Intro to the new feature on Pop Culture Beast

YouTube Hate

One of the biggest pop culture phenomena in recent history has been YouTube .com. If you don’t know what it is, well, I don’t know how anyone can’t know what it is but I’ll humor you. It’s a site where any living being who has a computer and a webcam can post pretty much whatever they want to.

It gives us thousands of new political commentators, comedians, critics, and artists. Any type of video you can imagine you can see it on YouTube.

While this has done amazing things for new media and people looking for a place to express themselves creatively, it has also become a breeding ground for hatred. More specifically, anti gay comments that are so fiercely spreading across YouTube. People post simple videos, trying to get a message across who are then subjected to onslaughts of disgusting comments and insults.

It is this issue that is the first to be the focus of the new Pop Culture Beast feature: PCB Exposé.

Before I can introduce you to some of the people who deal with this sort of thing I need to make you aware of what the issue actually is.

Now let me preface by saying that I am singling out one specific community that I have seen affected by this trend. I haven’t looked much into racial attacks although I would not be surprised if these things occur just as frequently. My concentration for these posts is the anti-gay attacks out there. Why concentrate on that? Well, I’m gay but while these comments aren’t made directly to me (although through the course of these features I fully expect them to start) they are made towards people who are the same sexual orientation as I am and therefore, I feel I should be standing up for them.

This also is not to say that YouTube is complicit in these peoples actions. I do not blame the site nor those in its employ for these incidents. This is NOT an anti YouTube feature nor an inditement of any kind. I love the site and will be using it for my own videos.

I plan on interviewing a few people on YouTube who have chosen to share themselves and their thoughts with the world at large. One of them, Justin Marcoux, wants to change the world. His raw emotion and dedication to his goal is so inspiring you can’t help but hope he can accomplish it. In response, he is called a faggot and told to shut the fuck up, among other things. We’ll hear more from him in the coming days. I am hoping to speak to others but I won’t tell you who else, but they are big names in the YouTube universe. One of them might well be considered the biggest, but we’ll see if that pans out.

The First Amendment guarantees a person the right to Freedom of Speech. I one hundred percent whole-heartedly agree and support this. You will not find anyone in the world who supports it more. Nor am I planning to advocate censorship. I loathe the thought of censorship. The point of this is not to insinuate that these people don’t have the right to say these things but to find out why they choose to do so.

I don’t harbor any delusions of being able to stop these things from happening. I am more interested in trying to bring light to and possibly try and understand why a person feels the need to use that amazing freedom to verbally assault a person, in some cases with such ferociousness that one can hardly believe. That said, who knows what a person can accomplish when their mind is put to it?

Why do they do it? What can they gain? Is it a joke or a game to these people? I want to answer these questions by hopefully speaking directly to the people that are doing it.

I believe a solution can only be reached through understanding.

I do need help from you out there in the internet tubes. If you know of anyone on YouTube who might be interested in this please let me know. If you know of any one posting anti gay comments or even using YouTube to spread a hateful agenda, please let me know. I want to speak with them as well. We can’t examine an issue in any depth if both sides aren’t explored.

In the end, we’ll see what we learn and what we accomplish.