Thanks for Watching Thanks for Watching AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF VIDEO SHARING ON YouTube Patricia G. Lange UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO Louisville © 2019 by University Press of Colorado Published by University Press of Colorado 245 Century Circle, Suite 202 Louisville, Colorado 80027 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of the Association of University Presses. The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, University of Wyoming, Utah State University, and Western Colorado University. ∞ This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48– 1992 (Permanence of Paper) ISBN: 978- 1- 60732- 947- 3 (hardcover) ISBN: 978- 1- 60732- 948- 0 (paperback) ISBN: 978- 1- 60732- 955- 8 (open- access PDF) ISBN: 978- 1- 64642- 009- 4 (open- access ePUB) https:// doi .org/ 10.5876/ 9781607329558 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Lange, Patricia G., author. Title: Thanks for watching : an anthropological study of video sharing on YouTube / Patricia G. Lange. Description: Louisville : University Press of Colorado, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019025981 (print) | LCCN 2019025982 (ebook) | ISBN 9781607329473 (cloth) | ISBN 9781607329480 (paperback) | ISBN 9781607329558 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: YouTube (Electronic resource) | Online social networks— Social aspects. | Internet videos— Social aspects. | Mass media and anthropology. | Mass media and culture. Classification: LCC HC79.T4 L364 2019 (print) | LCC HC79.T4 (ebook) | DDC 302.30285— dc23 LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov/ 2019025981 LC ebook record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov/ 2019025982 An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high- quality books open access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the open- access versions can be found at www .knowledgeunlatched .org. Cover illustrations: Smartphone image © studioZEVS/Shutterstock; vlogger image © Jacob Lund / Shutterstock. Contents Acknowledgments vii Chapter 1: Introduction 3 Chapter 2: YouTube Initiation: Participating through a Camera 32 Chapter 3: Growing Closer: Sharing Time and Space 69 Chapter 4: Syncing Up through Reciprocity 107 Chapter 5: What Defines a Community? 145 Chapter 6: Portals to the Posthuman 187 Chapter 7: Living with Arrhythmia: Prospects for Renewal 225 Chapter 8: Conclusion 253 Notes 283 References 309 Index 339 v Acknowledgments I am deeply grateful to my husband, Andrew Lange, and to my children, Catherine and Alexander, for their steadfast support of my projects. I also wish to thank my parents, Jay and Lilia Gonzalez, as well as my sister, Leah Jarlsberg, and my brother, Michael Gonzalez, for their lifelong encouragement. Special thanks also to Chris Jarlsberg for his support. Thanks to the Lange clan, especially Janet and Jay Lange, as well as Colin Lange, Tessa Tinney, and Jonathan Lange. I wish to extend thanks to Virginia Kuhn, Holly Willis, Gabriel Peters- Lazaro, and all the staff of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at the University of Southern California (USC), for their encouragement. I am grateful also to USC’s Department of Anthropology. I would like to acknowledge the encouragement I received from Nancy Lutkehaus and Jenny Cool. Special thanks also to Lanita Jacobs for her friendship and support. I am grateful to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for its support of my research on YouTube. For their intellectual inspiration and leader- ship, I wish to thank Mimi Ito and the late Peter Lyman. Thanks also to Wesley Shrum, Executive Director of Ethnografilm 2014. For encouraging my filmmaking endeavors, I would like to thank Heather Horst. Special thanks to Bonnie Nardi for her generous mentorship. I am grateful to my colleagues at California College of the Arts (CCA) for their support of my work. I would like to thank Stephen Beal, Tammy Rae Carland, Tina Takemoto, Emily McVarish, Tirza Latimer, Juvenal Acosta, Kim Anno, J vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Carter, Mitchell Schwarzer, Jackie Francis, Max Leung, Rebekah Edwards, Stuart Kendall, Ignacio Valero, Barry Katz, Jeanette Roan, Beth Mangini, and Brook Hinton. Special thanks also to Teri Dowling and Bobby White. At the Columbus College of Art & Design, I’d like to extend my thanks to Melanie Corn for her sup- port. At the San Francisco Art Institute, I would like to acknowledge the support of Rachel Schreiber. From fields ranging from media studies to filmmaking to video blogging, I would like to thank Henry Jenkins, Michael Wesch, Howard Rheingold, Mindy Faber, Jean Burgess, Joshua Green, Ryanne Hodson, Jay Dedman, Micki Krimmel, Michael Verdi, Steve Woolf, Zadi Diaz, Markus Sandy, Alicia Shay, Mike Ambs, Roxanne Darling, Lan Bui, Vu Bui, Jen Proctor, Rick Rey, Eric Rey, Kent Nichols, and Jonathan McIntosh. I wish to thank all the people of YouTube who participated in my ethnographic research project and who contributed videos that provided insight on sharing the self through media. I would like to express my special thanks to OhCurt for mak- ing me feel welcome to YouTube and encouraging me to keep the camera rolling. Special thanks also to robtran, whose commentary about community and its limits provided crucial insight about our increasingly posthuman condition. Thanks to Joe “Mystery Guitar Man” Penna for his kind support of the project. I would also like to acknowledge the support and enthusiasm of thetalesend and ZenArcher, bright spirits who truly made a difference to the YouTube community and whose presence is greatly missed. At the University of Michigan, I would like to thank Conrad Kottak, Bruce Mannheim, and Ruth Behar for their intellectual inspiration and generous sup- port. I am also extremely grateful for interactions I have had over the years with Jan English- Lueck and Chuck Darrah at San José State University. I am also grateful to Julie LaFramboise and our mutual friend for providing emo- tional support and friendship while juggling research and motherhood. I cherish our friendship deeply! As a long- term San Francisco Bay Area resident, I wish to thank the friends who made Los Angeles seem like a magical place while I lived and worked there. I would like to thank Ann- Marie and Keith Fine, Jenny and David Madariaga, and Rose and Behram Parekh. For attending my preview screening at CCA and encouraging my filmmak- ing, I would like to thank Sally Rayn, Brian Cheu, Padric McCaig, Eric Share, and the intrepid attendees from Platypus: the CASTAC Blog, notably Jordan Kraemer and Michael Scroggins. CASTAC stands for the Committee for the Anthropology of Science and Technology, a division of the American Anthropological Association. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix Special thanks also to Gwen Dewar and Adrienne Young for sharing many anthropological insights. For their contribution to the field of media studies and their kind support, I wish to thank Annette Markham and Theresa Senft. I also wish to acknowledge the ongoing support of my friends Chris and Jan Cooke, Kevin Carter and Che Johnson, and Matthew Carhart and Matthew DeCoster. Thanks to all the members of the Bay Area Anthropology and Philosophy Group and the Dumbarton Circle, especially Melissa Cefkin, Mazyar Lotfalian, and Shreeharsh Kelkar, for helping participants to deepen our knowledge about the philosophical roots of anthropology. I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and sug- gestions. Thanks also to the entire team at the University Press of Colorado for their care and attention to my book. Finally, I wish to thank my editor, Charlotte Steinhardt. I am grateful for her guidance in helping to bring this book into its final form. Thanks for Watching 1 Introduction For many people, YouTube is a website for watching wacky videos. For the peo- ple profiled in this book, YouTube is a state of mind. It is not just a video- sharing website but rather a perspective that welcomes video makers of all abilities into a mediated, social space. Even with its challenges in hostile audiences and policies privileging commercialization, interviewees characterized the YouTube experience as much more than posting videos. People forging social ties considered themselves part of a YouTube community by interpersonally sharing videos on topics that were important to them. People in this self- identified community came from many walks of life, includ- ing office administrators, technical writers, nurses, homemakers, social workers, comedians, documentarians, and actors. They connected in order to have fun and improve the craft of making videos. YouTube participants— defined here as those who posted comments or videos— became friends through the media they made and the experiences they shared. Themes that helped people connect included everything from mourning a loss to sharing excitement about the personal and social benefits of making and globally distributing one’s own media. The idea of “YouTube” is analyzed the way many YouTubers saw it— as an attitude about what it means to engage democratically through video. After opening to the public in December 2005, YouTube enabled creators