YouTube: the home of your favorite drunk squirrel, sneezy panda and the "America's Funniest Home Videos" that will never make it on TV because they are too obscene, too violent or really just not all that funny.
But these are no longer the only videos that people go on YouTube to watch. With the rise of video blogging, or vlogging, there is a whole new spectrum of uses for YouTube and a community of people who live through the windows of their computer screens.
Last July, this community met in person for the first time at Vidcon, the first official YouTube conference held in Los Angeles. At Vidcon, attendees went to sessions hosted by YouTube executives, their favorite vloggers and YouTube's most famous jugglers. The conference was user-generated content, much like YouTube itself, with speakers discussing innovative ways of using YouTube to promote charities, develop music careers and analyze news. Discussion also noted the ways in which YouTube is not only changing entertainment, but the way Internet communities interact.
A prime example of this is the Collab Channel, which enables a group of people, as individuals, to upload videos to one channel. For example, the "fiveawesomegirls" channel is run by a group of five girls who upload videos introducing their awkward friends and family, or promoting their favorite nerd rock band. They also use their channel to discuss issues such as gay marriage and Internet neutrality, providing information and perspective for their viewers.
Vidcon was hosted by another pair of famous vloggers, John and Hank Green, also known by their channel name, vlogbrothers. John, the New York Times bestselling author of Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, communicated with his brother Hank solely by vlog, eliminating all text-based communication for a year. When the "Brotherhood 2.0" project originally started Jan. 1, 2007, they made videos for each other. Now, although they still address their videos to each other, they are really addressing hundreds of thousands of subscribers, many of whom also frequent nerdfighters.com, a site run by the Green brothers. Nerdfighters, as fans of the site call themselves, represent a community, called Nerdfightaria, where nerds are cool. Harry Potter, superheroes, literary figures, comic books and science fiction only scratches the surface of Nerdfightaria, which is a community that takes pride in discussing politics, religion and the complexities of being.
Nerdfightaria is only one of the many communities that have developed from YouTube, and it is using its presence on the Internet for more than discussion and self-promotion. For example, during the past few years, the vlogbrothers have promoted "Project for Awesome." People make videos about their favorite charities and non-profits and then for one day, everyone "likes" and comments on these videos so that the most viewed videos on YouTube for the day promote charities instead of cute kittens.
Thus, by creating a community, Youtube is changing the face of the Internet. That it is solely user-generated content makes this feat much more impressive.
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