The Editor's Corner: YouTube Nation

Angela Ebron discusses controversial clips on the popular video-sharing site

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Let's face it: The majority of us are exhibitionists and voyeurs. Why else would we be so addicted to YouTube? We post videos constantly. We watch them nonstop. And we talk about them incessantly. But have you ever stopped to think, really think, about what's getting uploaded and why we have such an insatiable appetite for it?

I'll admit I'm as guilty as the next person. Spaghetti cat? Loved it. E-trade "Broken Wings" baby? Makes me laugh every time. But some of the stuff on YouTube is pretty disturbing. A mob of mean girls beats up another girl and for some reason think it would be hilarious to put online. (This is a particularly violent trend, and it's not just girls; boys do it too.) As if that's not disgusting enough, millions of people watch that video and get a kick out of it. They think it's funny, or entertaining, or simply liken it to a car crash on the side of the highway—they can't help but look. What's worse, it's not as if most people just stumble upon these sorts of videos while looking for animals doing funny things. They search for them, and that's the most unbelievable part of all. Why would you want to see them?

One of the more recent controversial viral videos was "David After Dentist"—a little boy in the back seat of his dad's car, right after he'd been to the dentist. The child was clearly out of it, but the father thought it was perfectly fine to film his son in an anesthesia-fueled stupor and put it online. This smacks of exploitation to me. A lot of people were rightfully angered by what this dad did, but that didn't stop even more people from seeking out the video. If anything, it fueled their desire to see it. I think we've become so immune to violence and degradation that on some subconscious level we watch online videos the same way we watch movies and video games. What we're seeing seems not to be real. But the sad truth is that these are real people being humiliated, or worse.

For the most part, YouTube is fine. But when its content crosses the line it makes me rethink whether I want to watch it at all. User-generated content is not an excuse for having a hands-off attitude. YouTube needs to be more accountable for its content and make better judgment calls about what is shown, not just take down offensive videos after the fact. Is that censorship? Maybe. But do we really need to see kids fighting in order to be entertained? I don't think so.

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