The Anthropology of YouTube

What an amazing introduction to the interconnectivity of the web! Anthropologist Michael Wesch, famous for his “The Machine is Us/ing Us” video about the evolution of hypertext, also created this gem called “An anthropological introduction to YouTube”. We’ll forgive the poor capitalization in the title!

The video itself is actually a presentation given to the Library of Congress on June 23rd, 2008. The video focuses on YouTube as the basis for discussion, but its appeal is the amalgamation of traditional academic research and our new media landscape. It integrates a variety of Web 2.0 features (Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Delicious, YouTube, various blogs, Technorati, etc.) and links them with the culture surrounding the applications and their users.

This anthropological perspective shares such a seemingly boundless optimism that you can’t help but feel inspired! For instance, while many might dismiss YouTube videos and their creation as mere self indulgence, Wesch appears captivated by even the most trivial of videos, which is unbelievably refreshing. Everything from “Numa Numa” to the original vlogs to “Free Hugs” is captured and evaluated. A wonderful presentation!

As the video itself is rather long, Podcasting News was gracious enough to break it down for those of us on a tight time frame: http://www.podcastingnews.com/2008/08/02/the-anthropology-of-youtube/