YouTube is pretty chock full of crap. This blog is proof of that. Search Blurred Absolute’s archives, and you’ll find such nonsense clips as Andy Samberg dangling a Christmas wrapped gift box over his person or the theme song from the 1980′s pop-cult cartoon favorite Jem.
I mostly use YouTube as a nostalgia inducer. Whenever I’m sick of looking cheerless saps also known as co-workers in the face, staring down an inky, blinking cursor the tint of faded bone black so much like a Senegalese body thrust against that sharp white background Zora Neale Hurton goes on and on about in How It Feels to be Colored Me or sifting through pesky Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance and Suntrust credit card bills, I flock to YouTube.
The Family Ties theme song, scenes from random Cosby Show episodes or Michael Jackson’s first moonwalk–all these things trigger irrepressibly happy memories of not having any responsibilities and of a world revolving around mom and dad. I need that.
So, yeah, I use YouTube for a selfish end. And what?! You want to fight me?! Didn’t think so, chief! (Yeah, right. The only fight I’ve ever been in was a three-way dispute between me, my umbrella and one helluva windy Monday night. The umbrella won!)
In all seriousness though, YouTube can be used for so much for more than a platform for the mentally insane:
(Is it wrong that I want to hang out with this guy? I sometimes throw tantrums just like this. We would get on famously!)
Or, a haven for the spatially challenged:
Uh, hey, that’s me! No clip necessary.
In his new book, The First Campaign, Garrett Graff mentions that, “The first Democratic National Committee YouTube debate…sought video submission from regular Americans for the candidates…the questions from “real” Americans made an impact that debate moderator Anderson Cooper, even with his abundance of gravitas, could not match.”
For all my cynicism about American politics and all my talk about what this country constantly does wrong, I can honestly say that freedom of speech/advocacy of public discourse is something it does right. The YouTube debates foster this notion of unfiltered voice. Granted, voice was gained in the country at the expense of silencing Native American Indians (many of whom reside on really nifty reservation to this day.) And though freedom of voice for people who like me didn’t come on the first Independence Day (If I had been alive in 1776, I would have been a slave.), I like the fact that in the last 40 years or so, the opportunity to speak freely and lawfully has been extended to everyone. Now, that freedom extends to online content. The YouTube debates offer a platform to all–regardless of race, gender, orientation and socioeconomic status. This is a beautiful thing because I think people like to hear from around-the-way folks. Illusion or not, it seems like there is something inherently honest about everyday citizenry. Where the YouTube debates are concerned, folks might come wearing blue jeans and frowns. I think ordinary people respond to frowns because they see honesty in them. No bs. No pretense. They relate to them more than they do the plastered-on, circus clown grins of suit-clad politicians.
