Today is the seventh anniversary of the first video ever placed on Youtube. And I think you'll agree that the video we are all celebrating is as amazing as the occasion itself:
“And that's all there is to say...” Magnificient.
In the seven years since youtube has premiered it has achieved more than a few feats. For instance, in one month Youtube generates more content than all the major movie studios have in the last 60 years.
Sure film gave us “Gone With The Wind”, but film will never be able to give us this many cats, doing this much stupid sh*t.
You has had, in the last seven years, over 1 trillion views. That's over 140 views for every single person on Earth. Even more considering North Koreans don't get to go on Youtube, instead they have their own form of entertainment called “All Praise To Glorious Dictator,” a game which consists of the a brother and sister playing paper scissors rock to determine which one the family will eat now that they've run out of grain rations.
North Korea: not a fun place.
What Youtube has changed most though, is less about what is uploaded than why people upload it. The cultural landscape has been permanently altered as events in our life, that before we simply shared with members of our tiny tribes, family and close friends, we now share with EVERYONE that exists and has access to a computer. No one is safe from the most mundane to the most powerful moments in our lives. The entire human world has access to every corner of itself, with an engine powerful enough to, through the knowledge that we gain of each other, dispel homophobia, sexism, racism, as we look into each other's lives and see how, at our core, similar we really are. With videos like this:
I think we've all been there.
But whether you're being chased by chickens, or have a cat whose farts happen to sound like dog barks, chances are we're going to know about it. We, as in, every singe person on Earth. Yes, privacy the way it was understood before is changed forever, and maybe gone forever, but it has been replaced by the something that just might have the power to save us all. Save us from ourselves, our fear of each other, that keeps us trapped in old ideas, in endless war, in an environmental spiral rapidly descending the planet into a chaos that seems sometimes so beyond hope. But if we know each other, and see each other, with real open eyes, the eyes Youtube and other life-display sites has given us, maybe, just maybe, we'll grow up enough out of our fear and ignorance to save ourselves, and each other, after all. With that said, this was on Youtube recently:
Do you think Youtube, and self-sharing on the internet, has the power to change the world, cure our social ills? Let us know in the comments!
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