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How Youtube Shook up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars by Chris Stokel-Walker P4

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How Youtube Shook up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars by Chris Stokel-Walker P4 October-November-December 2019 Vol 124 • No 4 The Proceedings of the YouTubers – How YouTube Shook up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars by Chris Stokel-Walker p4 You Tubers — Done Good Moncure Conway 4 How YouTube 7 Kerry Hudson 11 Nathan C. Alexander Shook up TV London Housing Denialism Richard and George Turner Keith Kahn-Harris Jane Carlile 13 16 19 Robert Forder EDITORIAL Laying the Foundations for the CONWAY HALL ETHICAL SOCIETY Next 100 Years at Conway Hall Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL www.conwayhall.org.uk Jeff Davy Trustees’ Chair: Liz Lutgendorff • Honorary Treasurer: Carl Harrison Please email texts and viewpoints to the Editor: [email protected] Staff IN THIS ISSUE Chief Executive Officer Jim Walsh The Next 100 Years at Conway Hall In 2018 the Trustees created a new full-time role, combination of Marketing and Fundraising approaches [email protected] 3 Jeff Davy now titled Fundraising & Marketing Manager, with within an organisation, usually across departments but, Arts & Partnerships Manager the idea of (re)introducing the idea of fundraising by in our case, in one role (with, of course, much support Martha Lee You Tubers — How YouTube the Ethical Society to contribute to the promotion of from other colleagues). [email protected] 4 Shook up TV our charitable object through events and partnerships, Over several months, including training sessions, Finance Manager Chris Stokel-Walker and the upkeep, renovation and modernisation of mentoring and also sharing ideas and problems with Linda Lamnica the building. other Arts/Charity organisations, the programme [email protected] Done Good challenged our assumptions and tested our thinking, Kerry Hudson Head of Visitor Operations 7 With an eye on the centenary of Conway Hall in 2029, we helping to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our Maggie Nightingale are laying the foundations for a further National Lottery organisation from a fundraising perspective. [email protected] Moncure Conway, Feethought and Heritage Fund application - to provide Resilience What we learned from this has informed, for example, Race in the Nineteenth Century Visitors Services Assistant 11 funding for the support and identification of our our work to define the Society’s Vision & Mission and the Kheira Hadjazi Nathan G. Alexander [email protected] strategic requirements whilst continuing the day-to-day decision to hold a public consultation of our members operation of the Society and building - and for an Appeal and wider audience, to which we had over 500 responses, Systems Manager London Housing Fund, which will seek donations from members and the including that Conway Hall was “The ‘Cathedral’ of Sid Rodrigues 13 George Turner [email protected] wider public. As far as we are aware, not since 1929 will secular culture and thought”. the Society have asked for a formal public subscription One of the most obvious, physical manifestations of Evaluation Officer / Production Editor Ethical Record Denial, Denialism and Post-Denialism this, should you visit Conway Hall, is the kiosk in our Deborah Mohanan 16 Keith Kahn-Harris such as this. [email protected] We are now in a position to do this because of the foyer, which has Marketing and Fundraising in the same ongoing professionalisation of the Society’s unit. Combining an event/room information screen, Fundraising & Marketing Manager Richard and Jane Carlile Jeff Davy 19 Robert Forder administration, including its Trustees, full and part-time forthcoming event information and contactless payment [email protected] staff and volunteers, with new strategies, systems, system, enabling us to take tracked, Individual donations, Marketing Coordinator Dr Harry Stopes-Roe technologies and training being vital to this it has led to a realisation and understanding from Jordan Mitchell 23 Olwen Terris transformation. For example, the Society’s clear visual everyone that sees it that we’re a charity, requiring [email protected] identity, outward-looking marketing and use of a support and donations from members and the wider Digitisation Coordinator Book Review professional voice across different platforms, the Ethical public alike. Alicia Chilcott 25 Into Full Sunlight Record, our website and social media. Another, less visible, achievement has been a [email protected] A key contributor to our approach to this has been an membership increase of 25% since the end of 2018 Upcoming Events Venue Hire Managers Arts Council-funded training project run by the Arts which, as with the preparations for the Appeal Fund Carina Dvorak, Brian Biagioni 27 Marketing Association, which we applied for and were and Centenary, puts us in a much better condition to [email protected] accepted on to. Its title, Shared Ambition, refers to the continue in Conway Hall for another 100 years. Operations Coordinator Please see the Ethical Record section of conwayhall.org.uk Eva Aubrechtova for regularly updated content, additional articles and [email protected] also take a look at the online archive, where every issue Jeff Davy is the Fundraising and Marketing Manager at Conway Hall, bringing published since 1895 is available in digital form. Duty Managers with him many years of events and marketing experience. He has run his own Ola Gierszynska, Adrian Sobers, Atlas Corsini events business and worked in a wide range of venues, here and abroad and is also [email protected], [email protected], To the Members of the Society: Please note that the date of a former professional photographer — but, nowadays, has swapped taking pictures [email protected] the next AGM will be 4 February 2020. of musicians for authors, philosophers and artists at Conway Hall instead. Maintenance Officer The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society. Chris Bird Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash. Registered Charity No. 1156033 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose Charitable Objects are: the [email protected] advancement of study, research and education in humanist ethical principles. 2 Ethical Record | Autumn 2019 | Vol 124/3 Ethical Record | Winter 2019 | Vol 124/4 3 THINKING ON MONDAY LECTURE, 20 May 2019 YouTubers — How YouTube Shook up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars Chris Stokel-Walker “Today, if you’re bored… you can log onto one website and have the world’s biggest cinema screen at your fingertips, Please note: this article contains strong language. simultaneously playing almost the entirety of human history at just a few taps.” The world was very different 15 years ago. If you found yourself bored on an evening, you could turn on the television and select from a small number of channels that were showing programmes they’d picked at a time of their choosing. If you wanted to watch it later, you’d have to set a timer to record the programme on a VHS, and play it back at a later date. Today, if you’re bored – on the bus, toilet or in your looking to express themselves creatively. bedroom – you can log onto one website and have the These were the weirdos, the oddballs – the people world’s biggest cinema screen at your fingertips, who’d sit at the back of classrooms, or who would simultaneously playing almost the entirety of human perform skits for their own entertainment after work. history at just a few taps. The site is YouTube, and it has Except now they could reach an audience of likeminded shaken up our world, obliterated TV and Hollywood, individuals. And soon, they could reach an audience of and created a new generation of stars. even more people. More than 500 hours of footage are uploaded to The site was already massive by 2011, and grew 500% YouTube every single minute of every single day. Some more in the next five years. Today, YouTube is as likely to of it is slickly-produced, repackaged versions of those be home to Hollywood celebrities like Will Smith and same TV shows you’d be watching 15 years ago, or new Jack Black as it is the homegrown heroes that made the programmes produced by traditional broadcasters site so popular. exclusively for the website (TV executives are nothing if The reason for that is recognition. Many people – not a pragmatic bunch: they know when the tide has particularly the young – don’t see the point in turned against them). Some are by amateurs, or one- appointment viewing on television. They’re tired of man bands who have been given extraordinary fortunes seeing the things that a middle-aged channel controller thanks to a stroke of luck, a lot of hard graft, and the (invariably a white man in a suit) wants them to see. power of an all-encompassing platform. They don’t want the same personalities presenting Because that is what YouTube is. Two billion of us log programmes that they’ve always seen. YouTube manages, onto the site every month – in a world where half the even as it reaches maturity and is minting millionaires – global population doesn’t have an internet connection, the biggest of whom is a seven-year-old called Ryan who and a billion and a half more live in China, where opens toys on camera – to keep some of its scrappy, Photo by Zoe Holling on Unsplash YouTube is technically banned. (The country has its backyard spirit. own, vibrant network of online video platforms, many But things are changing. 2019 was the year in which In part this is simply evolution: the young upstart is We should. In 2019, researchers analysed thousands of of which look incredibly similar to YouTube. Its YouTube’s heretofore biggest name, a Swede called becoming older.
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