YouTube

I just posted this over on thereminworld ... It was in response to a summary of the recent Levnet thread about the various ways to increase YouTube views by the judicious use of titles & tags (amongst other things). It led me to think about YouTube in general, and my own recent adoption of it...

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My own opinion of YouTube has changed somewhat recently. Up until now I've always been in reactive mode... if someone pointed me at a video, I'd watch it (standard stuff... stupid kid blowing himself up and the like), but since my theremin journey began, I've started to see it as an extremely useful tool. Providing a platform for the exposure of minority interests is where YouTube excels. Without it I would not have had such an exposure to the theremin's community, output, or capabilities. By definition, when talking of music, words can only go so far.

Taking YouTube as a whole, it's interesting to look at why people post. To a great extent "because they can" is a solid argument if we embrace the idea of the media belonging to the masses (rather than corporate entities) being the new model. This is a concept that I whole-heartedly support... and maybe there's room for a discussion about Marshall McLuhan's view in another place.

Looking more closely at theremin offerings (and excluding the likes of the theremin cat etc.) they can be broken down into a few simplistic categories:

Natural performers... people who would be the first up at an open mike night at a local venue. The world needs entertainers... God bless 'em.

Educators... having once been an educator I understand the need to share. Some of these videos are put out there simply because someone knows how to do something and wants to help others. It should be noted that a good instructional video is not as easy to make as it looks... teachers of the world, I salute you.

Community communicators... you know your audience and want to share amongst a relatively small group. Posts are made welcoming critique and suggestions. Once upon a time these people would have been the "bedsit" musicians with no outlet. Now they can share... and we are all better off for it because there are some real gems out there.

Promotion... give a taste of what you have to offer. Throw it out there on the YouTube platform with the hope that people may find their way to your other outlets. This may be for for traffic, sales, politics or whatever.

Vanity... never underestimate the power of ego. Unless clinically debilitating (at either extreme) ego is a good thing. It defines us. It's who we are.

In truth (well, in my opinion) most of the theremin videos posted on YouTube do not fall into any single category, but have a healthy mix of many of the elements listed above. My own attempts were posted with some trepidation (and a little anonymity).

I look forward to watching the developments.

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Two posts in one day? I must be getting into this blogging thing :)