On this date (Feb 15), in 2005, YouTube was launched.
To say that it was a successful launch would be an understatement… less than two years after the company was founded, our future overlord Google bought it for $1.65 billion! In less than a half-a-dozen years it’s become one of the most visited websites in the world – only Facebook, Google, and Gmail get more visits.
It’s difficult to overstate the impact that YouTube has had on our society, but in the interests of time I’m just going to talk about two specific elements.
For starters, YouTube is a prime example of the way that technology in general – and the Internet in specific – have helped us make the transition from a consumer culture to a producer culture. Gone are the days when entertainment was the purview of the fortunate few, the charmed and influential sliver of the populace who determined what the vast majority of us were going to watch as we lounged on our couches bathed in inertia and Cheetos dust.
Now we have the technology to create our own entertainment – and with sites like YouTube, we have a global distribution network. We have a straightforward path that our imaginations can take… a path that can lead directly to the zeitgeist of America and beyond. From water-skiing squirrels to Justin Bieber, we have the ability to impact society directly. It’s a great equalizer, and gives our ever-expanding creative class a playground that might just lead to a big break. As a result, going viral no longer means that you’re going to die surrounded by serious people in hazmat suits.
Secondly, YouTube has started to slowly impact the level of truthiness in the world. Cameras are everywhere, and they are always rolling. Now we have a place to put that footage – and it will be seen. Fortunately for comedy writers, people who live their lives in public haven’t quite accepted the fact that they are always being filmed – and that we get to go back and re-watch past footage.
So when politicians change their tune based on which audience they happen to be courting, we can compare their speeches and see where they flip and where they flop. When ‘journalists’ say things like “That other network always plays the Hitler card… we never use Nazi imagery here”, we can see for ourselves that they don’t know what they’re talking about. When any public figure claims that they were misquoted or taken out of context, we can investigate those claims and see if they hold water. Eventually, I think, we will start to see a reduction in the lying we hear all around us – at least until they figure out how to get around the constant surveillance.
So happy birthday, YouTube. May you inspire us to ever-greater creativity – and honesty – until the machines take over completely and force us to live as organic batteries to feed their young!