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You Tube; Through My Eyes

4 months ago I was visiting a wrestling message board when there was a link to some humorous video featuring former WWF Champion the Iron Sheik explaining how he wanted to break the back of another performer and "fuck" him in the ass to make him humble. From there I tried looking for other funny videos and found thousands.

Ranging from high school pranks and stunts to clever, thought out videos; the website I had stumbled upon was named "you tube" and I loved it. It was nothing I had ever seen before on the Internet in the pure size of the database of clips to watch.

My first impression was that it was more for movie makers, people who had talent and were looking for a window to showcase their stuff but with a smaller group of people simply sharing clips that they found funny. By the time I had gotten there "sexxiebebe23" had deleted her videos but was very much there in spirit due to parodies and tags.

I was impressed and I decided to sign up for my first account under the name "stupriceuk", initially making videos out of footage I had from my job at the time. When that footage faded I began adding stuff such as wrestling clips that I thought people maybe hadn't seen before. My videos were alright I guess, they seemed to find a very small cult following but while this was taking place the winds of change were in full force.

Slowly but surely the video bloggers were gaining popularity, and were outweighing the actual movie makers themselves. The first one I had seen was a girl named "filthywhore" who was anything but. She came across as a real nice person with a good sense of humour, who was getting stupid comments from people for reasons a few levels below pathetic.

My first impression of this "new" style of video was that it was for attention seekers who had the idea that people would be interested in the life story of someone they didn't even know. That's not to say it's a bad thing, just that I've never been one to sit and watch soaps or buy "celebrity" magazines to catch up on the latest gossip so the concept was a bit alien to me.

But I watched, and I commented a few times too.

Then my account got suspended due to some copyright issues with a video I had made out of different clips of various wrestling promotions from the United States who I won't mention here. This was my first time caught up in the copyright saga, which made me actually look into copyright a bit more before posting my videos. I don't feel that the website "you tube" is responsible for the content that users upload as it pertains to copyright. When an individual signs up they fill in a registration form so the website does have some of that users details available to them.

Each time a company has stepped in to inform you tube that there is copyrighted material on the site, they've acted swiftly and removed it and made steps to discipline users in an effort to stop that kind of behaviour. I find that commendable of them but from looking upon the sites there still are thousands upon thousands of videos that shouldn't be there, which can't be helped with the rate of uploads every day.

My advice would be that instead of companies harassing you tube about copyright; they go right after the user uploading the content. I have no problem, if I repeatedly break the rules about copyright after multiple warnings, with the you tube website passing on my contact details to the company who has a grievance with my "work". Users should take responsibilities for what they upload to the website to try and enhance you tube, and help to keep this site online since we all spend so much time on it.

Getting back though, it wasn't long before I started my new account under the username "stoopidstu" because I'd been stupid about the copyright in my earlier videos, and went about re-uploading my original content and then something happened. Either I was drunk or I was really bored, or both, I made a video blog.

It was a strange experience, just sitting there rambling and then finding out people agreed with your opinions or liked what you were saying. I'm the type of guy who'll bottle everything up, sort everybody else's problems out but my own so to just dump what I needed to dump online it felt like a weight off my shoulders. From there I have discovered many friends who I get on with and have become my "little clique" and if anything else, I find myself posting video blogs specifically for them so they know what's going on.

But while that was happening we had the fakers emerging. The "OhioKid21" saga was the first from what I remember, who were doing it for a joke. I didn't "get" how everybody assumed it was all real because it didn't seem right in the slightest. And then there was the continuing "littleloca" series which to me with the video effects at least looked like it was someone fooling around. Finally we get to the much talked about "lonelygirl15", the impact of which seems like being more than all previous. Enough has already been said on the matter, even more will be said tomorrow and the next day.

The recent issue has been about advertising but I'm not sure if users can be scolded for doing so. I can't remember what it says in the terms of service to be honest but if it does say no advertising products, websites etc then isn't that rule absolved by the you tube company itself, because of it's allowance for artists and movie companies to showcase their material?

Each time a band uploads a music video, is the intention not for you to check it out and hopefully like it… so you'll buy it? There has been an increase with movie houses with accounts running trailers for movies, are those not there to entice you to hit the movie theatres? Even video game producers are running trailers for future games. A song, a movie, a computer game; each of those are products and each of those are being advertised on the site.
The problems people have with other users should be directed at the you tube company so they can define the difference between a regular Joe advertising their stuff, and a film company advertising their movies. I can only assume that the only real difference is that the companies are paying you tube for the privilege of advertising, because that's what it is; a privilege.

In closing I'd like to say that the you tube community is as diverse as it's ever been, somewhere you can find a video to suit any taste. Hell, if you're Adam Todd I'm sure you could find some sort of bondage to float your boat.

I simply could not describe enough how great some of the content available is, but that's part of the fun; finding it. In the coming months, with so many other sites jumping on the bandwagon, I'm excited to see where you tube will take me. My subscribers surprise me all the time with their originality and creativity, ideas and honesty, I can only wish that my content is as half as good as theirs.