To make a broad generalization, comments on YouTube videos aren't terribly different from the back-and-forth you'd find on any message board or chat room. They're meaner, more succinct, more candid, and less articulate than face-to-face interactions. What intrigues me about the comments is the fact that you can click on the usernames of commenters and get a little bit of an idea of who these people are (or at least what they like to watch, which could be as good an indicator as any as to who they really are).
There's a lot of data: networks of desires, groups and sub-groups. I know its unprecedented and very valuable, but its a bit overwhelming. What is the object of such inquiry? Is it to learn something about the interactions that are going on in the YouTube forum, the cultural exchanges, the conflicts, the bridges built? Or can we use it as a way to learn more about audiences, what they prefer, why they prefer it? Maybe you can't extricate the two from one another: the social use of this forum and the desire fulfillment of watching videos.
Let's take an example.
There's a special irony in the fact that this clip has been taken out of context and put on YouTube. As I understand it, the scene (in the larger context of the show) is about the moral conflict regarding a down syndrome kid getting a lot of attention for a performance but, arguably, for all the wrong reasons (i.e. his audience is less impressed by his dance moves and more amused by his disability). The plot of the show offers complex commentary on this sad state of affairs while the exhibition of the clip on YouTube seems to replicate the depicted scene: an audience laughing it up at someone with a disability. The comments feature the predictable Down-Syndrome-bashing that one would expect in such a forum, a classic example of Lulz (defined loosely as humor derived at someone else's expense). One comment - "I will kill that fucking retarded sack of shit." - seemed a little more cruel than the others.
So I clicked on the Username and pulled up Adam1357923's account. The actual profile information is rarely a good indicator of who anyone is on YouTube (he lists his age as 104). We've got 21 favorited videos to check out: 4 Rocky clips, a few action fight scenes, some clips from There Will Be Blood, a speech by Daniel Day Lewis at the SAG awards, and a clip from Willie Wonka in which Gene Wilder berates someone. We might characterize these clips as hyper-masculine, angry, violent, generally made in the 80's or early 90's.
Let's say we find adam1357923's anti-social remark undesirable. We want to find out how anti-social behavior takes root so that we might keep it from occurring or becoming more prevalent. Let's say that our hypothesis is that the tendency to express these anti-social remarks is cultivated by peer behavior and mass media. If we see anti-social behavior (or pro-social violence) in media clips, we're more apt to think that such behavior is acceptable or normal. If we see a war happening half a world away or other people laughing at someone for being different, we think "That's what people do. They kill each other and they make fun of each other. There's no way to stop it. It is human nature." If we see that others accept or endorse these images in some vague manner, if we see that these images are popular (as indicated by how many other people have watched or favorited the clips), then that sense of normalcy, of social acceptability, is reinforced to a greater degree. Finally, if we read an endorsement written by another user, we get the sense that other people, possibly like us, have gone to the trouble of commenting on some depiction of behavior. Arguably, this reinforces the norm to a still greater degree.
It is unlikely that the videos, comments, and user favorite lists create anti-social behavior. Such behavior is much more likely to be a function of home life, economic status, or educational background. Nevertheless, there's reason to believe that use of such media, like exposure to traditional violent media, propagates anti-social behavior or expressions/endorsements of such behavior. If the goal is to curtail anti-social behavior, then I think that careful study of YouTube participation can give us an idea of what limits need to be set on use by parents and by ourselves in order to prevent its spread.
I don't think those limits should be imposed by a government telling people what they can or cannot watch, mostly b/c I don't think they can be imposed in a user-generated-content (UGC) mediasphere. This brings me to my UGC strong effects theory: There is reason to believe UGC is more likely to influence behavior, for better or worse, b/c its perceived as being more "real" or more reflective of actual social norms than professionally-created media and b/c, logistically, it would be impossible to ferret out anti-social behavior (however one might define that) on the internet. Professionally created media had to adhere to a set of norms that were set by the FCC. You may argue that these norms reflected a conservative view of sex, a lack of concern for violence, and a disregard for bigotry, but whatever you make of these loose set of rules, they tended to yield media that were reasonbly uniform in the behavior it depicted. This is not the case with UGC, which tends to reflect "marginalized" behavior that is forbidden by traditional media (extreme violence, extreme bigotry, sexual coercion, etc). To make an analogy: professional media is like a parent. They tell you a certain version of reality that you gradually come to realize is "whitewashed" or sanitized. UGC is like a peer from school (the one whose parents don't seem to give a shit about) who knows about and is more than willing to share information about the darker side of human behavior. He exaggerates from time to time, but to an audience that is realizing just how phony the world depicted by the rule-constricted mainstream media, his version of social reality can seem beguilingly...real.
As viewers and as researchers, we can't fall into this trap. We do not get a complete picture of who adam1357923 is. We only see a partial picture of what he uses YouTube for, so we must be cautious about any conclusions we draw from such a limited picture. Still, YouTube presents us with information that it would take millions of dollars worth of research grants to have found in the dark ages. Let the random profile-clicking commence!
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