Cory Williams (smpfilms), Charlie McDonnell (charlieissocoollike), Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox (smosh) and Yousef Abu-Taleb (Danielbeast) were among the first 100 partners. As of January 2012 YouTube has about 30,000 partners. Its top one hundred partners each earn more than $100,000 annually and some, like The Annoying Orange and Shane Dawson, earn "much more".

YouTube gatherings

YouTubers periodically hold public gatherings to celebrate the video sharing community. One of the earliest of such gatherings, the recurrent and international As One, was first held in January 2007 in Los Angeles by Cory Williams of smpfilms. The second As One, also hosted by Cory Williams, was held on February 17, 2007 at Pier 39 in San Francisco, managed to attract many of YouTube's highest viewed individuals. Notable attendees included Caitlin Hill, Ben Going, and Yousef Abu-Taleb, the actor who plays DanielBeast in the YouTube series lonelygirl15. A third gathering took place on July 7, 2007, at Washington Square Park in New York City. A singing invitation to the event, posted on YouTube by Christine Gambito, YouTube's Happyslip, gained over 2.6 million views. Notable attendees included Brooke Brodack, Caitlin Hill, and Kevin Nalty. Yet another took place in Washington D.C. on September 8, 2007. An As One gathering was held in Melbourne, Australia on December 1, 2007 at Federation Square. Another two gatherings were planned by smpfilms at the beginning of 2008. The largest gathering in the United States is VidCon with the UK equivalent being Summer in The City. Both are held annually and feature thousands of YouTubers.

George Foster Peabody Award

YouTube was awarded a 2008 George Foster Peabody Award and cited for being "a 'Speakers' Corner', where Internet users can upload, view and share clips, is an ever-expanding archive/bulletin board that both embodies and promotes democracy."

Video rankings

YouTube has a number of ways of ranking its videos, the most popular of which is "most viewed", which is divided into four categories: today, this week, this month, and all time. The current rankings are:

• Spotlight Videos
• Most Discussed
• Most Viewed
• Top Favorited
• Popular
• Most Responded
• Top Rated

Controversies over video rankings

The viewing figures of some YouTube videos have been the subject of controversy, since there have been claims that automated systems have been used to inflate the number of views received, which is forbidden by YouTube's terms of service. In March 2008, an unofficial video of the song "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex" by the Brazilian band Cansei De Ser Sexy briefly held the number one slot for the all-time most viewed video, with around 114 million views. It was temporarily removed from YouTube after allegations of automated viewing or hacking, before being deleted by the uploader. The viewing figures for the video outnumbered the "most favorited" rating by around 21,000 to 1, compared to around 500 to 1 for other top rated YouTube videos. YouTube's terms of service state: "You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, 'robots,' 'spiders,' or 'offline readers,' that accesses the Website in a manner that sends more request messages to the YouTube servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser." A spokesperson for YouTube commented: "We are developing safeguards to secure the statistics on YouTube. Although it is somewhat difficult to track how often this happens, it is not rampant. As soon as it comes to our attention that someone has rigged their numbers to gain placement on the top pages we remove the video or channel from public view." Clarus Bartel from Italy, who had uploaded the video, denied attempting to boost its ranking, stating: "These gimmicks do not belong to me. I've got nothing to do with it. The accusations geared towards me have saddened me greatly."

The YouTube video of the Avril Lavigne song "Girlfriend" was also accused of having an exaggerated number of views due to the use of a web link posted by AvrilBandAids, a fansite devoted to Avril Lavigne. Clicking on the link would automatically reload the YouTube video of "Girlfriend" every fifteen seconds. Fans of Avril Lavigne were encouraged to: "Keep this page open while you browse the internet, study for exams, or even sleep. For extra viewing power, open up two or more browser windows at this page!" The video of "Girlfriend" overtook "Evolution of Dance" by Judson Laipply as the all-time most viewed video on YouTube in July 2008.^{[citation needed]} "Evolution of Dance" later retook the top slot, currently having around 185 million views, but was overtaken again on mid-2009 by the video of "Charlie bit my finger, again!" which currently has around 395 million views.^{[citation needed]} The video of "Girlfriend" was removed by its uploader RCA Music around December 2009, ending with over 129 million views.^{[citation needed]} However, as mentioned above, both "Evolution of Dance" and "Charlie bit my finger, again!" have been surpassed by the video of "Baby" by Justin Bieber which has over 700 million views, and the video of "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga, which has over 433 million views. "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)" by Shakira, which has over 428 million views and "On The Floor" by Jennifer Lopez, which has over 446 million views, are currently the fourth and second most viewed videos on YouTube, respectively.^{[citation needed]}

YouTube user Cory Williams has also admitted to artificially inflating the views of his videos.

References

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