YouTube: The Medium Is The Message

[VeryUsMumblings]

This is a very superficial investigation into the ideas of Marshal Mcluhan. The idea that the medium is the message and the content incidental is not just a question of whether the content is appropriate to the medium or whether the environment created is an active one or passive one in which the content can be absorbed. The essential problem that Mcluhan is describing is the idea of what's more important to the message given out. Is it the content or the medium itself? You can take the 'I have a dream' speech from Martin Luther King Jr and engrave the words on a stone monument. Or you can print the speech on the side of the paper-cup holding a hot coffee. The content is the same, but one medium lasts nearly forever while the other last only as long as your latte stays warm. Similarly a person can read an entire book by Marshal Mcluhan or experience the man in a different way by watching this vlog that I happen to be commenting on. Which is the more important/powerful message when the content is more or less the same? It is not just a matter of quality of content, or how well that content fits the medium, (Mcluhan may or may not be ideal subject matter for a vlog) but it's measure of what is more powerful in the external sense of how it affects culture, society and even politics. What is the effect on the society that gets most of its information through one medium vs another. In this way, Mcluhan contends that the content is not nearly as powerful or important as the medium that delivers it.

[danielwareking]

For what it's worth...

I'm a videographer and an editor, and while my knowledge of the ins and outs of Youtube content is limited, I will say this: As far as I've seen, your videos are the height of the medium. Your approach is detailed but not exhausting; intellectual but not pretentious. And the production quality... Oh the production quality. There are Youtubers who write content as smart and interesting as yours but they can't edit or shoot a video to save their life. I've seen the progression of your channel from the early days and I'm so impressed by how you've clearly learned a TON over the years. Very clean, very slick, with a nice eye for graphic design, and (thank the heavens) GOOD AUDIO!!!

I'm just trynna' say... You're really, really good at this, and having recently subscribed to your channel, I must admit that Wednesdays are just that much better now for it.

[VideoCreators]

I read McLuhan's book many years ago. It's still influenced how I think about online video and how we communicate in general. Glad I'm not the only one!

[Gthingbop]

I feel like the concept of multitasking is greatly underrepresented in this video. You mention how your hand is rarely on the remote while it is constantly on your mouse, but I often find that my mouse is rarely on the page of the video unless the visual aspect is particularly important or intriguing. This is not a phenomenon unique to online video, but the environment in which we experience online video seems to invite multitasking. Each page is filled with links to other pages and browsers often open these links in new tabs, leaving whatever you were doing before still running in the background. If you lose focus for too long, you can just rewind the video so you don't miss a beat. This sort of browsing has had an effect that we are all aware of: increasing the density at which we consume information (McLuhan would probably say that online media is warming up). In response to this craving of denser information, creators have learned to really budget their time, because if they take too long everybody will just click away. Ze Frank's jump cuts and The Vlogbrothers' 4-minute length limit are great examples of creators adaptation to new media, and most other creators have followed suit (looking at your videos in the "related videos" on the side shows that most of them sit around 4-5 minutes). Animated explainers understand the importance of dense information by essentially becoming animated infographics. Attention is a commodity on the internet. It's a commodity that has shaped the landscape of how we consume media in this new age.

[JonathanDGrim]

Truly inspiring channel. Gladly pledged to help and can't wait for my mug to arrive!

[AnotherGradus]

I would love to see an academic paper on the peculiar "YouTube Poop" (YTP) phenomena as a discourse on the disposability of media, the juxtapositions implied from editing something to an oblivion, and the whether YTPs best represent absurdity or nihilism.
I remember reading a _Wired_ article (in print!) about YTPs back in 2006, I think it was part of a piece on "remixes and mashups" -- sure, YTPs have those elements, but I think they missed the point. Anyone familiar with YTMND fads would acknowledge it was much more about a form of humor that could only exist on the internet.

[MicahBuzanANIMATION]

Required viewing for every Youtuber and Youtube watcher.

[roxerg]

I cannot express in words how much I admire this channel.

[BlenBlen]

A minor misunderstanding of McLuhan, when he says that the program is incidental he isn't saying that content doesn't matter. He elucidates this throughout his many talks and work, especially Gutenberg Galaxy, he means that the form creates the content. It sets the parameters for content and dictates how it will engage with limitations of a medium.

The best example of this that I've found is Infinite Jest by DFW where DFW makes use of the book's internal content (endnotes) to make you jump around the book in a way that we never read a book, in a non linear way. Doubly clever the book's content comments on technological fracturing of narratives and shows how non linear and obtuse even perceptively straightforward forms can be. Without the linguistic concept of "Book" (McLuhan's addage the medium is the message is better restated that "All technologies are language, and language is a master technology.") the content of fracture cannot arise without the subversion of a medium's standard practice.

The form inherits previous standard practice from passed technology through a process described in McLuhan's tetrad of media effects. McLuhan quotes Kierkegaard here "Life must be lived forward but understood backwards" or better paraphrased "The future is in the rear view".

McLuhan is essentially in the tradition of reading all of experience as art that comes from the classical Trivium. Online video is only ONE aspect of the youtube experience, you mistake the content for the form. You cannot have Youtube without google. You're mistaking content (online video) for the form (the internet and modern GUI computers).

The simplification of McLuhan into a short internet video is actually exactly the type of media effect that McLuhan described when he began to use aphorisms. You've sort of fallen into a trap he set for internet videos almost 50 years ago.

[Nerdwriter]

Why can't you reply to some comments?

[Lucols]

Can you do something on Birdman? I've watched it for the 4th time yesterday, but there's something that still intrigues me which is the existential statement: "A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing". I think that somehow relates to "does he really have superpower?" aspect of the film. I'm not sure if you like the movie, but if you do I'd really like to hear your thoughts on it...

[PicopicoEMD]

I wanted to give you some props on how much you've improved in terms of editing. It really shows that you're now working on the channel full time. The last few videos have been incredibly well produced. A good example of something subtle I noticed was the font getting thicker/bolder at the end of the Leda and the Swan as the music grew louder. It worked really well.

[adamgratrix]

"The service environment" is the message. Server farms, power plants, powerlines, ISPs, manufacturing, silicone valley, etc. We don't think about these things when we watch a youtube video but all of this is happening, growing, and changing regardless of what we watch. That's what Mcluhan means. For instance, the car is a figure in a ground of services: highways, parking lots, gas stations, suburbs, off shore oil platforms, factories, refineries, OPEC, etc. All of these are integral for the existence of the car. All of these effect our lives beyond just driving to the store and back. They profoundly alter how we interact and relate to one another on all political and cultural levels. Like the butterfly effect, every technology creates a ripple effect of changes that we just aren't paying attention to when get a text message or when we leave a YouTube comment.

[NeilSonOfNorbert]

one point particularly struck me, how you talked about the way advertising and television work so well together. when I look back on the pre-Youtube days, I had no problem watching commercial breaks heck I sometimes even enjoyed them, there are still some commercials(particularly from the 90's) that I enjoy for a mixture of there content and Nostalgia. but ever since Youtube became a large part(nowadays the dominant part) of my viewing my ability to watch live TV with its' commercial breaks went away, they have become far too long and too intractable I want to skip past them but can't, even Youtube's 10-30 second pre-roll or wait 5 seconds till you can skip are hard to put up with. if TV was the medium that worked so well with adds, online video is the medium that doesn't work with it at all(they always come across as an intrusion).

[ophela]

Another fantastic mental zoom-out, reminding all of us to take less for granted and spend more time contemplating. Good for everybody.

[JonClem]

Let's hear your take on Reaction Videos and reaction channels as a means of narcissism

[mxmv]

Great work Nerdwriter. I was disappointed this was so short. I would have loved to go deeper into this thinking. McLuhan's Understanding Media:Extensions of Man is still so relevant and useful and was such a huge book in my education. Thanks for making this, I loved it. Although I do think the invisible environment would be a little more wavy.

[macphin]

The medium is the message. The medium is the massage. The medium is the mass age.

[Tselel]

Weirdly enough, I was looking through the most thoughtful channels on my sub list, and I just happen to be doing a project on this right now. Like literally right now.

[poiboy]

Just did a marathon on this channel and learnt more than I learnt in 12 years of schooling, awesome stuff!