YouTube Today

I've fiddled around with the customization options on this blog for a bit so I think it'll be fine for now. Time to write my first real post:

As I mentioned previously, I had to create a new google account for this blog. That means that when I went to YouTube, I was greeted with this.

Ah! The horror!

Now I know what you're thinking, I just posted two pictures in a row with barely anything of substance between them. I have not gotten this blog off to a good start. 

How about we analyze the above image. YouTube suggested a variety of things. Crappy music, that's a staple, nothing new there. Sports have always been pretty popular. Ellen... sure, why not? EpicMealTime is the latest in a long line of people doing stupid things on the internet. UberHaxorNova though, that's new. That's the craze that seems to have been sweeping YouTube for quite some time now; watching other people play video games.

I'm not sure exactly when this started, but its popularity has taken off. Every hour there's a new "Let's Play" or something of the sort. The best part is that anyone can do it! Any pimply teenager with no talent can record himself playing video games. Searching "Let's Play" yielded "About 11,500,000 results".

I am also guilty of feeding this craze, I do not deny it. I've been subscribed to Nova for about a year and various other commentators for even longer. I got into the whole scene because when I started university, I realized I no longer had time to play sweet sweet video games. This is my fix, if you will. It's my escape to a simpler time, when fields were bathed in blood and I didn't have to sleep.

But enough reminiscing from me, my question is why other people do it. Surely everyone can't be a recovering video game addict in university. Some of these series get close to 500,000 views per video. And judging by the comments, some of these viewers are 8 years old.

This is the first comment I found.

In my professional opinion, I think it's because the commentators (the people making the videos) are funny. Why play a crappy game on your own when you can watch someone louder do it? The loudest and most irrelevant commentators seem to have the most views. "But" you say "why do the viewers have to play these crappy games alone? Can't they play with their friends?". My answer, of course, is that these viewers do not have friends. That's why watching people playing video games on YouTube has become so popular. As opposed to finding someone to play with, this mass amount of people has either started playing or started watching video games over the internet.

So if you are a loud and lonely dude who just happens to play video games, maybe you should think of quitting your day job and becoming a YouTube celebrity. Those guys make a lot of money.

-Zombie Viking