Social networking sites, such as Facebook and Instagram, might be moving toward better video platforms, but everyone knows who the real original dominating that arena is…Youtube.

As you might recognize, Youtube is an app that allows people to view streams and videos on whatever content is searched. When watching these videos, viewers can comment either positively or negatively, and have the option to dislike or like the videos. Along with viewing videos, you can also upload your own. According to Kinsta.com, there are more than 500 hours of video uploaded to Youtube every minute, and more than 1 billion hours of Youtube watchers per day. Zach Tang stated, “I watch a lot of Youtube.”  

On Youtube, viewers can access TV show clips, music videos, short documentary films, vlogs, movie trailers, as well as footage like gaming videos, livestreams or educational clips. The people who create this content can earn money by monetization and ads. In order for creators to do so, they have to enable their Youtube for monetization, then they connect their account to Adsense to allow ads in their videos. Once they have ads in their videos, they get paid based on the number of views their videos receive.

YouTube as a platform is chock full of a range of talented and sometimes independent creators. For example, Lazarbeam is a YouTuber that is highly regarded due to his epic memes. Hero Perdomo, a seventh-grader at McAuliffe, states, “I watch Lazarbeam because he is really funny.”

Sometimes, there is ignorant content posted on Youtube and people occasionally act inappropriately, which may negatively influence young viewers. For example, certain YouTubers do stunts that could cause injuries, fight each other, and do other items that could be considered not advertiser-friendly on YouTube. Fortunately, if a video is deemed inappropriate for young users, YouTube puts an age restriction on that video. If the video proves to be too inappropriate, it will get demonetized; that means that the content creator will not earn money for said content.

While YouTube can be a platform for creators to pursue their artistic visions and create new opportunities for multiple users, it can also be a platform used to spread negativity. Thankfully, YouTube continuously accepts feedback and takes precautions to be the best online media platform it can be.