If Youtube Existed 200 Years Ago

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The last time of alienation that a worker that produces videos for YouTube would experience, would be the worker against other workers. According to Lennard, “We see this when channels seek ‘rage-clicks’, subsisting by making deliberately inflammatory or reactionary videos. Some of these take the form of tearing down other YouTubers: the next time Feminist Frequency releases an episode watch how many angry reply videos spring up trying to ride the coat-tails of the traffic surge” (2016). Workers have the need to make a profit, and if other workers are producing video’s that get watched more often then they are not making a profit because there are not being watched. Or, what Lennard is saying, is that when a video gets posted, people can then create videos that are replies to that video that then get watched and they make a profit that way. The worker is using another person’s work to benefit themselves. This alienation is putting workers against each other to produce better videos that get more views or use other’s videos to then make videos that will get watched too. Marx describes this alienation as, “An immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged from the product of his labour, from his life activity, from his species-being is the estrangement of man from man. When man confronts himself, he confronts the other man” (Marx, 1844; 152). Marx is saying it’s workers that cause other workers to have to work, which is alienation because the work is not them and truly belonging to them.

The internet has opened up a whole world to the worker and the non-worker. It has given us social media where we can connect, online stores to buy product, and YouTube where workers can make a profit, and viewers can enjoy themselves or learn from the videos made. YouTube has its benefits as a non-capitalist product that Marx would appreciate, only when it is not being used by a worker to make a profit. As soon as a worker uses it to make a profit, Marx would be completely against YouTube because it increases the division of labour as well as alienates the worker in multiple ways. I enjoy using YouTube for education purposes, fun videos that are entertaining, and listening to music. So, I would like it to stick around, but I believe if Marx had a say, he would want it gone as it is just another capitalist product.

Works Cited

Calhoun, Craig J., Joseph Gerteis, James W. Moody, Steven Pfaff, and Indermohan Virk. 2012. Contemporary Sociological Theory, Third Edition ; Classical Sociological Theory, Third Edition. 3rd ed. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.

Lennard, Olly. 2016. “Vloggers of the World, Unite? A Marxist Analysis of YouTube.” Novara Media. Retrieved October 12, 2017 (http://novaramedia.com/2016/02/21/vloggers-of-the-world-unite-a-marxist-analysis-of-youtube/).