About

YouTube^[1] is a video hosting and sharing website created in February 2005. With eight hundred million unique visitors a month, it is one of the most trafficked websites on the internet along with Facebook and Google.

History

Although YouTube is often considered one of the early trendsetters in the social media game, other video-hosting platforms like Metacafe and Vimeo had been in existence prior to the launch of YouTube in 2005. According to one of the co-founders Jawed Karim, YouTube was originally envisioned as the video version of the beauty rating site Hot or Not, which has been also credited as the source of inspiration for the social networking service Facebook.

The site was founded by three former employees of PayPal, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim on February 14th,^[7] 2005 and the first YouTube video titled "Me at the zoo" was uploaded on April 23rd, which featured one of the co-founders Jawed Karim in front of elephants at the San Diego Zoo. The beta version of the site became publicly available in May of that year, followed by its official launch in November 2005.

The registered userbase continued to grow rapidly in the following months. By July 2006, the company revealed an impressive record of 65,000 new uploads and 100 million video views per day. In October 2006, Google announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock^[10]; the deal was finalized in mid-November.

Redesigns

On March 31st, 2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site.

In November 2011, the Google+ social networking site was integrated directly with YouTube and the Chrome web browser, allowing YouTube videos to be viewed from within the Google+ interface (shown below, left). In December 2011, YouTube launched a new version of the site interface (shown below, right), with the video channels displayed in a central column on the home page, similar to the news feeds of social networking sites.

  

On June 5th, 2013, Google rolled out the new "One Channel" interface for YouTube, enabling all users to customize their channels with a cover photograph and an introductory video. According to Google's official blog post, the "One Channel" could lead to an increase in getting new subscribers and channel visits.

2017 Redesign

On August 29th, 2017, YouTube redesigned its website, tweaking the logo, interface, and typeface of the website.^[36] The logo has been tweaked such that the brand's iconic red play button is in front of the word "YouTube," rather than have the word "Tube" highlighted in red. The company also announced several new features on its blog.^[37] New features include the ability to swipe to previous and next videos on the site's mobile app, allowing mobile users to change the speed of a video like desktop users can, and double-tapping to fast-forward or rewind a video.

YouTube Music Awards

On October 1st, 2013, Google announced its plan to host the first YouTube Music Awards, a live-stream ceremony event to recognize and highlight the most influential musicians of the year.^[25] The event, which is to be held at Pier 36 in New York City on November 3rd, will be co-hosted by actor-musicians Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts and feature live performances by Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire and Eminem, ^[26] as well as five music events that will be simulcast from Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow, London and Rio de Janeiro. On October 22nd, YouTube unveiled the list of nominees in six categories for the inaugural event,^[27] along with an introductory video in which the co-host Reggie Watts asks the viewers to vote for the winning acts (shown below).

Google+ Comments Update

On September 24th, 2013, the YouTube Official Blog^[28] announced the beta launch of an improved commenting system that is more closely integrated with the Google+ social networking service, which was subsequently implemented across-the-board on November 6th. Upon its release, YouTube's new commenting system was instantly met by criticisms and backlash from the community, mainly for requiring a Google+ account to comment on any video and prioritizing the visibility of comments made by friends on Google+ without having established a significant user base.

On November 7th, 2013, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted a comment on the site asking why the Google social networking service was required for commenting. Throughout the day, a number of video bloggers uploaded their own response videos to address the intergration issues in the new commenting system, most notably YouTubers Cr1TiK (shown below, top, left), somegreybloke (shown below, top, right), Jon (shown below, bottom, left) and Gopher (shown below, bottom, right).

Meanwhile, some YouTubers created short animations to vent their frustration with YouTube's Google+ commenting system (shown below).

Subscription Counter Glitch

On February 6th, 2017, YouTuber BlackScreenTV discovered a major glitch on the site that counted each unsubscription from a channel as two, which could be easily exploited by trolls to diminish the audience base of popular YouTube channels. To demonstrate the glitch, BlackScreenTV started a livestream session^[29] showing the drastic decrease in subscribers on some of YouTube's most popular channels, including PewDiePIe, H3h3Productions, The Young Turks, LeafyIsHere and Keemstar, as well as iDubbbz and Tana Mongeau, who had recently engaged each other in a feud over their use of a racist slur against black people.

By February 8th, YouTuber BlackScreenTV's livestream video had reached the front page of Reddit^[33] and 4chan's /pol/ board^[34], further inviting a massive influx of trolls who would repeatedly subscribe and unsubscribe from channels in order to bring the counter down below zero. As a result, the subscription base for a number of popular YouTube channels targeted in the raid dipped into negative numbers.

Later that day, YouTube^[35] tweeted an official response explaining that the malfunction was prompted by an update implemented on February 6th and the company is working to fix the glitch. By 4:00 p.m. (EST) on February 9th, several tech news outlets^[30][31][32] reported that the glitch in the subscription counter appears to have been fixed.

Extremist Video Prohibition

On August 1st, 2017, YouTube announced that they would implement a feature where extremist and supremacist videos that technically did not violate any rules would be put in a "limited state," meaning they are hidden and cannot make money.^[38] An automated system identifies and flags such videos. In their blog post, YouTube announced that "over 75%" of videos of this nature were removed before being flagged by a user. The system, however, is imperfect. On August 24th, YouTuber Philip DeFranco went into some of the problems with the algorithm, including that the algorithm deleted videos dedicated to the war in Syria. The video has over 1 million views (shown below). Also on the 24th, Bloomberg^[39] posted an article about the new restrictions.

Features

The basic features of YouTube consists of uploading videos, watching videos uploaded by other users and interacting with other users via comments and response videos. Unregistered visitors can watch videos without ever signing up for an account, but the registration is required for uploading videos and commenting on other uploads. YouTube initially allowed users to upload long-format videos, but later implemented a ten-minute length limit on all uploads in March 2006 after learning that the majority of videos exceeding the ten minute mark were unauthorized or copyright-infringing materials such as TV show episodes and films.

Easter Eggs

Premium Channels

On January 29th, 2013, the advertising industry news blog AdAge^[21] published an article reporting that YouTube has a plan to launch paid subscriptions for a select few channels in April. The article included a quote from a Google spokesperson, who stated that the company believed certain types of content require alternative payment models. On the following day, YouTuber PrettyMuchIt uploaded a video in support of the idea, asserting that paid subscriptions could provide users with more options and better content (shown below, left). Also on January 30th, YouTuber Lamarr Wilson uploaded a video in which he criticized the paid subscription model (shown below, right), arguing that no one should have to pay for content on the video-sharing site.

On May 9th, YouTube launched the pilot program for its paid subscription service,^[15] offering its users free trial access to premium content published by more than 50 channels for the first two weeks, after which a monthly fee ranging from $0.99 to $7.99 would be charged per subscription.^[16] In the coming days, the new service was reported on by Yahoo,^[17]CNN,^[20] The Wall Street Journal^[19] and CNET^[18] among many others. As of May 10th, there are 54 paid channels available, including Sesame Street, National Geographic, Rap Battle Network, Recipe.TV and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Impact

Since its launch and subsequent rise to prominence, YouTube has played an essential role in the creative process of internet memes in a multitude of ways, foremostly as the ground zero site of countless viral videos and spawning pool of user-generated videos, and secondly as the primary exchange ground for social commentaries and discussions on topical events. The site's strong affinity with both amateur vloggers and mainstream media outlets also gave rise to an uncharted era of citizen journalism, public discourse and internet stardom, thus establishing itself as a hub site of user-generated content.

2013 YouTube Study

In June 2013, undergraduate media students at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois released a 175-page report^[22] on YouTube's most popular content creators and their contributing factors. Conducted over the course of the Spring semester in 2013, the study analyzed the statistical data of YouTube's 241 most viewed channels to deduce a number of commonly observed practices that may contribute to their online popularity. Among its key findings^[23][24] were:

2018 SXSW Interactive Interview

On March 13th, 2018, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki was interviewed by Wired Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Thompson at the South by Southwest Interactive event in Austin, Texas (shown below).

In the interview, Wojcicki announced that additional information, referred to as "information cues," would be added alongside conspiracy theory videos, which could include passages from alternative sources like Wikipedia (shown below).

Additionally, Wojcicki revealed that YouTube content moderators were limited to viewing disturbing videos for only four hours each day, saying "I myself have spent a lot of time looking at this content over the past year. It is really hard."

Firearm Content Policy

On March 20th, 2018, YouTube announced a new content policy update prohibiting videos used to "sell firearms or certain firearm accessories" or provide "instructions on manufacturing a firearm, high capacity magazine, homemade silencers/suppressors, or certain firearms accessories."^[41]

That day, the channel Spike's Tactical was suspended from the site, leading the channel's Instagram and Facebook page to post an update criticizing the new policy (shown below). On March 21st, Bloomberg^[42] reported that a YouTube spokeswoman claimed that the channel was "reinstated after it was mistakenly removed." Meanwhile, the InRange TV Facebook^[42] page announced that they would be mirroring their content on an adult website in case their channel was removed from YouTube.

Google News Initiative

On March 20th, 2018, Google released a video announcing the Google News Initiative (GNI), with the state goal to "elevate quality journalism" and "empower news organizations to leverage technology for innovation in newsrooms" (shown below).

On July 9th, 2018, the YouTube Official Blog^[43] published an announcement that the video sharing platform was taking steps to support the GNI by annotating conspiracy videos with "authoritative context" using text from online encyclopedias, including Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, and would feature links on search result pages to news sources, including Vox Media, Jovem Pan and India Today. The post revealed that $25 million would be committed to YouTube's GNI efforts.

Prank Ban

On January 14th, 2019, YouTube updated its guidelines to ban any dangerous pranks that are harmful to the individual in the video or others, including emotional harm that could lead to traumatic effects.^[44] This included instances like the Tide Pod Challenge and Fire Challenge. ^[45] Though not mentioned specifically by YouTube, the announcement came after a participant in the Bird Box Challenge caused a car accident.^[46] The site is giving users a two-month grace period to review their content and will work to remove videos that violate the new policy.

Subscriber Change

On May 21st, 2019, YouTube^[47] announced in a blog post that "starting in August 2019, [YouTube] begin showing the abbreviated subscriber number across all public YouTube surfaces." Many YouTubers became became disappointed in the decision and voiced concerns over third-party analytics sites like Social Blade. On May 23rd, Keemstar^[48]tweeted "#SaveSocialBlade YouTube plans to stop real time live sub counts! (RT) & post your own tweet to #SaveSocialBlade" (shown below, left). The tweet gained over 6,400 retweets and 17,500 likes in a week. The hashtag used in many posts against the new subscriber policy. On May 29th, 2019, Social Blade^[49] "Update: We had the call with YouTube & voiced our & your concerns along with solutions we think would be better suited. They took a lot of notes to share with the team in charge of this. Not sure if anything will change but its a start. We asked for a followup next week" (shown below, right). The tweet gained over 1,000 likes in a day.

Removing Extremist Videos

On June 5th, 2019, YouTube ^[50] announced in a blog post that they would be "removing more hateful and supremacist content," "reducing borderline content and raising up authoritative voices" and, finally, "continuing to reward trusted creators and enforce our monetization policies." That day, The New York Times^[51], quoted a YouTube spokesperson who said, "The kind of content that will be prohibited under YouTube’s new hate speech policies includes videos that claim Jews secretly control the world, that say women are intellectually inferior to men and therefore should be denied certain rights, or that suggest that the white race is superior to another race."

That same day, Journalist Ford Fischer^[52] announced that, "Within minutes of @YouTube's announcement of a new purge it appears they caught my outlet, which documents activism and extremism, in the crossfire. I was just notified my entire channel has been demonetized. I am a journalist whose work there is used in dozens of documentaries" (shown below). The tweet gained over 1,900 likes and 900 retweets in several hours. He goes on to say, "This attack on independent journalists who film/track extremism is not without precedent."

The Harris Poll Top Preferred Professions

On July 15th, 2019, The Harris Poll^[53] published a survey commissioned by LEGO which surveyed 3,000 children from China, the UK, and the United States on their attitudes toward space travel. When asked "What do you want to be when you grow up" most children in China said astronaut while in the UK and the United States most children answered YouTuber (shown below).^[54]

Related Memes

Largely due to the broad range of content hosted on the site and its virtual monopoly over video hosting services, the scope of this section is limited to internet memes that have emerged as a result of interacting with other users or using a specific feature on the site. For more comprehensive listings of viral videos and catchphrases that have originated from YouTube, check out KYM Tag – Origin:YouTube. For an index of notable YouTube video bloggers and celebrities, browse KYM Tag – Origin:YouTube Category:Person.

Traffic

As of January 2012, YouTube has a Quantcast^[2] US score of 3, Alexa^[3] Global and US rank of 3, and Compete^[4] rank of 4. On January 23rd, 2012, YouTube announced^[5] that it was receiving an average of more than four billion views a day on both computers and mobile web, as well as an hourlong worth of footage uploaded per second. To better illustrate the vast numbers and statistics associated with YouTube videos, YouTube launched the site One Hour Per Second^[6] in December 2011.

Search Interest

Search queries for YouTube began to increase visibly in February 2006 and the total volume of online interest has been steadily on the rise ever since.

External References