Television.

I was introduced to the Internet at a young age, when 28.8k was considerably fast and the movie “Hackers” didn’t seem too far fetched.

I had a LiveJournal throughout high school, and caught the first wave of Xanga, Friendster and Myspace.  I played the original CounterStrike on 56k without any lag.  I caught the initial music sharing revolution with Napster, and watched it happen over and over again with Kazaa, Morpheus and Limewire (I didn’t use them though, ofcourse; I have good morals).  I joined various automotive forums, even became a moderator for one. I’ve met countless other motorists with similar, or contrasting interests, many of whom I’m still friends with, or argue with, till this day.

And then along came YouTube, probably one of the most powerful Internet forces to date — next to it’s parent company Google most likely.  But, not until recently (late last summer I’d say), has YouTube affected me so much.  I (one who doesn’t enjoy the amenities of, how do you say, cable/dish/Comcast/etc in my home) have stopped watching television almost completely.  Average, run of the mill, network television is awful.  Maury?  Court shows?  Cheaters?  Soup Operas?  No, thanks.

Although, even the shows during prime time don’t grab my attention, I found that some YouTube user channels do pique my interest.  And I came to realize that I’m not the only one.  For example: The Phillip DeFranco Show, YouTube channel ‘sxephil’ (or http://www.youtube.com/user/sxephil).  The Phillip DeFranco Show, is updated/uploaded five days a week on YouTube where the 23-year-old host, DeFranco, presents his opinion on recent news/pop culture (links to each story can be find in each video’s sidebar), complete with a ‘deuschebag of the day’ award in every episode.

In a recent episode he talks a bit about his show being studied in a media-related class, not his best by any means, but fairly good. Enjoy, maybe:

At first, watching a show created and uploaded daily by one person, five days a week, seems a bit odd.  But with over 300,000 channel subscribers and most episodes reaching over 500,000 views a few days after being uploaded, something must be going right.  And it is, I’m hooked; it must be something about the quick radio-style audio edit, the thick sarcasm, the commentary news-related aspect to it, or potentially it’s just the style in which he meshes it all together.  I don’t know, watch a few episodes a make your own decision.

Like this post, often the web can lead you down random tangents that will eventually bring you somewhere entirely new, and often unexpected  In short: The Internet, it amazes me.  I’m addicted to my daily fix.

-Nick