Michael Wesch - An Anthropological intro to YouTube

I just finished watching Michael Wesch's piece on YouTube and all I can respond with it, WOW! What a fascinating look at how YouTube has changed the way we view and the access points that people have to video. To start off with, I just want to note a couple of points that Wesch makes in his piece that struck me:
1) In the 60 years since the three major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) have been in existence (Wesch's piece was done in 2008) - 1948-2008 - if each network was airing material 24hrs a day for all of those 60 years it would amount to over 1.5 million hours of programming. That is a huge number, BUT in the six months prior to his research, Wesch noted that 9,232 hours of video was uploaded EVERY day. That adds up to the equivalent of 385 'always on' channels every day and 88% of these were original videos. We are being introduced to a new wave of culture. We once had to rely on what producers and TV channels deemed worthy for us to view and now we are able to access virtually anything we want. Information is relayed constantly and we are able to access it very easily. We have all become producers and there aren't a lot of gatekeepers to what is being produced.
2) Along the same line of thought, I loved what Wesch had to say about how 'we' have become the center of the media landscape. The average Joe was once purely a consumer reliant on what others produced and now it has switched that we can produce whatever we choose and we have a 'no cost' way to make it available to people.
3) Wesch notes that the beauty of YouTube is that collaboration is something that is highly valued. People freely take other's work and add to it/change it/remix it. It is a culture that plays off of one another. One of my favorite YouTube videos of all time is titled, "David after Dentist". In this video a father captures his son after the son has had anesthesia at the dentist. It is hilarious and because of its popularity, it has been recreated many times - many times very poorly. However, the beauty of YouTube is that the ability to interact and recreate is so readily available.
YouTube has changed our ability to express our creativity and it has also changed the way that people interact online. Wesch's findings were astounding to me and have reshaped the way I look at YouTube. It isn't just something to consume - it is something to participate in.