Tag, YourTube is it
As I curled up in my partially-deflated bed this morning, I thought about YouTube and the seeming rebirth of a televised medium. I thought about the videos that have become popular and about the construction of this newly vital, visual space.
Unsurprisingly, YouTube seems to reflect, but not yet exactly mirror, what you already see on TV and in the movies. There are sports (notably fútbol), music videos, comedy shorts, and other forms of action -- breakdancing, Parkour, and "urban ninjas," to use an extant phrase.
But, there are also videos of women that I have seen that are sexualized to varying degrees. I have also seen the way some racial stereotypes play out. On YouTube, YouSee "exotic" Asian ladies dancing and "cute" Japanese girls singing acapella. YouSee (or at least I see) East Asian men as fodder for unintended musical comedy or as faceless urban acrobats. YouDon'tSee most other PoC outside of sports and music videos.
Do these videos just reflect the statistically mean prejudice of the early adopter? of those who have access to video and networked technology? of those that spend most of their lives learning, from mother nature and mother nurture (a same sex couple? :) to intently stare?
And for those of us who do mind this, what shall we do? Should we say Tag, YouTube, you're it! Should we call them out and cry *-ism and *-imination? (No, I think the answer is more subtle and less explicitly *-ist than that, and I'm not sure Name Tagging is the way to go.)
Should we "tag" in the modern sense, and ask for the ability to keyword tag each sketchy video? Send out a call for mass uploading, mass diversifying action?
I don't know. I'd just rather start thinking, now, about ways we can make this, our televised future, more truly and accurately "reflective" than our televisual past.
Unsurprisingly, YouTube seems to reflect, but not yet exactly mirror, what you already see on TV and in the movies. There are sports (notably fútbol), music videos, comedy shorts, and other forms of action -- breakdancing, Parkour, and "urban ninjas," to use an extant phrase.
But, there are also videos of women that I have seen that are sexualized to varying degrees. I have also seen the way some racial stereotypes play out. On YouTube, YouSee "exotic" Asian ladies dancing and "cute" Japanese girls singing acapella. YouSee (or at least I see) East Asian men as fodder for unintended musical comedy or as faceless urban acrobats. YouDon'tSee most other PoC outside of sports and music videos.
Do these videos just reflect the statistically mean prejudice of the early adopter? of those who have access to video and networked technology? of those that spend most of their lives learning, from mother nature and mother nurture (a same sex couple? :) to intently stare?
And for those of us who do mind this, what shall we do? Should we say Tag, YouTube, you're it! Should we call them out and cry *-ism and *-imination? (No, I think the answer is more subtle and less explicitly *-ist than that, and I'm not sure Name Tagging is the way to go.)
Should we "tag" in the modern sense, and ask for the ability to keyword tag each sketchy video? Send out a call for mass uploading, mass diversifying action?
I don't know. I'd just rather start thinking, now, about ways we can make this, our televised future, more truly and accurately "reflective" than our televisual past.
posted by L. Wu @ 9:34 AM
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