YouTube: Putting Your Face(s) Forward

YouTube - it’s a play on the television tube and in a way, it acts like one.

YouTube is like a TV channel that is always on. New forms of expressions, communities and identities are surfacing on videos being uploaded on the Internet everyday around the globe. Anyone with access to the Internet can join in whenever and wherever they want in this global mixer of what we call YouTube. Users create their own content and remix existing content while taking part in this creative collaboration of user-generated content. By transcending both time and space, we create a whole new world and open a whole new window of opportunities.

There’s an interesting dichotomy at hand here. The medium we use to express ourselves on YouTube is a simple webcam. When we want to talk to people we know, people we don’t know and people we might want to connect with, we want to do so privately. We feel awkward acting as our “real” selves in front of people, so we hide ourselves in our private room (or in some cases, the closet).

We talk to what others seem ourselves. But we are absolutely comfortable talking to the entire universe, this invisible audience that we cannot see. Our audience is asynchronous; we never know when anyone will tune into listen to us. We talk to a camera, a little black dot, a space where it seems nobody is watching but everyone is there. We hide ourselves in the most private physical space but share out darkest secrets in the most intangible and virtually public space.

Michael Wesch, the creator of An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, offers an answer to this phenomenon. His contends the anonymity of watching + the physical distance + rare and ephemeral dialogue offers hatred as public performance. People are allowed to feel relaxed and experience a sense of freedom with humanity without the fear of experiencing social anxiety in the physical realm. We have a heightened sense of self-awareness where we can discover and re-discover ourselves.

There’s a slight voyeuristic quality to YouTube as well. James Joyce calls this an “aesthetic arrest” of humanity, where we are captured and fascinated by human nature itself. We discover a deeply profound connection with one another across a computer screen and a webcam that we may not be capable of in the physical world.

What users do have to be wary about is other users’ authenticity. Truth and authentic identities are ambiguous on the Internet, as some people choose to create different personalities and identities for themselves, or choose to remain anonymous (Lonelygirl15 and Emokid21Ohio anyone?). People don’t like to feel duped and when they do and make users feel insecure and apprehensive about trusting others. While YouTube can act as a vehicle for showing your true self, it can also help people to construct a new, different, or sometimes fake self.

Whatever your purpose is for YouTube, there are so many uses for it. You can be silly, dance, since, celebrate, voice an opinion, confess, share, play, or you can be you – or the multi-faceted you. YouTube empowers its users to be whoever they want to be, whether they choose to hide a part of their identity, show other parts of their personality, or even create their own identity. It’s about putting your best face – or multi-faceted self – forward in a community that never stops sharing, collaborating, interacting and most happily, dancing.