Culture Mission Reflection

 Hi, guys!

source

This mission really did open my eyes, especially about the downsides to YouTube. I knew there were downsides, as every social media has but I didn’t think much into it.  Overall though, I think I did learn a lot doing this research and presentation. I did actually research into vlog styles too and seeing about cameras and everything. I decided to just use my phone to vlog as I didn’t want to carry around my big camera, it was very big and I was afraid I would’ve dropped it. I also learned that these types of things are much easier when you actually have an interest and a previous knowledge on the topic! 

As I researched the downside to YouTube is the whole situation of monetization. YouTube really need to find a better technique to sort out what is “advertiser” friendly and what is not! Some of the words that get you instantly demonetized are very strange. Obviously, some make sense and that’s fine but words like Brazil, Gays and New Zealand are just a bit strange. I don’t see why they would be instantly flagged as not advertiser-friendly. But this is down to the software (bot) they use, it sees a word and instantly thinks it’s bad. Obviously, you can get this problem looked at if you think your video is advertiser-friendly, but you have to hit a certain amount of views in the next 24 hours for an actual person to look at this. 

source

I think I could’ve done a bit more, especially down to the fact I kept forgetting to vlog. I think if I was to vlog more of my day and give better content. Hopefully, though our class will enjoy our video and think it’s good. It’s hard to tell how a video will do until you actually see how it does. I think this is down to being your own worst critique. I think if I started a bit earlier it would’ve been better and I wouldn’t have rushed. I didn’t rush too much but still at points I was stressed trying to do everything at once. 

I think the three of us in the group worked well together. We didn’t argue about anything and everything was clear on what to do from the get-go! We all agreed on what to do straight away, so I’m very happy about that. It honestly could’ve gone horribly as none of us was friends before this started and I really didn’t know anything about them apart from their names before this. I think this is a great opportunity to get to know people. 

Although there are downsides to YouTube it obviously has its perks, getting paid to post a video of you having fun and just showing people your day really is great. It’s not the best money but what do you expect? I also learned a lot about the history of YouTube, I use the app daily but really didn’t know much about it's passed except for YouTubers who have been posting for years, almost since the beginning of it. 

Overall, I am very happy with all the work and I hope you can see the hard work I’ve put in between the blogs, the slides, the video and the reflection. I do think I have done better in this than the last mission and hopefully, in the next mission, I can do even better again!  

source

Thanks for reading!!

Talk soon, 

Megan

YouTube Update

Hi Guys!

Source

A little update about the YouTube presentation. So we decided as a group that we would each film a day in our lives at college and make a video with all three of us in it. So this post will be all about the video and what we did and what we're gonna do. 

So I started off my day as normal but of course, I had to vlog every minute of it, well, try to anyway. A vlog is a genre of YouTube videos, it is short for a video blog. You can have a sit-down vlog, a daily vlog, and many others! Basically, you’re just telling the camera about stuff that happened or you’re bringing your camera around with you and filming your day. This is what we decided to do, we thought it would be very interesting to show our daily lives to people. Even for each other to see how our day varies. Yes, we are in the same course and class so all our classes are the same but that could be the only thing we have in common. 

I wasn’t very good at vlogging, I kept forgetting to film. When I did remember to film it was usually in places I couldn’t just whip my phone out and start talking to it. I really think though this mission brought me out of my comfort zone. Before doing this I would never even think about vlogging in public. It is a scary concept to me, people look at you like you’re crazy just sitting/walking-talking to your phone and filming yourself hahaha. So the times I did vlog was in the morning, as I was leaving for the bus, at lunch, on the train home and when I got home that evening. Thursday (which was when I filmed the vlog) was the busiest day I could’ve picked, we were off Friday in college due to the graduations being held so I was going back home to Roscommon straight after college. So, of course, I forgot to vlog after college and didn’t remember to vlog again until I was on the train home. I tried to get a bit of footage while on the train and it was packed with people so it was the best I could do hahaha.

Source

I did gain a bit of confidence while doing it though, I just had to realize who cares what people think. You’re doing this and you’re having fun which I think is the main thing. I also kind of felt like what it would be like to be an actual YouTuber. Obviously on a smaller scale but still felt it. 

I’m very happy I picked this topic and I’m happy I had to pair up with people I didn’t speak to before this as it added something different to it. I’m nervous but excited to see how the presentation goes on Wednesday morning. I’m very nervous to see how the video turns out and if people like it or think it’s silly. But hey, we tried our best and put our all into it and that’s all that matters. 

Image source

Thanks for reading,

Talk soon,

Megan.

YouTube Presentation

Hi guys!!

This is a little blog post about our new intro to digital media mission!! This mission is "culture", I decided to pick the topic YouTube. I decided this because I love YouTube and I watch many videos on the platform daily, far too many to actually count hahaha! I love how you can connect with people over a simple video, it is honestly amazing. I also love how people can literally go from nothing to being one of the biggest people on the planet. You can post a simple video on YouTube of you singing and the next thing you know your new album is top of the charts. This has happened to so many people including Justin Bieber. It is such a powerful platform. The quality of videos on it nowadays is incredible some are basically like Hollywood films, people are so talented and it's great they have a platform to show this off in. So because of all this, this is why I chose this mission. 

David Dobrik - Famous Youtuber with 14.7 million subscribers. image from dailydot

As I have said I adore YouTube, but not everything about it is a good thing. The main thing in this mission that I want to look into and do my part of the presentation is about monetization. Monetization is basically making money by posting videos on YouTube. YouTube puts advertisements onto the videos you post and that generates money. But they can also take the advertisements off, this is called demonetization. This happens when YouTube think your video isn't suitable for advertisements. This has been known to cause a lot of controversies as it is a software that decides if your video is suitable or not. Of course, we know you can’t always trust computers to do human work. So what has happened is that the software is demonetizing videos that shouldn’t be demonetized including a lot of LGBTQ+ videos. This has come under a lot of fire. So I wanted to bring more attention on this and research more into it and I thought this was the perfect opportunity. So I researched a lot into this and of course since the topic is on YouTube a lot of them were YouTube videos that I watched. I came across this video of a guy who went and tested all the words that can get you monetized or demonetized. The list of words are very strange, using words like North Carolina and South Carolina in your title or description will get your demonetized whereas North Korea won’t. Which to be fair doesn’t really make sense. Not sure what North or South Carolina ever did to YouTube hahaha. This guy tested so many words and he put them all into an Excel type of document and listed them below the video, so I did go through the whole list which was a lot of words. I just found it very interesting to read and try to understand why this is happening.

It wasn’t too hard to find the research because of the YouTube algorithm suggests videos like ones you’ve watched as to watch next. So without realizing I was in a binge-watching of all these videos but were all very interesting and brought up very valid points. So yes, YouTube can be used as a new way of expressing your creativity but it does have a bad side and of course this is only a minor thing really there is also the whole algorithm, where YouTube hasn’t been showing people new videos from certain topics at all, frankly they’re topics that need to be discussed too, like mental health and LGBTQ+ topics to name a few. I do believe though that this can get better and I really think it will, especially when people are raising their voices about the topic!

source

Thanks for reading, and as always I’ll update you all soon on how this is going!!

Talk soon, 

Megan