Golden Age of YouTube (2005-2009)
Nov 14, 2019 16:40:32 GMT 10
Post by Captain Nemo on Nov 14, 2019 16:40:32 GMT 10
Thread to share memories of the Golden Age of YouTube, which lasted from mid 2005 (its creation) until late 2009 when YouTube began forcing the Beta Channels on every user.
I first discovered YouTube in mid 2007, by watching Animal Crossing related videos, as I was huge into Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS at the time. Later on, throughout late 2007 and 2008, I discovered more communities on this site and videos that really captured my imagination. The type of videos that lead me to create my own channel in January 2009 were Banjo Kazooie plush videos, from the likes of users such as Mietnerium109 and BanjoBoy123, and it was such a fun community to be part of until it started becoming defunct in 2011. Besides that though, I also enjoyed Sonic Speakonia Sprites from the likes of users such as BFGPrime and coodoo17, videos about smashing and destroying consoles and computers which were popular at the time, as well as YouTube Poops which were numerous among a wide variety of users. My favorite mainstream video on the site was Banana Hands, just for how goofy it was.
Other types of videos that became popular in this era but that I didn't discover until after this era were Hitler and Angry German Kid rant parodies, Drew Pickles Goes To videos, and the Angry Video Game Nerd.
What I especially miss about this era of YouTube is the channel layout, with how customizable it was, the inclusion of backgrounds on every channel, and the channel comment section being on the front page as a nice hangout.
As aforementioned, this Golden Age ended in late 2009, when YouTube forced the Beta Channel design on every user. Late 2009 until early 2012 was the Silver Age of YouTube. The Beta Channels were still a neat and nicely customization channel design, but this was the era when YouTube really went on the downfall into the corporate pop-culture oriented mess it is now. The advent of VEVO lead to mainstream music videos blowing up in popularity on the site, and it became far more pop culture oriented as a result. The Dark Age of YouTube really started in 2012, when they began forcing the streamline Cosmic Panda layout on every user, and a year later they forced an even more streamline layout on everybody. Since then, YouTube has become completely corporate and pop culture oriented, and it's much harder for users with niche interests to get as popular as they would've back in the '00s. The really unfortunate thing is that the vast majority of YouTube alternatives are nothing but havens for neo-fascists, such as BitChute and DTube, which are filled with toxic hateful individuals that delude themselves into thinking they are supporting a good cause, yet do nothing but give off bad vibes and hateful content. The closest example to a modern rendition of classic YouTube we have is VidLii, but barely anyone uses that site. Perhaps we may never see classic YouTube again, and perhaps we should see YouTube's history as a cautionary tale because of it...
Here are some videos from this age;
I first discovered YouTube in mid 2007, by watching Animal Crossing related videos, as I was huge into Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS at the time. Later on, throughout late 2007 and 2008, I discovered more communities on this site and videos that really captured my imagination. The type of videos that lead me to create my own channel in January 2009 were Banjo Kazooie plush videos, from the likes of users such as Mietnerium109 and BanjoBoy123, and it was such a fun community to be part of until it started becoming defunct in 2011. Besides that though, I also enjoyed Sonic Speakonia Sprites from the likes of users such as BFGPrime and coodoo17, videos about smashing and destroying consoles and computers which were popular at the time, as well as YouTube Poops which were numerous among a wide variety of users. My favorite mainstream video on the site was Banana Hands, just for how goofy it was.
Other types of videos that became popular in this era but that I didn't discover until after this era were Hitler and Angry German Kid rant parodies, Drew Pickles Goes To videos, and the Angry Video Game Nerd.
What I especially miss about this era of YouTube is the channel layout, with how customizable it was, the inclusion of backgrounds on every channel, and the channel comment section being on the front page as a nice hangout.
As aforementioned, this Golden Age ended in late 2009, when YouTube forced the Beta Channel design on every user. Late 2009 until early 2012 was the Silver Age of YouTube. The Beta Channels were still a neat and nicely customization channel design, but this was the era when YouTube really went on the downfall into the corporate pop-culture oriented mess it is now. The advent of VEVO lead to mainstream music videos blowing up in popularity on the site, and it became far more pop culture oriented as a result. The Dark Age of YouTube really started in 2012, when they began forcing the streamline Cosmic Panda layout on every user, and a year later they forced an even more streamline layout on everybody. Since then, YouTube has become completely corporate and pop culture oriented, and it's much harder for users with niche interests to get as popular as they would've back in the '00s. The really unfortunate thing is that the vast majority of YouTube alternatives are nothing but havens for neo-fascists, such as BitChute and DTube, which are filled with toxic hateful individuals that delude themselves into thinking they are supporting a good cause, yet do nothing but give off bad vibes and hateful content. The closest example to a modern rendition of classic YouTube we have is VidLii, but barely anyone uses that site. Perhaps we may never see classic YouTube again, and perhaps we should see YouTube's history as a cautionary tale because of it...
Here are some videos from this age;
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