Tony Talks: YouTube Vs. Hollywood

What is a "Tony Talk" you ask? It's when something bothers me SO MUCH that I have to talk about it whilst quietly fuming behind my keyboard. There's the Cliffsnotes version of what this is. "Why is it here, though?" you ask. Well, recently I went to see "Batman vs. Superman", and at the end of it I walked out of the theater, took a deep breath, and promptly cried my fucking eyes out until I had no moisture left in my body and collapsed on the sidewalk. Then, once respawn kicked in, I headed home and opened up YouTube on my computer and checked out the new videos that Markiplier had uploaded the day before, then I watched the new show trailer for "Prank Academy", then I searched for the trailers of "Suicide Squad" and prayed it would be as awesome as it looks, then I froze after this one thought hit my brain like a double shot of expresso: I get all of my entertainment from YouTube. Then I started writing this.

"All of your entertainment, Tony? That seems a little far fetched. You watch movies though, right?" you ask, to which I say you sure do ask a lot of questions, kinda makes you unapproachable. Sure, I watch movies, but the trend I've been noticing recently is that I've been CONSTANTLY LET DOWN BY WHAT HOLLYWOOD LETS PASS FOR A MOVIE. Seriously, the amount of times I've had to make up for an awful movie experience by watching a ton of YouTube videos makes my roommates think I'm an otaku. But what does this all have to do with the whole YouTube vs. Hollywood battle that is beginning to heat up these days? Well, everything really. Simply put, it's all about enjoyment.

Think of YouTube. On this one site, there are thousands of creators, all doing different things. Some of them do gameplay videos, others prank friends and total strangers, others comment on current events and social media trends, others do sketch comedy, and others comment and review movies and entertainment, and most other people just put up videos of them doing something wildly inappropriate or singing out of tune. The spectrum is very wide as far as what content lives and is created on YouTube and who makes it. Now imagine you, going on this site for the first time. You want vlogs? Subscribe to iJustine. You want comedy game commentary? Subscribe to the Game Grumps or JonTron or Markiplier or Jacksepticeye. You want sketch comedy? Smosh, Funny or Die, Life According to Jimmy, or College Humor. Reviews and discussions on movies? Screen Junkies. It seems as though anything you could want (except for porn of course) is on YouTube. So you subscribe to a couple of people you think are funny or insightful or whatever, and you slowly build up your YouTube feed, which only brings up the things that you're interested in. Then, you watch more videos and suggested videos begin to pop up, you watch some of those, some you like, some you don't. Slowly but surely, YouTube is beginning to figure out the videos that you are most likely to watch, and this site becomes an entertainment experience catered to YOU. Not only that, but some of your favorite creators are beginning to get their own shows on YouTube's "YouTube Red"

Now think of Hollywood. When you think about it, we are basically at the mercy of what screenwriters and directors think will be entertaining. For every good movie there's at least 5 movies that were garbage, you get movies you didn't even ask for, like Sharknado, and the whole Hollywood actor scene is becoming more and more ridiculous as days go on. How many times have I stood in the cashier line at a grocery store and stared at a cover of Us magazine to see "Jen's $9 Million Divorce" or "Brad and Angelina's Shocking Separation" or whatever? Too many to count, in my opinion. Not only that, jobs that are somewhat connected to Hollywood like, say, Academy members or movie critics get more say than anybody else whether or not a movie was good, and I think that's bologna. I've always believed that it is the common person's vote that counts as far as what you believe is good, and there's no better place to see where trends are being set than on YouTube.

So, I guess what I'm saying with this is that times are changing, people. Now is the time when anyone can become a star, and the corporations that run the Hollywood scene don't like that, so they've fought back with everything they've got to keep their outdated system clogging up the gears that run the machine of progress. But I think that the people have more power than we think we do, so it's our time to show that we demand entertainment that WE like, and if the big guys won't make it, then we will in their place.

Cheers,

-TonyWatchesMovies