The wonderful online community that is Youtube: Mean comments are welcome.
Youtube is one of the most popular video sharing websites to date. Not only is the videos on there appealing and entertaining to watch what makes it’s medium so interesting to me, is the online community that dwells within. These people can range from any age, profession, they could be nice, likely narcissistic, or down right witty. For my experiment I chose Youtube to carefully observe and take notes on the online community’s activities. More specifically, I chose Last Week Tonight With Jon Oliver Youtube channel and picked and watched a video that was recently uploaded. From here I watched and carefully examined all the recent utterances that were flooding the comments section. For those who are not aware, Jon Oliver is a writer, comedian, and was a former fill-in talk show host for The Daily Show. He acquired his own late night talk show in which he discusses current events, politics, and news with a little satirical twist. After the episodes air through HBO, the producers upload the video on Youtube. The recent video Jon talks about the coal industry and the real issues concerning the coal job market. Below the comic illustrates the “top” comments that were posted.
These comments people leave can span anywhere from random thoughts to intelligent feedback to harsh criticisms based on the video’s content. After observing the online community, I picked the top comments that other registered users “liked” the most. This “imagined community” of individuals help give the videos on Youtube feedback. Whether the registered users know it or not they are involved in corresponding to this medium’s communication. These online communities can be complex, organized, despised, and worthy of study.
