Poetics of Early YouTube: Production, Performance, Success Rainer Hillrichs Published in 2016 by the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn © 2016 Rainer Hillrichs. All rights reserved. Cover illustration: Frames from The Cat Fight, © 2006 Pedro Morbeck, reproduced by permission. The reproduction of other third-party material in this work is granted by German Copyright (UrhG §51). Suggested citation: Rainer Hillrichs, Poetics of Early YouTube: Production, Performance, Success. Bonn: ULB, 2016. Poetics of Early YouTube: Production, Performance, Success Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn vorgelegt von Rainer Hillrichs aus Leer, Ostfriesland Bonn 2016 Gedruckt mit der Genehmigung der Philosophischen Fakultät der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn Zusammensetzung der Prüfungskommission: Prof. Dr. Marion Gymnich (Vorsitzende) Prof. Dr. Ursula von Keitz (Betreuerin und Gutachterin) Prof. Dr. Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp (Gutachterin) Prof. Dr. Eggo Müller (weiteres prüfungsberechtigtes Mitglied) Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 27. Juli 2015 Contents Preface and Acknowledgments 7 Introduction 9 1 Making Sense of a Mess 11 1.1 The research field 11 1.2 YouTube as a corporation and online service 23 1.3 Corpus formation 41 1.4 Terms, concepts, and methods for the analysis 47 2 Users, Video Production, and Kinds of Videos 64 2.1 Who are you? 64 2.2 Three arguments about video production 84 2.3 Different kinds of videos 99 2.4 Stages of production 108 Conclusion: An Audiovisual Practice 126 3 Setting and Vlogger 128 3.1 From the bedroom to LA: Video blogging’s settings 128 3.2 Alive and kicking: The body in video blogging 140 3.3 ADHD or multitasking? Video bloggers’ attention 151 4 Interdependent Modes of Performance 167 4.1 Performing self 168 4.2 Performing an other 175 4.3 The presentation of skills 193 4.4 The representation of accidents 201 Conclusion: The Body and Performance in Video Blogging 211 5 The Use of Audiovisual Techniques 214 5.1 Cinematography 214 5.2 Editing 232 6 Form: Unity, Structure, and Coherence 260 6.1 The form of individual videos 260 6.2 The form of all the videos on a channel 285 Conclusion: Use of Audiovisual Techniques and Form of Videos 294 7 Showing the Videos 298 7.1 YouTube was not an asocial medium – and it could not possibly have been 299 7.2 Evaluations and rankings 306 7.3 Aiming for success 311 7.4 Monetization before the introduction of ad revenue sharing 341 7.5 How much response was out there, and how much reciprocal activity? 350 Conclusion: Showing Videos, Watching Videos 359 Conclusion 369 Coda: YouTube and YouTube Culture Today 389 Primary Sources 401 Channels of the corpus 401 Further YouTube channels 403 List of cited videos 404 Further primary sources 412 Secondary Sources 416 Preface and Acknowledgments The e-book you are about to read is my dissertation – which I submit- ted in December 2014 and defended in July 2015 – with a few cuts, revisions, and updates, particularly in the coda dealing with YouTube and YouTube culture today. The document has been formatted to be read on computer and tablet screens but also for printing. For computer reading I suggest to choose a view were two pages are shown side by side, or a single page view with the Table of Contents (Bookmarks) on the left. For printing I suggest to print two pages on one A4 page. For me, the most important factor for choosing a mode of publication was that researchers all over the world should be able to read my dis- sertation – the work that I spent several years of my life researching, writing, and revising – with little effort and without paying a lot of money. Nevertheless, in academia there is still a lot of cultural capital invested in printed books. So I searched for publishers who offered combined open access e-book and commercial print publication. Yet even with comparatively innovative publishers there were major draw- backs, which I will not go into here. After assessing all options, I deci- ded to publish an open access e-book with the library of my home university. Possibly, there will be a print edition another time. I hope you enjoy reading this book. I certainly enjoyed writing it. I am grateful to… … my parents who were confident that the paths I chose would be the right ones, and to my brother and sister. … my supervisor Ursula von Keitz who always believed the project would turn out well, and who offered inspiration and critical advice on many occasions. … Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp who has been a mentor and supporter since my undergraduate days. … Anna Everett who supervised my project for six months at the University of California, Santa Barbara – and who took me out for excellent Japanese food. … Britta Hartmann for her support on many occasions and for her constructive criticism during the preparation of my defense. … the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung which funded three years of the project, including six months of research at the UC Santa Barbara. 7 Preface and Acknowledgments … Katrin Bache, Mark Dang-Anh, Nessa Johnston, Mirjam Kappes, Ursula von Keitz, Daniel Kulle, and Josh Morshead who critically read and commented on large parts or even all of my dissertation. I am indebted to you more than words can say. … Greg Burris, Götz Gumpert, Sarah Schaschek, Jeff Scheible, and Sascha Simons who read and commented on individual chapters. … Edward Branigan, Eggo Müller, Vinzenz Hediger, and Sabine Sielke who advanced the project through individual critical comments. … the European Network of Cinema and Media Studies (NECS), to Sophie G. Einwächter and Alena Strohmaier in particular. … the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn, the libraries of Media Studies and English Studies at the University of Bonn, the libraries of Philosophy and Geography at the University of Cologne for their books, quiet, sunlight, and WLAN. … everybody who had lunch or coffee with me on my long library days. … to all friends who have believed in me and supported me. … to Lisa Rauschenberger for all her love. 8 Introduction This study is an exploration of early YouTube culture. At the beginning of the project was the simple observation that videos were created and uploaded to YouTube, for example by the users running the channels BROOKERS, SMOSH, and MORBECK, who joined YouTube between September 2005 and March 2006 during the first 12 months of the service’s operation. Nevertheless, in the YouTube research thus far, YouTube videos were rarely regarded and studied as audiovisual arti- facts: as objects that were created by the use of audiovisual tech- niques to be seen by others. What was put in front of the camera? How was the camera used? How was the audiovisual footage worked on and put together? – Such questions did not feature prominently in the YouTube research. Commonly, YouTube users were not regarded as producers of videos at all but as “participants” on a “continuum of cultural participation” (Burgess and Green, YouTube 57). Their videos – those uploaded in the first couple of years of YouTube in particular – were seen as mere means of communication and social networking (see 1.1 The Research Field, pp. 17-19 in detail). This lead to an over- all approach of YouTube videos as audiovisual artifacts in this project. In this study I examine the most subscribed video blogs of the years 2005 and 2006 on YouTube with methods of film and media studies, audiovisual analysis in particular.1 The aspects on which I focus are contributing users’ backgrounds and motivations for using the service, video production, settings, functions of the body and modes of per- formance, the use of audiovisual techniques, kinds (or genres) of vid- eos, the overall form of videos, and the activities of the contributing users and of others with regards to the videos once uploaded to YouTube. I am going to show that creating and showing videos were endeav- ors of YouTube users from early on. Early video bloggers, who turned out to be successful on YouTube, pursued specific video projects em- ploying their bodies and audiovisual techniques in a reflected, goal- oriented, and efficient manner. They were creators of audiovisual arti- facts of various degrees of complexity and used the platform to publicly show them to viewers. 1 For terminology see p. 46 and pp. 57-58. 9 Introduction I argue that video blogging – the “emblematic” user practice during the first couple of years of the service’s operation which is typically regarded as a practice of communication and social networking (e.g. Burgess and Green 53-54; Harley and Fitzpatrick 681) – can also be seen as an audiovisual practice. Depending on other practices, con- ventions in all aspects in focus of this study emerged on YouTube in 2005 and 2006. The video blog can be seen as an audiovisual form with specific and recognizable traits that emerged in interplay with the practice. It is necessary to break up the homogenizing ideas of participatory culture and social media, to closely attend to online services and their use, and to situate them with regards to specific phenomena of media history: Did YouTube really challenge the separation of production and consumption that was endemic of modern mass media? Are we really moving “forward into the age of mass digital cultural production,” as Michael Strangelove contends (185)? How is YouTube an extension, transformation, or break from other media in which audiovisual artifacts are shown? How does YouTube videomaking need to be situated with regards to other audiovisual practices? This study aims to offer in- sights in these regards. 10 1 Making Sense of a Mess YOUTUBE IS A MESS (Juhasz, “Pre-Tour: YOUTUBE IS…,” Learning from YouTube) 1.1 The Research Field Consensus: YouTube is different things to different people or different things all at once The YouTube research is characterized by a consensus that YouTube is different things to different people or different things all at once, which is said to be true for users and uses, and for dimensions of the service YouTube itself (e.g.