A New Forum

I had never heard of Youtube until I had to go to the site for class. It is quite the amazing website. I went through a lot of videos before choosing one to focus on. There are so many different categories to choose from on Youtube that it’s hard to find something to focus on; which is why I picked “As One”: a video about the Youtube website; specifically a convention in Hollywood.

This video stood out to me more than others because it put me in the position of seeing the other side, the movie maker’s point of view, and why they do it. The video shows you clips of all the different types of people that put movies on the site and the reason why. I feel the maker did this to emphasize the diversity the site offers. It is a new forum for different people to express themselves and voice their opinions. The video is focused on getting more people to the web site by showing all the different people that do it looking so happy and proud. But, this also makes me wonder what kinds of things have been left out. I’m sure that with this forum, like the others, there are copywriting problems, people complaining that they have been offended by one video or another, and so on.
The beginning of the video leads to another aspect that stood out to me: everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame. Just the fact that the convention was held in Hollywood can lead to this idea. This is a place to go and be heard and seen, to be recognized (and rated-yikes!). The video shows one man that was making videos before, but had no one to show them to, and now he does. This helps artists without and audience to find one. The video also asks the question: “What is the future of Hollywood?” showing all the clips of different people and ideas and bringing them all together-“As One”. At the end of the video he ties back into the “New Hollywood” theme by showing you a group of movie makers together, but still all different.
In watching the video, I realized that it is different from television or movies in many ways. First, you aren’t watching a video that was censored or, in most cases, edited. It’s not structured the same either; most of it is amateurs doing this for the first time. The quality is not as good either, but without being supported by a television or movie company, who can afford all the expensive equipment. Watching it on a computer, and being able to rank it gives me the feeling of interaction. I’m not just sitting there watching it and taking it in. I’m a part of it; I can comment or rank it. In a weird way, you almost feel more connected then the other genres. The world is changing in many ways, and everyone is being able to reach people all over the world. The video I chose puts emphasis on this fact; the title alone implies that we are all coming together as one, through our new technological advances.