My digital project has gone live! SHOUTATYOURTV is a web exhibit that explores the ways in which YouTube users engage the traditional media in a social, political, and historical dialog. It’s probably not surprising that there’s a lot of weird stuff going on YouTube… I had a lot of fun putting it together, so please feel free to check it out and offer your feedback.
I love the design of your website and the logo that you chose for it. It does a very good job of capturing the content of your site. I've watched several of the videos you've posted and it looks like you put a lot of thought into it. I can't believe some of the comments but I love the titles of the videos. Did you really read through all the comments for the videos (162 comments on the 'Hitler finds out Obama Won')? Have you looked at any response videos? I would be curious about how they go along with what you have to say about the people who post these videos and the people who comment on them.
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for checking out my project. I did read most of those comments, and when applicable watched the video responses. If I were expand this project, I've like to more actively trace the threads of individual user comments across various videos to see how much a coherent ideology could be gleaned from their YouTube presence. There seem to be the YouTube users who post once or twice and disappear and those who stick around posting prolifically.
I think this is a fascinating idea, especially following the postings of interesting and (not so) interesting users. I was particularly grabbed by your mention of loner1512. While perhaps not as much of an iconoclast in retrospect, her story is sympathetic to countless American voters and citizens in the United States. I, myself, would be particularly interested in the use of Youtube for question and answer with the president, presidential candidates, etc. I know debates and speeches have been aired to this effect and I'd love to read about the requirements for a post to be converted in to a question, etc. I think the phenomena "shout at your tv" is really exemplified by presidential debates and formal speeches in which many americans want their questions to be answered. I can't imagine sifting through the thousands of comments posted by users hoping to get their questions answered could be efficient, but a random sampling, I think, would provide some insight as to the average youtube commenter's interests as well as curiosities.