YouTribe: An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube

The rise of video and social networking sites all over the internet has produced what some refer to as Web 2.0, a design revolution in which content on the internet is separated from its form, freeing the former from formatting constraints, and allowing it to be disseminated throughout many different platforms. Interestingly enough, and starting with Aristotle, logicians have been doing the same thing to the study of reason for around 2,500 years, with tremendously successful and fascinating results.

Within the last year or so, you may have seen the "Web 2.0 - The Machine is Us/ing Us" video, inviting us to rethink a number of important concepts like copyright, privacy, creativity, authorship, ethics and ourselves.

What does the youtube revolution say about us as people, consumers, artists, creators, audiences? The democratization of user-generated content has opened up an explosive world of possibilities. Anthropology professor Michael Wesch has been researching this fascinating subject, which he shares with us in this hilarious and moving lecture delivered at the Library of Congress.

Yes, the web can bring us all together, and here is my favorite example of that potential:

Doesn't all that love send chills up and down your spine?
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