Machanator

Making YouTube videos are great... until your spouse wants to kill you!

Who needs to be a professional writer? Who needs formal training to edit a video? Who needs 10 years of experience to be the star of a radio show? We can do any of the three in the comfort of our own home. In this time of age, we are the creators of our own media… at least if we choose to be. Rosen pointed out that anyone can be a writer, video producer or even radio broadcaster. I bet in 20 years, more people will be working at home.

As you may know, I am a long time YouTube watcher. I like to watch video to learn new things or just to watch random videos to pass time. Many people that I’m subscribed to have already quit their day jobs to pursue a full time career on YouTube. At first, it was bizarre to me. I mean, who quits their job to make videos? However, if you look at it in different angle, making videos is actually their home business. I love the fact that none of these people received formal training and have no real experience, but yet they can somehow pursue a career in it!

This all ties back to what Rosen says in his article. We are now “formerly known as the audience.” We control what we want to see and we control what we want to put out there. We are now in equal power with those big bad companies.

I can see why people volunteer their time to make these silly images. Not only is it easy to make, but they are so much fun. It took me less than 5 minutes to come up with something witty (at least I think it’s witty!)

I decided to make a meme because it’s all over the web. I never knew where people go to make these and never really bothered to find out. At one point, I thought that you needed to use Photoshop! Well, I’m glad it only takes two clicks and some humor. I will definitely make a few more just for fun!

Mr. Shirky raised an interesting point about TV consumption and unhappy people. He makes the connection that people become more unhappy and lonely because of our “part time job” as a TV watcher.

I automatically thought back to my experiences and my studies. I’m a psychology major and the addiction to TV (games, internet, etc.) is always brought up. It’s quite obvious that it’s becoming a problem.

There’s proposed plans of adding the addiction to TV, video games, internet, etc. to the revised DSM (basically a book of all the mental illnesses.) So in other words, they want to make the addiction of technology a mental disorder. When I first heard about this, I was blown away. I thought people are only addicted to drugs and alcohol but we can also be addicted to technology?

The first person that comes to mind is the boy who went bizarre after his mother cancelled his WOW account. Have you seen this? It’s hilarious but if you think a bit deeper, you might realized what technology is turning many of us into.