1f25 post 1: Media Impact

Now, I am not much into T.V, and although I do enjoy film as a whole, I do not find there to be all that many films worth seeing as of late (though Django was good, also I am broke). No, for me mass media is mainly the internet, specifically being YouTube. It wouldn’t be far off to say that I have spent a ridiculous amount of time just sitting staring blankly (or occasionally with a smirk or a chuckle, just to look strange to the people around me) at my computer watching whatever has be posted on that day. When it comes down to it YouTube is the second most major influence in who I have become, and how I think and act in my everyday life (the first being a past job if you were wondering).

How is it that a site based around cat videos and people doing stupid stuff can be so influential? It is all to do with my search for understanding myself (oh so much angst), and the world in which I live. YouTube is more than just a site for browsing videos. Creators, people just like you and me; use it to show their talents, their ideas, their world views. It fosters communities of people that number in the millions, who all have things in common, and share their ideas and their vast differences with each other. Where some media intends to lump everyone together into one pile and be done with them, YouTube thrives on creator and audience interaction or audience-audience interaction.

One of the first YouTubers I started to watch and get involved with was a channel called the Vlogbrothers. These two brothers, Hank and John Green, have a passion for things that is so infectious. It was the first time in my life that I was exposed to people who loved things, and encouraged people to love things as well. Not just the same thing as them, you could like anything and as long as you had a passion for something, that was enough. It wasn’t just passion however, they encouraged critical thought and the desire for knowledge and discourse and understanding.

Through the Vlogbrothers I became exposed to a world that was far vaster than just my city. They told me of a man by the name of ZeFrank, who through his mastery of the language could find beauty and significance in even the seemingly mundane. His use of language helped me realize that things I had once believed to be mine alone are truly how everyone feels. ZeFrank uses his community to promote understanding around the world, whether it is by getting two people on opposite sides of the world to hold bread against the ground to make a world sandwich, or by getting his community to sing a song to a girl who was turned down saying words of encouragement. He makes the world seem so small yet so vast all at the same time.

There is far more I can say about YouTube than what I have said, and I hope someday I will be able to put into words just how influential the people on the site have been to me. Until that day I will have to hope that this post does those feelings justice.