It’s easy to overlook YouTube, so entrenched in everyone’s Internet mind-set it’s almost just part of the pre-cerebral cortex.
The seminal video sharing site has been around, after all, for four whole years.
And it has been passed in the popular buzz by, among others, Facebook and, most recently, Twitter. YouTube hasn’t been the “Next New Thing” since mortgage-backed derivatives were a bottomless profit cup.
But the Google-owned site has been growing steadily, adding new features such as (some) high definition, even as it continues to draw criticism for its rudimentary, design.
Still, it dominates. In February, YouTube had 79 percent of all video-site visits, up from 73 percent the year before, according to Hitwise, a Web audience measurement service. Average time per visit was also up, to more than 21 minutes, or, roughly, 19 videos. (That’s what we call, in the trade, comic exaggeration.)
And though other sites, such as Facebook, are attracting older users, YouTube is actually getting younger, Hitwise says.
As such a seasoned, even grizzled, veteran, it has developed its own set of mores, its own types of characters who populate its massively crowded, usually chaotic halls.
There are too many to list, but the accompanying taxonomy tries to name some of the principal types you’ll encounter. It was gathered by doing arduous fieldwork involving watching tranquilized bears bounce onto, and then off of, trampolines.
These are not, remember, users we’re talking about, nor are they the site’s commenters, a group collectively trying to bring back mouth breathing. These are the people who make YouTube possible, the posters of videos. They are all, in their exhibitionist way, heroes.
THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERSTAR
Description: These are the folks who make YouTube worthwhile, the gems who rise, naturally, to the top.
How you spot them: Low apparent professionalism, but an immediate hook and ridiculously high viewership numbers. You probably got an e-mail about it.
Good example: The first “Where the Hell Is Matt?” video, of world traveler Matt Harding, dancing.
Bad example: Chris Crocker, the hysterical Britney Spears defender.
THE RE-ENACTOR
Description: Has the free time to re-enact famous scenes, then post them.
How you spot them: Helpfully, they often include some version of “re-enact” in the title.
Good example: “Reenactment #1: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” a scene from the film that really cries out for Gene Wilder.
Bad example: Anyone who does the mirror scene from “Taxi Driver.”
THE CELEBRITY DABBLER
Description: They’re famous, sure, but they’re adventuresome enough to play around with this YouTube thing that all the fans are into. Or maybe they’re just trying to fight an image problem.
How you spot them: Cluster of people gathered around a computer screen at workplace, one of them saying, “That really is …”
Good example: Miley Cyrus, who got involved in an actually charming dance-video competition with some real dancers last year.
Bad example: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “rickrolled” viewers, a common prank promising one thing but delivering video of singer Rick Astley.
THE UNDISCOVERED FOLKIE
Description: It’s tough for musicians these days. Big contracts are drying up. So are CD sales. But there’s always YouTube!
How you spot them: Guitar, passionately strummed. Lyrics, aching with earnestness. Hair, long and unwashed.
Good example: Terra Naomi, who got a major label deal out of her YouTube fame, is now independent again.
Bad example: Tay Zonday. Sorry, “Chocolate Rain” guy, but it’s just not working for me.
THE NOTICER
Description: The noticer figures out, for instance, that people in “Lost” say “what” a lot and painstakingly edits all the examples into one video.
How you spot them: The videos usually have titles like “All the SOMETHING in SOMETHING.” And occasionally there’s a title, but no video, just a notice that it’s “no longer available” after a copyright claim by the network.
Good example: “Scrubs – Every Girls Name to J.D. from Dr. Cox (Seasons 1-3)”
Eventually unappetizing example: “Tasting Rachel Ray,” (yes, it should be Rachael) of the Food Network host sampling stuff and saying, “Mmmm.”
THE MUSIC GEEK
Description: YouTube has become a huge destination for online music searches, in part because so many obsessive fans are determined to make others love what they love.
How you spot them: Just search for any popular or obscure musician in the YouTube search bar.
Good example: The user who unearthed and posted, for instance, 1960s German TV footage of Leonard Cohen singing “Hallelujah.”
Bad example: New Kids on the Block singing “I’ll Be Loving You Forever” at the Tacoma Dome in Seattle — via cell phone.
The Comedy Team
Description: Ever since Andy Samberg and his The Lonely Island pals got plucked from Web videodom to be on “Saturday Night Live,” this genre has taken off. If you’re making comedy these days, you’ve got a YouTube channel.
How you spot them: The pun in the title, the deadpan sketches and the readily available contact info are dead giveaways.
Good example: POYKPAC, a Brooklyn troupe, whose videos include “‘Llectuals,” the trailer for a PBS-trying-to-be-hip series.
Bad example: We’re going to be nice here and just say that it’s very hard to make good comedy.
The Bedroom Confessional
Description: Perhaps the signature YouTube type, this usually involves a teenager in a spaghetti strap top, talking into her laptop’s Webcam while seated at her bedroom desk.
How you spot them: Whispery voice, complaints about life, bed in background. Sometimes, there’s a poem about sadness.
Good (or at least helpful) example: Your girlfriend, admitting she really likes your best friend better.
Bad example: LonelyGirl15 (above), who seemed real for a while, but turned out to be an actress playing a part.
The Lip Syncer
Description: Slumber party, video camera, hit song. Somebody grabs a hairbrush, and somebody hits record. The bane of early YouTube, diminished somewhat by better copyrighted-material policing.
How you spot them: Actually, the question is: How do you avoid?
Good example: Nope, none. Unless you want to count, you know, Jennifer Hudson and Bruce Springsteen from the Super Bowl.
Bad example: Anybody who flocks to the latest pop hit. As if we need more “Single Ladies” in our lives.
The Dude, Put on a Shirt
Description: This is, alas, what too often happens as the formerly charming 13-year-old boys on YouTube cope with hormones. There’s a female equivalent, usually dancing in underwear.
How you spot them: Pretty much any video you click on that starts with a young man, shirtless, obviously impressed with his shirtlessness, is headed in a bad direction.
Good example: None, as in The Lip Syncer, top.
Bad example: By definition, this category is bad examples.
