YouTube

I spend a fair amount of my time on YouTube, so I figured I would write about the site at some point on this blog, but I wasn’t expecting it to be my first official post. I was actually inspired by one of the most recent videos on “The Game Theorists,” a channel run by Matthew Patrick (also referred to as MatPat) and his team. The channel is usually devoted to in-depth theories regarding popular video games: exploring lore, applying real world science, and ruining your childhood one video at a time (only kidding). However, on March 5th, 2019, he posted a video titled “What They WON’T TELL YOU About Your Favorite Channels,” (which you can find here) and he makes some very good points about society’s impressions of YouTube, while also highlighting some of the amazing work some of the platform’s biggest creators have done.

In the first three minutes of his video, MatPat explains how he and his team wanted to do some positive P.R. work to spread some awareness of their cool upcoming projects in the midst of some negative press surrounding the YouTube platform, and they were told that “no one wants positive news stories about YouTubers.” Only three minutes into the video, and my gears in my head are already working. Most of the time when I come across a mainstream news article regarding YouTube, it touches on the negative aspects / problematic creators of the platform (most notably and recently are the Logan Paul suicide forest video in January 2018, and the child predator comment controversy in February 2019). Media outlets have no problem lumping the thousands, or even millions, of content creators with these “bad eggs,” while simultaneously ignoring all the good this platform provides on a daily basis.

YouTube is a site that teachers use to search for educational videos to help enhance their lessons. It’s a site where a first time traveler can scope out good tourist sites on a travel vlogger’s channel. It’s a site where a college student can watch comedy videos for entertainment to distract from the impending doom of finals week. It’s a site where I can listen to the entire Hamilton soundtrack in the background while writing this blog post. And those four examples don’t even begin to scratch the surface. YouTube is such a versatile platform, where creators of all interests come together to educate an audience, entertain viewers all around the world, and build a community of people who are finally seeing their interests represented in a place easily accessible to them. The site is not without its faults – creators voice their concerns and frustrations fairly often – but it’s constantly expanding and adapting to its audience and the ever-changing world around it far quicker than mainstream media.

Matpat makes a point in his video that in today’s society “YouTuber is a dirty word.” I hope that there comes a time where people can truly appreciate the site, and all the good that its creators accomplish.