The YouTubes

Posted on 04/23/2009 at 11:25 pm by Bob Cesca

I spend a lot of time on YouTube, mainly because I inexplicably committed to posting an awesome or interesting video every morning. And so here are a few things about YouTube that are kicking my ass these days.

1) “Embedding disabled by request.” Why? You’re posting your video for free. Whether it’s viewed on YouTube for free or on my blog for free is completely irrelevant. It’s all free.

2) 99 percent of the most viewed videos on YouTube are awful or unfunny. It makes me sad for what appears to be the totally loss of, you know, good taste. Instead of dropping videos that violate copyright laws, YouTube ought to go through and delete every video that violates the laws of taste: mainly any video made by a hipster ranting into his webcam about items from Yahoo’s “Weird News” page or videos of guys using a silly voice. And not necessarily in that order.

3) Cellphone concert bootlegs. Here’s me scrambling for a video at half-past-dark in the morning: Oh look! I’ve never seen that Death Cab video. [clicks thumbnail] BBRBBBBBRBRBRRRRRRRRR! The obnoxious atomic belch noise (also known as the awful sound of a rock concert recorded on a shitty cellphone) erupts from my laptop speakers. Neighborhood dogs start barking. Car alarms go off. My wife throws waffles at me.

My wish for YouTube is that quality and taste will eventually win the day, and the crappy videos, much like the shittiest MySpace pages — the ones with purple text on top of blue tie-dye backgrounds — will go away. Soon.

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  • gypsy

    ha-lay-lu-ya bob! and might i add videos that look like they’ll have some decent semi porn only to be a religious freak screaming “STOP SINNING! JESUS LOVES YOU!” i mean, i had heard once that that happens… (giggles)

  • jane

    Sleepy Bob Needs Sleep.

  • http://broadwaycarl.blogspot.com Broadway Carl

    Why is your wife making waffles at half-past-dark?

  • http://www.osborneink.com Matt Osborne

    The problem with YouTube is the lack of a filter. About 99% of all art is crap — whether written, recorded, or painted. In the wild-west environment of YouTube, you have to sift through piles of shit to locate nuggets of gold.

  • Shelley Bee
  • http://emsique.blogspot.com emsique

    Bob, I love this blog, and I love what you do, but quit whining! I’m in the PRC and for the last 3 weeks the dream police here have blocked Youtube. I like to use videos for teaching my English students about America. Yes there is a ton of shit on Youtube, but when I need a clip of some classical music, skateboarders, ballet, rodeo, fat people, Janis Joplin, etc I have a much greater chance of finding them on Youtube than on Youku.com, 56.com, ku6.com or any of the other Chinese sites.Appreciate the freedom you have to wade through a bunch of total shit in order to find the gems you want.

  • idreamofskiba

    My thoughts exactly!

  • rogect8

    emisque – That may be true. But on the other hand, I have a much better chance of finding pirated television shows on youku and 56.Bob, I’m afraid that hoping for quality and taste to win the day is going to end in severe disappointment.

  • Jack

    Almost always, when I click on an embedded Youtube link from your site, it either doesn’t work at all or I can’t get any audio. I’ve tried this from FireFox, Explorer, Opera, and Netscape. Is this a Youtube problem, GDAB problem, or is it just me?

  • http://www.osborneink.com Matt Osborne

    Jack, I think it might be only you. Which is to say it sounds like you’ve got a corrupted Flash file somewhere. Have you tried reinstalling Flash?

  • Tusz

    Jack: I was having that problem too. Then I updated Flash to the latest version for a different site, and now it’s fine. Try that.Bob: just remember Sturgeon’s Law: “ninety percent of everything is crap.” Unfortunately, nothing about that law says that the other ten is what most people will actually watch.

  • http://www.deusexmalcontent.com Chez

    Mere words can’t express how much I fucking hate the Universal Music Group for disabling the embedding for every one of their artists.Course it makes sense, since Uni owns NBC and we’ve all seen the good they’re doing there.

  • Ajabu

    Bob:Welcome to the wonderful world of art. I sometimes get very frustrated that after four decades of perfecting my craft (in jazz music) I’m at the peak of my abilities and it directly coincides with my descent into musical obscurity. I’ve become a walking anachronism. I tried to explain to my son that there was a time when to make records you had to actually have some ability with voice or instrument. Now you merely have to be young, cute and curse in rhyme. Mediocrity prevails.Fuck it. Sorry for the rant. I continually find a niche and keep on keeping on. YouTube just reflects the general culture.Every once in a while we fuck them up (as in electing a competent president…) The yahoos can’t stand it.Ars Gratia Artis!!

  • Chauncy

    Bob, Have you tried vimeo?

  • http://www.innerdialog.com MobiWan

    Bob, I think this has less to do with YouTube and EVERYTHING to do with all the people that use it. So, learn to enjoy be dissapointed.

  • http://muchrejoicing.net Jeremiah G

    Two thoughts.1) mmm waffles2) stupid kids get off my youtube lawn! :)

  • ElMystico

    Waste. Of. Waffles.

  • Nanotyrannus

    I had to disable embedding on the Enterprise composite I did because it had been embedded at some site that sells sci-fi toys. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much but no one had asked. For another user to showcase it would have been fine, but I didn’t want it on a commercial site with no reference to who had done it, who had created the models, etc etc.