How Youtube Changes the Way We Think

The video was just 41 seconds long, but it caught people's imagination. Within a few days, hundreds of YouTube users had posted videos—shot on webcams, usually in their bedrooms—displaying their own scrawled messages: “Don't quit!" “Tread gently." “Think." “Carpe diem." “Open your eyes." And my favorite, “They could be gone tomorrow!" Soon, MadV had inspired 2,000 replies, making it the most-responded-to video in YouTube's history. MadV stitched them all together into a long, voiceless montage, and it's quite powerful. All these people from across the globe convey something incredibly evocative while remaining completely mute.

So here's my question: What exactly is this? What do you call MadV's project? It isn't quite a documentary; it isn't exactly a conversation or a commentary, either. It's some curious mongrel form. And it would have been inconceivable before the Internet and cheap webcams—prohibitively expensive and difficult to pull off. This is what's so fascinating about online video culture. DIY tools for shooting, editing, and broadcasting video aren't just changing who uses the medium. They're changing how we use it. We're developing a new language of video—forms that let us say different things and maybe even think in different ways.

Here's another example: a new trend on Flickr called the long portrait. These are short videos in which the subjects simply stare into the camera. The first time you see one, it's unsettlingly intense. The subject's gaze—staring at you—totally discombobulates the normal voyeuristic payload of a photo. It's also a lovely comment on the hyperkinetic style of today's world: Slow down and look at something, will you!