| 9781632866745 |
| 1632866749 |
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Summary
Summary
From YouTube's Head of Culture and Trends, a rousing and illuminating behind-the-scenes exploration of internet video's massive impact on our world.
Whether your favorite YouTube video is a cat on a Roomba, "Gangnam Style," the "Bed Intruder" song, an ASAPscience explainer, Rebecca Black's "Friday," or the "Evolution of Dance," Kevin Allocca's Videocracy reveals how these beloved videos and famous trends--and many more--came to be and why they mean more than you might think.
YouTube is the biggest pool of cultural data since the beginning of recorded communication, with four hundred hours of video uploaded every minute . (It would take you more than sixty-five years just to watch the vlogs, music videos, tutorials, and other content posted in a single day!) This activity reflects who we are, in all our glory and ignominy. As Allocca says, if aliens wanted to understand our planet, he'd give them Google. If they wanted to understand us , he'd give them YouTube.
In Videocracy , Allocca lays bare what YouTube videos say about our society and how our actions online--watching, sharing, commenting on, and remixing the people and clips that captivate us--are changing the face of entertainment, advertising, politics, and more. Via YouTube, we are fueling social movements, enforcing human rights, and redefining art--a lot more than you'd expect from a bunch of viral clips.
Author Notes
Kevin Allocca is Head of Culture and Trends at YouTube, where he has spent more than seven years tracking and explaining trending phenomena. He is one of the world's leading experts on viral video. Allocca has given conference keynotes around the world on web video culture, including a TED Talk that has been viewed more than two million times. He's also obsessed over more videos than every teenager and serial workplace procrastinator you've ever met. He lives in New York City. @shockallocca
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Allocca, the head of culture and trends at YouTube, gleans cogent insights into the human psyche from his analysis of popular clips, vlogs, and communities on his company's popular video-sharing platform. Allocca offers a glimpse into the mind's "subconscious drives" through what he describes as "oddly satisfying" videos featuring cookies undergoing surgery and a dishwasher cycle seen through the lens of a GoPro camera, and explores the success of channels such as the popular AsapScience, which he credits to the channel's short, pop-science "explainer" style of videos. He elaborates on technical aspects of YouTube mechanics, including the surprisingly complex way the company determines what constitutes a "view." Allocca also points to the impact YouTube has had on culture globally by "democratizing the power of distribution." This leveling of the playing field is responsible for achievements large and small-particularly the blossoming of niche communities built around, for example, an autistic man's vlog about elevators. Allocca's perspective is skewed by his obvious desire to put a positive spin on all things YouTube, and his suggestion that corporations are using YouTube to "meaningfully interact" with consumers is naive. Still, his sunny disposition is a forgivable flaw for readers looking for a light and entertaining overview of a popular digital platform. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Allocca (head of culture & trends, YouTube) examines the role of the user in this analysis of the internationally popular video-sharing site. Behaviors of uploading content, liking, commenting, and sharing are the biggest contributors to what is popular and what goes viral (not necessarily the same thing) online. Beyond simple metrics of likes and shares, Allocca also delves into how we form and reinforce community identities around the content, as well as how online video-sharing has changed several industries, including popular music and advertising. Cultural phenomena such as remixing and memes, political implications of wide distribution of cell phone citizen journalism, and the surfacing of previously isolated subpopulations are explored in light of a global, grass-roots, interconnected technology platform. What is missing is much insider information about the business side of YouTube, or how its own practices affect user behavior, whether through placement, site design, algorithms, advertising revenue, or censorship. Readers will likely enjoy revisiting their favorite quirky, emotional, or viral videos used as examples. VERDICT A surprisingly thoughtful read for cultural scholars or any member of this video democracy, which is most of us.-Wade M. Lee, Univ. of Toledo Lib. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Pre-Roll | p. ix |
| Chapter 1 At the Zoo1 | p. 1 |
| Chapter 2 Creating Entertainment in the Auto-Tune Era | p. 23 |
| Chapter 3 The Language of Remixing and the Pure Joy of a Cat Flying Through Space | p. 51 |
| Chapter 4 Some Music That I Used to Know | p. 79 |
| Chapter 5 The Ad your Ad Could Smell Like | p. 108 |
| Chapter 6 The World Is Watching | p. 126 |
| Chapter 7 I Learned It on YouTube | p. 152 |
| Chapter 8 Niche: The New Mainstream | p. 169 |
| Chapter 9 Scratching the Itch | p. 191 |
| Chapter 10 Going Viral | p. 222 |
| Chapter 11 What Videos Do for Us | p. 249 |
| Chapter 12 The New Talent | p. 272 |
| End Card | p. 295 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 305 |
| Notes | p. 308 |
| Index | p. 324 |
