YouTube! (and an off-balance summary: response ratio)

This video provides an anthropological approach to analyzing YouTube as a medium. It addresses a variety of aspects of YouTube and the community which has sprung up on the site. Several aspects of the community (vlogging, emotions (positive and negative) associated with that, drama, system-gaming, etc.) are discussed and analyzed. Wesch provides some overarching analysis on the ideas behind the propagation of YouTube: because our culture is becoming more and more independent and self-focused, people seek outlets for things they miss: socialization, community, etc. Even while being alone and speaking to a small glass dot, people are potentially connecting with a billion others all over the globe, and that is no small feat.

Watching this made me realize that I do not remember a time before YouTube's existence. I remember hearing the "Numa Numa" song all over French airwaves in 2004 (my exchange student groaned each time it came on), and I remember the video appearing on YouTube in 2005, but in my memory, the delay was just a cultural one, the general delay that sometimes occurs between things popular in Europe vs. the US. In my mind, "Numa Numa" is a relatively new cultural thing (possibly just because it wasn't new to me when it first went viral), but the more I think about it, I really can't remember what sort of viral videos could have existed before it.

I truly do not fully remember a time when any content I could possibly want was not immediately accessible via YouTube or other internet resources, which I think plays into the idea that our generation is one growing up with the idea of prohibition, the knowledge that much of what we do in our daily lives is in fact illegal. I'm personally quite nervous about the next few years' worth of lawmaking, given that we're already moving in the "make streaming a felony" direction. Sure, much of what is produced on YouTube is illegal, but as Wesch points out, much of it is beautiful as well. Between these laws and potential future tiered internet access plans from major ISPs, this creativity will be cut off.

I feel like it's interesting that the video is less than three years old and it clearly dates itself. Obviously the interface is different, but that's not what I mean. There's no mention of many sites which are huge today (eg Twitter), and some of the examples it presents are so much more clearly served by new examples today (Soulja Boy vs. Justin Bieber). There are a variety of ways to view the site now, especially when considering new browser add-ons which modify it: for months I've been using a Chrome extension which blocks all YouTube comments, and I love it. Maybe this shows a sign of weakness (or ease of irritability) on my part, but it delights me that I can see what I want to see of YouTube while filtering out the (mostly hateful) comments en masse.

These chapters examine two more parts of Made to Stick’s acronym SUCCES: S (Simple) and U (Unexpected). The idea behind “simple” is pretty straightforward: it’s easier to try and put across an idea in its core form—meaning weeding out both trivial and substantial components to get down to the simplest form—without sounding too simplistic or silly, like a sound bite. The technique of journalism’s inverted pyramid is suggested: tell the most important aspect first, then edit, then add details. In presenting the information, it’s easier to use techniques to make the simplest-form idea memorable. Examples include a newspaper editor who likes his paper reflect local issues only—motto “names, names, and names”—and a movie pitch describing a concept in terms of other films—“Speed is Die-Hard on a bus.” The concept in play here is memory schemas: playing with people’s pre-conceived ideas to help them to understand other topics and to reinforce an idea in their heads.

“Unexpected” also makes sense to have ideas stick because it is so integral in keeping an audience’s attention. In this case, you flip mental tendencies on their head: because people like to think in patterns, you break those patterns. Example: a flight attendant doing something different with the pre-takeoff safety announcement. It is important, however, to make sure that in keeping the unexpected unexpected, you stick to something relevant to your message. Random unexpected acts will come off as gimmicky. Mystery is appealing to people because they like trying to figure out what will happen next; if you provide a different conclusion than the one they come up with, they are forced to refine their thought process.

Between "simple" and "unexpected," the most recent ad campaign that came to mind for me was the new Old Spice commercials, although their old marketing operated strongly in this way as well. Both the old and new promote masculinity and a type of suaveness that will somewhat possess men who use their products. Both rely on interactivity as an unexpected quality: the old Old Spice campaign had a site with humorous masculinity-related quizzes and a phone hotline to call. The new campaign initially captured viewers with its unexpectedness within commercials ("I'm on a horse") and has since progressed to individualization via YouTube.

This chapter in Design to Thrive describes the “S” of RIBS, Significance. One of the most important qualities which draws users into a group is significance; it’s important that people feel that their membership in this group means something and places them into a unique group. The paradox of exclusivity comes into play here: as Dr. Howard puts it, people “want to be part of a group, but they don’t want to be another face in the crowd.” People want groups to be exclusive and want to feel special for being a part of a group, but as a leader it’s important to be simultaneously inclusive and involve as many valuable group members as possible. Tied in with this is the idea of social capital: the more connections made within an exclusive group elevates an individual’s “social capital” as they “collect” these connections. Connections which are significant value quality over quantity, preferring individualized communication and campaigning. This individualization can manifest through extant members of the community, as seen via the “six degrees of separation” experiment: quality interaction with individuals or friends who are already members of a given community will give on-the-fencers more reason to join or behave in a certain way. This chapter also brings up the idea of Clive Thompson’s “influentials theory,” which suggests some nodes within the degrees of separation are more valuable than others when it comes to word of mouth: connectors (people who seem to know everybody), mavens (enthusiasts about a certain subject), and salesmen (people interested in sharing information and persuading people to act). There are a variety of ways to locate and convince these influentials to participate in the community; however, part of what you choose depends on whether you want a small, exclusive community with a focused purpose or a large, open community.

As I did in my post about the previous chapter, I’m going to try and combine my summary of the techniques listed for developing significance in Design to Thrive with my own personal experience both running and being a part of an online community.
1. Provide a story that shares a vision – we’ve dealt extensively with storytelling in other chapters, but the more I think about it I’m unsure any community I’m part of has a true overarching vision. I tend to encounter smaller stories which make me feel like I’m part of something important, which have power for me when I factor in quantity in addition to quality. A group can do a positive overarching thing or many smaller positive accomplishments; either is adequate in my experience.
2. List members’ accomplishments – in my personal experience I’m not sure I’ve encountered this much either, although it has also been addressed in other chapters. I certainly understand the appeal in joining a group which contains accomplished members and which I know will celebrate my future accomplishments whenever I… accomplish them.
3. Participate in influential communities to create trails back to yours – this is something I’m hugely familiar with; most of the communities I have run have relied on gathering members from other communities. Most of our membership booms happened not due to explicit advertising but due to polarizing events in the other large communities. Word-of-mouth spread that our other community existed where the moderators (myself and some friends) were friendly to the point of view held by these sometimes-disgruntled users, and we would have an influx of members with one drop of the community’s name due to these users’ previous knowledge of us (the moderators) via our participation in these other, larger communities.
4. Build your social network or community in a custom space – all the communities I’ve run have been through livejournal, and I cannot stress this point enough. Services do not always consider the complaints of their users and are not always shy about implementing huge and horrifying changes in policy. I am still there only because the communities I love are still there.
5. Make connections with other leaders in social media – connections with other social media outlets adds credibility to your group. I haven’t experienced this much personally aside from occasional special coupons offered to members of a certain group or specialized advertising, but based on Dr. Howard’s LinkedIn/Amazon example in the book, I certainly understand how that would be appealing.
6. Celebrate celebrities – I’ve only been a Redditor for about 4 or 5 months now, and this has been one of the most delightful things about the site for me. Reddit seems to foster camaraderie (or hivemind, if you want to be more cynical), and it’s appealing to know that you are part of a group including many actual celebrities within the community and that you can theoretically interact with them personally. Stephen Colbert has been a big supporter of the site; more recently I’ve seen both Ken Jennings and the IBM team behind Watson supply AMAs (Ask Me Anything posts, in which users can ask questions and upvote the best). In smaller subreddits, the effect can be more subtle; for example, in r/ArcherFX (a subreddit devoted to FX’s television series Archer), some series animators and writers are members and are denoted as such in parentheses next to their usernames.
7. Create a contest, game, or video – contests have been huge fun in every community I’ve ever been part of, especially ones where I have a more personal connection with the group members. I’m honestly a little afraid to get into the sorts of things I’ve done for these contests and games for fear that traces would be found on the internet, but rest assured my participation has been extensive, and it was all a huge amount of fun.
8. Mobilize your existing members – this is something that frequently comes up in most communities I’m part of, but it’s usually not super effective because it doesn’t effectively provide the win-win scenario described in Design to Thrive. Obviously, by participating in a group, people will automatically tend to see that group as more valuable in a sort of conformation bias-y way.