Happy New Year everybody! Hope y’all had a good one.
Technologically speaking, the year made me realise a lot ofthings. However, one of the stand-outs was the seemingly over-dependence onYouTube as a social tool. Granted, it has a limitless amount of clips ofdifferent shapes, sizes and features, it’s one of the most popular websites outthere but can we please take a step back and replace the cap?
Let me explain.
For some reason 2012 has been the year for online videos andclips. Never before have I been inundated with so many emails, posts andrequests to watch a clip. This feeling came to a head when I was at someone’shouse and was subjected to some of the most awful and disturbing clips – in thename of humour.
What was even stranger was that there seemed to be this oddsocial etiquette surrounding the viewing of the clip. Here’s how it went:
Host: “You’ve got towatch this clip! It’s so cool/funny, awesome.” (Add relative adjective)
So before anyone could say anything the clip was played andwe had to wait with baited breath as the timeline bar took an age to both loadand complete its life cycle.
In between all of this, the clip’s promoter hissed andsnarled when we were not paying full attention and also butted-in with “Ok,you’ve gotta see this part” or “Man, this part coming up is so…” (Repeat withearlier adjective).
And when it ended we had only positives to say or nothing atall.
You get my drift?
So when did socialising becoming this tedious onlineclip-driven burden?
Of course, the merits of YouTube (and I’m not singling justthis site out) are innumerable and I have watched my fair share of musicvideos, infomercials and stand-ups… but when did the website take over ourlives in this way?
For the last time, I do not want to watch a dog chasing itsown tail in high-speed, a man who only speaks while walking on his hands oryour amateur film-noir attempt!
So please don’t flood me with your favourite clips…becauseyou’re causing our friendship and my state of mind to buffer simultaneously…
Rahul Ahmad is Head, Online thegoan.net
This is his take on technology, culture, general banter andbrain food
