Youtube and Participatory Visual Culture

Bus Uncle scene

A dispute during a bus ride in Hong Kong became a viral star in 2006 and makes two random people famous overnight. Especially Roger Chan, who is the main attraction in this Youtube video, which has been watched over 1 million times. His angry reaction after an other passenger ask him to clam down his voice while phoning with his girlfriend, are becoming an inspiration for several hobby-filmmakers, who posted their personal version on Youtube as well. Some expressions used in the video are becoming catchphrases for the Internet society (e.g."everybody has pressure"). The popularity of the video brought also the industry on the scene, which has used Roger Chan and his ionic expressions for its own selling purposes.

Original version

Re-used version

There are many other examples like Bus Uncle, which became famous overnight, thanks to social media platforms like Youtube, and were re-used from the Internet community in different context. The community’s adopted videos show the creative potential, which is slumbering in today’s society. But it also indicates that own ideas are getting rare, because in the end they only coping existing content and mash it with other existing content. It can be seen as a kind of content recycling. On the other hand, the increasing participation creativity uses the collective intelligence, which is a common procedure in creating innovation, too. That means for example that 10 people have more ideas then just one. So, there is a real potential for the growth of new ideas. But the problem is, this potential isn't often used in the way it could, cause most creators of such videos just want to attract attention from the audience and for that they publish content which is disruptive, but not primarily creative.

Another aspect, which has to be mentioned, especially in the Bus Uncle story, is the ethical point of view. More and more people are becoming the amusement for others without their approval. It’s kind a open voyeurism. On the other hand, videos like Bus Uncle points out the problems a society has. Here it was particularly the frustration potential caused by society pressure, which could heading to an overreaction like this.

Nevertheless, Youtube & co. gives a lot people the chance to show their abilities and ideas to a big audience. Although the comment function is a feature of all social media platforms, nowadays senders become the feedback from the audience indirect through the community's re-use of their content.

"In our context, circulation of ideas means that there is no direct flow back to the sender. The transfer back gets substituted by a creative and productive re-usage of ideas once emitted into circulation.” (Marek, 2009).

In this way, ideas really have the possibility to growth and becoming something big, cause of the usage of the collective intelligence. But in the other way, the question will be arisen, who will be the owner of the idea in the end, especially if an idea become a commercial success. This question can end up in a legal argument between participants because the own part on the successful idea, developed in a participative way, will be blurred eventually. Anyway, this is a risk in participatory culture and it’s good that this isn’t regulated from the beginning, otherwise the creative potential will be limited.


References
Marek, R. (2009). Creativity meets circulation: internet videos, amateurs and the process of evaluation. 


More information

• Article about Bus Uncle (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)