Twitter

 First thing, take everything I say with a grain of salt, but remember, I'm probably a lot like you.
     

     Twitter, essentially exercised through witty one liners and quick updates about the location of the next fraternity's "keg on the porch" Cesar Chavez weekend bash.  To be honest, I didn't think I would have time for twitter in the beginning.  A constant obligatory drive to share something sparingly important to the world, simply in the drive to get as many "favorites" (equivalent to likes in normal circumstances) as possible.  But when my older, and definitely more manlier brother raved about how he got "32 favorites on [his] last tweet", I had to get involved.  And apparently, if consistent, that amount is creeping into serious twitter fame territory.  The main point is intertwined with the amount of favorites one can get on a post, and ultimately how many followers one can acquire.  Relate this to modern day protests and even country wide revolutions.      Recently, Ukraine has been on the brink of what some are calling the next Cold War, and others are calling it World War III, with the easily agitated Russia and infamous President Vladimir Putin.  Over the past few months, Pro-Ukranian revolutionaries have been convening on the extremely popular Ukraninan social networking site, VKontakte (similar to facebook, for us Americans who know nothing other than the latter...and myspace, for those who can't get over their band's oh so popular myspace page).  On Saturday March 1st, a media organization funded by Russia's federal budget, Russia Today, reported that a leader of a Pro-Ukranian revolutionary group called Pracy Sektor, used VKontakte to call on "Russia's most wanted terrorist Doku Umarov to act against Russia."  This is where my easily applicable words of wisdom come into play.  The reason these Pro-Ukranian groups were able pick up so much steam and gather a rather prominent following, is because they were able to spread their motions and gatherings to a large group of people.  Favorites=people who have seen your post and have also been affected enough by it to press that "favorite button."  

     I am now a Pro-Ukranian revolutionist, a modern day minute-man battling for my nationalist pride and my separation from a radical organization I did not want to be a part of in the first place.  I tweet about a protest in the square in Kiev at noon, boom, 30 favorites.  I alone have been able to essentially spread the word to 30 people, and whether all of them attend or not, those are 30 people who now have the information.  And imagine how many people have a twitter, or the Ukranian equivalent.    

     I am now a small-business owner, trying to bring fresh customers to my sandwich shop.  I am an entrepeneur solely trying to spread the word of my new original sandwich, swathed in my recently concocted special sauce.  I tweet about a deal I am having on the sandwich with a bag of chips and a medium drink for $7.50, boom, 45 favorites.  

     At this point I think it is pretty simply to grasp the picture.  All social networking sites have the same principle of being able to post activity, gatherings, or even sandwich deals and succeeded by the immediate attention of "x" amount of fellow tweeters.  And just for everyone to know, twitter drama is a blast, so take part and join the #revolution.              

Youtube

 First thing, take everything I say with a grain of salt, but remember, I'm probably a lot like you.

     Youtube, the frontier into the viral video world, where one can immediately go from watching polar bears getting tickled to being an eye witness to Mike Tyson gnawing on Evander Holyfield's ear.  Established in 2005, youtube has been an absolute powerhouse for countless hours of procrastination while also allowing both talented and entirely untalented people find a way into their dream of being in the spotlight.  Jessica Rose, Lin Yun Chun, Arnel Pineda, and Justin Bieber (don't worry if you don't know who that last person is) are all examples of people who have been discovered by uploading videos or having videos of themselves being uploaded onto youtube.  Now because he has obviously found the most success of the four listed internet sensations, is easily causing the biggest movement of the group, and is staged to skyrocket into music history, it would be unquestionably senseless to not choose Arnel Pineda.  For those who live directly beneath a rock and do not know who Arnel Pineda is, he is the angel-voiced current lead singer of the rock band Journey. The band, originally formed in the early seventies in San Francisco, took notice of videos of Pineda performing Journey cover songs in his band, The Zoo.  With his voice sounding almost identical to Journey's former singer Steve Perry, the band brought Pineda in for an audition and practically on the spot gave him the position as the lead singer of the most objectively decided greatest band in the world (from 1973 until ABBA makes a comeback). One video, 15 seconds or 15 hours (not 15 hours people won't watch that), one video has the opportunity to go viral*, and not only be viewed by millions of people but also by Journey.  However, enough getting caught up in the glamour of making one video and having it bound into internet stardom, because though that is happening more and more often as of late, we have to be realistic, which means realizing the fact that this requires work.  

     As an example, when making a sketch comedy channel, the first video is most likely going to be absolutely awful, depending on whether the cinematographer or the actors have had any experience or not. But from that point on, I can personally promise that as long as there is a genuine drive to perfect this craft and turn it into something legitimate, the only way is up.  That being said, the first attempts are the most important.  The mistakes, the atrocious equipment, the outdated or just basic technology and the overall inexperience is what will soon be molded into an art form.  And don't you dare just "get over" and "move on" from those mistakes. It's the same reason that people say, "if you don't teach history then it's bound to repeat itself." (I swear people say that).  Not only will you avoid these mistakes in the future, but they also become building blocks for learning and becoming more adept later on in the process.  

     Multiple videos a month, it will allow the channel to have a presence on the website and it will also provide as a much needed learning experience.  In as simple of terms, the more you make, the more likely one is going to be "the one."       

     

       

*Viral (video)- A video that gets shared at a rapid rate through social media websites including facebook and youtube, but is also likely to be passed through email.