YouTube is a system that enables people to post videos and comments in ways that may help people express creativity and sociality. Viewers may post text comments or video responses to a video on the site. In a video response, a person may record themselves talking about the prior video, expressing their agreement or disagreement, for example. Sometimes video “responses” are just videos that they want YouTube to link to a particular prior video. Often, people comment or respond to videos in order to express some affinity for the video’s contents or for the video maker. At the same time, YouTube collects certain metrics derived from user efforts (such as watching videos and posting comments) that can help determine which creators are more popular than others. YouTube enables people to search for videos using certain categories, such as “Most Viewed” and “Most Discussed” for different periods of time such as that day, that week, that month, and cumulatively of “all time” (i.e. as long as YouTube has measured these statistics).2 If a video is highly discussed with comparatively many more comments being posted in a particular time period, it will receive additional visibility by being placed in the “Most Discussed” category. In this way, people casually coming to the site may view top-rated videos in particular categories to see what is popular. Of course, this increases the visibility of an already-popular video, and potentially also increases the popularity of a video creator.
In 2007, YouTube invited a select few popular participants to become “partners” in a revenue-sharing plan based in part on advertisements placed on videos (Riley). Later in 2007, YouTube expanded the program to include a much broader range of participants, provided that they uploaded original content on videos that received substantial numbers of views (presumably at least in the thousands) (McCollum; Kirkpatrick). Partners were reportedly chosen for their visibility on the site (as measured by views and subscribers), as they would logically be more attractive to advertisers. These partners receive far higher orders of magnitude in views and comments than other participants. In my ethnographic observation, popular participants or partners routinely have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of views on their videos after several weeks or even a few days, with each video receiving thousands of comments. Further, many early partners at one time or another had at least a few videos that received several million views. These figures contrast sharply with many other participants who may receive on the order of several hundred views, and dozens of comments on any particular video.
Metrics such as views, subscriptions, and comment tallies can become physical ways to gauge a certain measure of popularity and opportunities for ad revenue. In terms of revenue, some of the more successful partners have reportedly received thousands of dollars per month from ad revenue on their videos on YouTube (Stelter). In August of 2009, YouTube further expanded opportunities to receive compensation by enabling uploaders to activate ad sharing for single successful videos, without necessarily inviting the uploader to receive all partner benefits (Adegoke; Kincaid). If a particular video sees an increase in views, the uploader of the video might receive notification that they may “enable revenue sharing.” Nevertheless, even many uploaders with a single or a few successful videos report seeing only a small amount of money (some claim receiving less than $50 per month) in ad revenue. Further, people who post text comments—whether these comments are considered useless or thoughtful—receive no monetary compensation from YouTube for their effort.
People presumably feel motivated to comment to participate, maintain a social presence on the site, give a favorite video maker a boost, or register their opinion in some way. People posting creative or affective text comments or video responses to other videos often wish to contribute and respond to something they have seen in videos or in other comments posted to videos. Comment systems represent a series of interactions with the video creator or others who post textual replies to videos and comments. In interviews, it became apparent that a creator’s perspective on the comments they received often illustrated their reasons for participating on the site. For example, some people use YouTube as a way to improve their video making skills and to gain visibility in the hopes of professionalizing their work. A few creators whom I interviewed welcomed all kinds of commentary, whether positive or negative, because in their view, such comments increased their comment tallies and visibility on the site. According to this view, even “hater” comments served a utilitarian purpose for them. “Haters” were routinely defined in interviews as people who post pointlessly negative or mean-spirited comments that offer no useful criticism or information, such as in the stock phrases, “You suck,” or “Go die” (Lange "Commenting"). Often haters use more forceful language and even harsher criticism. High comment tallies, including those with hater comments, could land a video on YouTube's sorted category of “Most Discussed.” Therefore, receiving many comments was often quite important to them.
However, in most ethnographic interviews, participants did not welcome hateful comments. Even many participants who wished to commercialize their work or become a professional in entertainment or media industries said that hater comments complicated the YouTube environment. Many people, even those who were highly successful partners with hundreds of thousands of views on their videos, saw the hater postings as a problem for YouTube in general (Lange "Commenting"). A number of people felt it important, nevertheless, to leave most commentary on their pages, as a sign of their commitment to free speech (Lange "Commenting"). However, many people also expressed the view that they would delete hateful postings if they exhibited racism, sexism, homophobia or other types of extremely undesirable commentary. A few participants acknowledged that leaving such commentary on a video page was important in order to be “popular.” Indeed, as creators become more popular it becomes harder to sift through each of the thousands of comments that are posted to a video.
Importantly, many people viewed the comment system far more personally, as a crucial part of YouTube participation and social interaction. Whereas view counts may be accumulated by any casual viewer’s effort, people are required to have an account to post comments. Having an account includes having at least a minimal social presence on the site, in the form of a “channel” page, which is the YouTube page of a creator. A creator is usually a person, but it could also represent an organization or media corporation. The channel page includes information that the user provides (such as their online account name, interests, age, and other voluntary information) and statistics that YouTube tracks, such as when they joined, how many subscribers they have, and how many people have looked at their channel page since they joined. Certainly people can maintain a “shell” account with minimal or false information. But such behavior would not likely attract additional social encounters.
Many interviewees expressed the view that it was desirable to reciprocate and comment on the comments that people posted to their videos. In this way, a dialogue ensues. An uploader posts a video, someone else posts a comment to that video, and the uploader may react and answer the comment with another text comment. Commenters may also react to other commenters. For a few participants, such a reciprocal practice of reacting to comments felt like an obligation, in a positive, polite sense. For most others interviewed, posting text comments was simply a way of engaging with others, meeting people, being polite, or participating in what they termed the YouTube “community.”
In one of the most extreme positions along this vein, one participant named “myloflex” told me in an interview that he felt it proper to respond to each and every comment that was left on his videos. Myloflex was not alone in this practice, but it did not represent the majority of interviewee’s views. Myloflex noted that this type of reciprocity could create tension for some people on the site. During our interview, I asked him if there were any features he would like to see YouTube change. He responded:
myloflex: There’s one thing I would like. I don’t know if they’ve done it yet, is if I reply on my video to other people’s comments it counts as [part of the comment tally]. I think they should get rid of that because a lot of times people get upset that if you get a lot of comments, obviously the person making the video will answer every one and then they get moved up on the list of comment replies. I’m the kind of person [that] if you spend the time to write to me I’m going to write back because I appreciate your watching and taking the time to write, so [I’ll] write back and the last thing I need is someone to say “this guy’s just trying to get his video up there because he’s replying to everybody” and calling me, what’s the word, “comment spammer” [I guess]. That’s one thing I think they should get rid of…I’ve seen one video where someone says “so-and-so sucks” on their own video a hundred fifty thousand times, they get their video up there just so someone can see it.
In this example, myloflex feels that he should personally respond to the comments that are posted on the page. He even generalizes his personal perception by saying “obviously” the video maker “will answer every one.” He implies that his behavior is not idiosyncratic, in that others will feel compelled to respond to comments. However, he is aware that other people may accuse him of being a “comment spammer” in a brazen attempt to increase the comment tallies on his page. Such an interpersonal interaction of returning comments could then be used by YouTube to determine visibility, popularity, and potential participation in a commodified relationship. While myflox sees his need to reciprocally respond to people out of politeness and to honor their effort in a warm, interpersonal way, others view his practice as a marketing strategy.
Myloflex illustrates conflicting interpretations about the value and meaning behind comments-as-things. Comments can be quantifiably measured and appropriated into an economic system. Margaret Radin calls this process “incomplete commodification,” which is defined as interactions in which “commodified understandings of certain transactions can coexist with noncommodified understandings” (102). This state of affairs can be brought about when a transaction exists as a “contested concept” that is seen in different ways by different parties. These differences may be “external” to a participant in a transaction, or “internal” to a participant. In the example above, part of the conflict is external to myloflex. People other than myloflex have portrayed his need to reciprocate comments as an attempt at asymmetrical competition, which can lead to commodification, or at least to widely distributed and thus impersonal consumption of his work. Even if the issue on the table was not about increasing tallies so as to gain market revenue directly, it is nevertheless the case that people have limited amounts of time and must choose what they will watch. The parceling out of these resources requires choices, and these choices may be influenced by the metrics YouTube chooses to use. People may choose to watch what YouTube lists as most popular. It may be far easier to “find” videos by searching YouTube's lists of high-ranking videos.
In contrast, myloflex does not see his participation as a commodified or competitive practice, but rather an interpersonal one. The legitimacy of the practice for ensuring the creative integrity of YouTube is questioned by those who claim myloflex is trying to artificially boost his visibility, even though a wide ranging audience has not put effort into commenting on his videos. These participants would argue that myloflex’s reciprocity (which they might call “cheating” by “inflating” his comment tally) threatens to degrade the quality of YouTube, by potentially boosting the popularity metrics of videos that had not earned widespread attention.
But the conflict is not only external to myloflex. The contestation about what the comment-as-thing is may be experienced as an internal conflict as well, within myloflex himself. Although he does not see his own reciprocal comments as commodifications, he recognizes that reciprocal commenting practices may be used in this way. In the passage above, he admits that he has seen some people place trivial comments such as “so-and-so sucks” on their own video, in an attempt to artificially raise their visibility in either an ad-driven market, or a so-called attention economy, which may not be monied but nevertheless aims to secure limited viewership opportunities (Goldhaber, "The Value," "The Attention"). Attention is a limited resource that some video creators compete for using varying degrees of personalization. Many people would happily circulate their work to large, anonymous audiences and have little need to establish personalized interactions based on video views, much less an ongoing relationship between creator and viewer.
In this case, myloflex prefers to see his participation as genuine, rather than commodified or even commodifiable. Thus he articulated a desire for YouTube to stop counting his text responses to prior comments as part of their comment metrics. He advocates being able to re-appropriate his form of participation out of a commodified structure (Carrier "The Work"). He wishes to continue to assign his own participatory meanings without receiving social ostracization (such as being called a “comment spammer”) from those who can only see it as part of commodified structures or competitive viewing practices. The re-appropriation would mean that his reciprocal comments posted to comments on his own videos would not be counted in YouTube's metrics. For whatever reason, myloflex eventually received his wish. During the fieldwork period, YouTube changed its policy so that comments that one leaves on one’s own video are no longer counted in the comment tallies used to determine which videos are “Most Discussed” on YouTube.
It is arguably true that some participants might feel a legitimate need to catch “cheaters” who would manipulate comment systems by putting comments on their own videos. Such a practice, they might argue, would artificially inflate videos and even crowd out those of other creators who had not used these tactics but who might actually make better videos, in terms of viewer perceptions of quality. In this view reciprocity becomes “bad.” On the other hand, it is also possible that a so-called “cheater” might actually be using techniques that help a very well-crafted video finally see the visibility it deserves. However, a more widespread interpretation is that such “cheaters” feel the need to use these techniques not only because competition on YouTube is vast, but because their videos are just not that good. An argument can be made that by discouraging artificial or inauthentic forms of comment reciprocity, participants are adding to the creative integrity of YouTube as a whole by pointing out and exposing video makers who are manipulating the system in ways that promote sub-standard videos. This practice echoes what some scholars see as the anonymous practices in digital environments (e.g., Petersen) that help promote the common good, but in ways that most people on YouTube will never know about.
As a whole, it is arguably true that YouTube is an online milieu that exhibits Radin’s idea of “incomplete commodification.” Early on, people who wished to be social and not necessarily receive payment for their interactions existed alongside those who either had already or wished to commercialize their work. People who use social networks to actively promote their work and get a more enjoyable “day job” see commodification as “good.” As Radin points out, one of the differences between her conceptualizations of “work” and “labor” is that work is personal, and is not separate from a sense of self and social connection to other people. Work is not separate from others, and thus on YouTube practices such as comments and responding to comments both potentially promote the visibility of one’s work in competitive entertainment and informational economies, and also function as forms of sociality and interpersonal interaction. Some participants did not think it problematic to promote reciprocal commentary relationships if it helped them achieve a compensated métier. Others saw it as a form of cheating (especially in more blatant forms with the same stock message posted many times to increase tallies) that threatened to degrade the quality of YouTube.
Like comment systems, other YouTube features also express affect or attention. At the same time they contribute to entertainment markets or at least economies of attention in which metrics are used to promote some videos over others. As long as interactions remain within a system where both sociality and commodification are possible, instances of incomplete commodification and contestation about the meaning of reciprocal behaviors are likely to continue.