New Media 5: YouTube and short-form videos

Early YouTube

It is difficult to imagine now, but there was a time when sharing videos online was impossible. The best way to show what you filmed to friends was by showing them on your camera, computer, or giving them your SD card, so they could view the file on their PC.

Home-made videos were blurry and often uninteresting to other people, but as video camera prices fell, more people started recording themselves, their friends or pets for fun. Until three friends and former colleagues decided to create YouTube in 2005: an online video dating platform.

You heard that right. Inspired by the website “Hot or Not”, where visitors could rate user-submitted photos, YouTube was supposed to become a platform where people could submit their videos to be rated and maybe score a date. Nobody cared for the dating site, but people enjoyed sharing their random videos with strangers.

You can still view the first-ever video uploaded to YouTube of co-founder Jawed Karim in the zoo in April 2005. By November that year, a video of Ronaldinho was the first video to get a million views. As the website had moved away from their video dating concept, their audience grew. Videos couldn’t be longer than 30 seconds at the time.

Broadcast Yourself

One year later in 2006. Google bought YouTube for 1.65 billion, changing the slogan to “Broadcast Yourself”. YouTube was the first website where you could simply upload your own videos, and share them on upcoming social media like MySpace. Over time, YouTube would develop into a social medium, fostering interactions and allowing users to like, comment and subscribe to creators.

The platform grew while viral videos popped up left and right. Psy’s Gangnam Style, would be the first video to surpass 1 billion views, soon followed by the music video for Baby by Justin Bieber. Early YouTubers like Fred (first YouTuber to get 1 million subscribers), Ray William Johnson, Smosh (the first channel to get 10 million subscribers), and PewDiePie (first YouTuber to get 50 million subscribers) made YouTube into a successful career. The rest, as they say, is history.

In 2012, YouTube changed its algorithm to recommend videos based on watch time (the time people spent watching a video) rather than just the number of views. This fundamentally changed the way people interacted with the platform: people spent more time on the platform, while clicking less. Suggested videos became the main source of traffic, rather than people coming in via the search function or Google.

Video on social media

Filming and uploading videos became easier with the advent of the smartphone, too. Other video platforms popped up while video content kept gaining momentum. By 2013, an app called Vine became incredibly popular until it was discontinued in 2017. Many “Viners”, like David Dobrik and Logan Paul, turned to YouTube to continue their careers as content creators. With a maximum length of six seconds, the platform popularized shorter videos.

While YouTube allowed their videos to become longer after having a 10-minute time limit until 2010, short form content is still thriving after Vine is long gone. TikTok, of course, is all about short videos, and inspired other social media like Instagram to focus on short-form videos instead of images.

Students fill in a worksheet to reflect on their favorite video content and compare YouTube and TikTok. Afterwards, a class discussion tackles why video content has become so popular in the last decades.

Worksheet

YouTube

• What YouTubers do you like?
• What do you find interesting about them and their videos? Answer per creator.
• What do they do to grab and keep your attention?

TikTok

• What TikTokers do you like?
• What do you find interesting about them and their videos? Answer per creator.
• What do they do to grab and keep your attention?

Overall

• What are the main similarities and differences between your favorite YouTube and TikTok creators and their videos?
• What makes online video content good and enjoyable?

Students share some of their worksheet answers with the class and reflect.

Next up, the class will discuss the following question:

Why did video content become so popular over the last decade?

The following angles can be used to introduce new perspectives:

Availability

• On-demand watching

Creators

• User-generated content
• Amateurs/professionals
• Short/long videos

Technology

• Smartphone availability
• Smartphone video quality
• Increasing internet speeds
• Social media
• Web 1.0 and 2.0

Business

• Attention economy (getting and holding people’s attention online)
• Algorithms
• Advertising
• Video as a marketing tool

Types of content

• Entertainment
• Storytelling
• Education
• News

1. Will the rise of online video platforms lead to the end of traditional TV?
2. Is it good that YouTube creators are paid based on the performance of their videos?
3. Is a viral video a good video?
4. How does the attention economy influence the quality of video content?
5. Do algorithms that aim to keep you on a platform have an unhealthy relationship with YouTube/social media?