“Colgate Toothpaste or Toothbrush.
Buy 1, Get—” to watch your high-priority Primark haul in peace. Call me
radical, but I do not consider one optional pop-up ad so irksome as to spoil my
YouTube video. I dismiss the ad automatically, without giving Price Chopper the
privilege of my second thought, and proceed to indulge in Zoella’s weekly video
upload.
That was today’s experience.
Occasionally, a short commercial that can be dismissed just as easily replaces
the pop-up advertisement. But in either situation, distraction via propaganda
is substantially limited. Even if the sponsors meant to send a subliminal
message to viewers by playing a certain scientifically proven, thought-altering
jingle or image, their vision would fall short on YouTube. If viewers are like
me, a devout YouTube watcher, they do not watch a long enough clip of the
commercial to register it, nor do they grant ads so much as a second-long
glance. Now, I am fully aware that all viewers are not like me. However, I am
well acquainted with several people who exhibit similar reactions in the face
of YouTube ads.
There is no doubt in my mind that
attracting advertisers is a significant goal of television and radio producers.
In fact, they are business-savvy to do so, given that advertisements provide a
profitable source of income. Their commercials, whether visual or audible,
consequently frequent the stream of entertainment and there is no way around
them. Unlike such media, however, YouTube has a feature that allows viewers to
dismiss commercials and pop-up advertisements. If a video includes a commercial
it lasts only about 10 seconds—and even in such a situation, if one can opt out of
seeing advertisements, then it must not be the website’s top priority to
sustain them.
Notably the most obvious fuel for
YouTube’s existence, the people themselves who upload the videos often have no
input where advertisement is concerned. Their motive for posting tutorials and
hauls and music is the subsequent satisfaction of helping people, gaining
popularity, and making friends. YouTube is ultimately a community, which makes
it possible for viewers to communicate with the ‘producers’ and ‘actors.’
Upload-ers may be grateful for
advertisements because they maintain the website’s free access policy, but
beyond that, they have legitimate things to say in their videos and do not create
mindless balderdash just to attract sponsors. YouTube videos do not have the
fortune of guaranteed viewers (as do, say, sports on television), so they must consist
of intriguing content to attract viewers.
Anne Marie, this is well written, engaging, and logical. What you write makes perfect sense - with the exception of this sentence, "the people themselves who upload the videos often have no input where advertisement is concerned". I'm not sure what that means. I can tell that you carefully arranged and edited this piece. My only real suggestion for future posts would be to be sure that you are adding something new to the conversation. No doubt, this is well written and fun to read. However, at the end, I really do not feel as if I have learned anything new. With rhetorical and stylistic flourish, you just appear to uphold the importance of corporate sponsorship. You offer no real substantive analysis. This post feels like a string of personal observations.
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