I must clarify now that I am not, and probably never will be a produser of YouTube, the idea of adding and sharing content about my personal life to millions of people, strangers or not, quite simply freaks me out. People like Chris Crocker become famous from sharing their hopes, dreams and fears and letting down their guard, and therefore being susceptible to judgement and criticism. Millions of people like Chris Crocker are doing this daily, adding home videos of friends and family doing something stupid, homemade fan videos of bands and celebrities or even just sharing their views on a topic. The most recent YouTube video that I have watched, which is becoming increasingly popular is of a 3 year old girl who is videoed explaining the storyline of Star Wars IV, this video has earned this little girl and her father 7,463,725 views, therefore becoming active produsers of YouTube by simply sharing this cute little girl's explanation of a Star Wars movie.
The worldwide phenomenon that is YouTube, literally has millions of subscribers and new produsers who are constantly 'adding niche content' (Noveau Niche) in video form, these produsers are deciding what they want to see and if you don't like what content they are adding, then simply, create, add and share your own content. Axel Bruns mentions in his article, "The Future is User-Led: The Path Towards Widespread Produsage", that the American magazine TIME 'broke with its long-standing tradition of nominating one outstanding public figure as 'person of the year', and instead selected 'you': all of us who are active in collaborative online spaces.' Therefore, proving that YouTube celebrities like LonelyGirl15, Chris Crocker and Esmee Denters are active in online collaboration.
Bruns states in Produsage: A Working Definition that 'produsers engage not in a traditional form of content production, but are instead involved in produsage - the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement'. This definition of produsage and produsers, completely relates to YouTube as content users are constantly building and extending existing content to better a users channel, to gain more views, comments and subscriptions.
Furthermore, the members of YouTube, that choose to remain users, i.e. users like me, who simply view content and do not add to it; are "simply utilising the 'products' of the produsage process as substitutes for industrial products, are always already potential produsers themselves" (Bruns 2007); and therefore, users become produsers. The image below reveals this as we are viewing content as users, but in turn we are becoming produsers as "their (users) very patterns of usage become direct inputs to the continuing processes of produsage" (Bruns 2007).
In summary, it does not matter whether you are user of YouTube or an active produser of YouTube we are all contributing in our own way to the content, and the success of YouTube as a worldwide content sharing site.
References
Trend Watching. 2005. Noveau Niche Part 1. http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/nouveau_niche.htm
Bruns, A. 2007. Produsage: A Working Definition. http://produsage.org/files/The%20Future%20Is%20User-Led%20(PerthDAC%202007).pdf
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