To Tube or Not to Tube...

To tube or not to tube?  That is the question that I have been thinking about recently.  And while it may seem silly to be thinking about that, it all stems from one idea that occurred during one conversation that I had with one friend about one month ago.  Since then I’ve had the same discussion with many people.

The discussion is about internet presence and getting your voice heard.  Because Youtube is such a large video sharing platform it is constantly being used meaning, consequently, that the second you post a video more people will see it and they will find it at a faster rate.  This means that any important message I have or story that I want to share will be seen by more people.

So it sounds great and while getting your message out there is fantastic there can be drawbacks involved with youtubing.  I’m going to go through the positives and the negatives so I can decide what to do.

I’ve already gone through my first positive point.  Having a presence and getting your message out there is a positive simply because people see youtube videos faster.

The negative aspect of youtube being such a large sharing platform is that there are so many youtubers already and so many videos that it is hard to be original and completely unique.  If you want to be original maybe it’s easier to do that by blogging where people can’t compare you to someone else.

The next pro youtube argument is that by creating videos the viewers see you as a person as opposed to some words on a page.

A negative aspect of Youtube is the ability for people to send ‘hate’ comments towards someone.  On a blog the only thing the public see are your words and therefore hurtful comments wouldn’t be given, or if they were they could be easily dismissed.

On a blog you can also block the comments bar and therefore not receive these comments.  I am unsure of whether you can do that on youtube videos.

The following positive argument is that videos provide the creator with the ability to use their tone of voice to convey a point.  If I was to write in a blog:  “Oh no, It’s Halloween soon,”  you may not know how to respond.  This is because you don’t know if I am being sarcastic, genuine, pessimistic or silly.  If I was to say the same sentence in a youtube video you would know what I am talking about and you could determine my attitude.

A negative argument though would be the time and money put towards decent videos.  The main reason I don’t upload to blog very much is because of an increasing pile of school work that doesn’t go away when ignored.  So, do I really have the time that would be required to make and edit and upload youtube videos???  Perhaps not.  Also, video cameras and editing software can be expensive.  However, I feel that this wouldn’t be a problem because my family owns a basically unused video camera that I may ‘borrow’  and my school computer comes with iMovie, which would be fine to start off my editing with.

My final positive argument is what I stated at the beginning.  One thing I love about watching youtube videos is that I get to listen to people tell me their opinions and use their own voice and I would love to do that too.

So in conclusion, what’s the verdict?  The verdict is this.  I think that youtubing is something I would like to try.  I want to be able to get my message out there and to be able to connect with anyone that may share my opinion.

So why not?  I’m going to give it a go.  And you guys should all go check out my youtube channel www.youtube.com/user/beinggeorgiarose.

FOTP:  Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.