Why I Love YouTube

YouTube is great. It's a place where people can share their experiences and ideas visually. I spend quite a bit of time on it, and it got me thinking: why do I love YouTube so much?

I love how YouTube has videos on every single topic imaginable. I love how the first video uploaded on YouTube was a video talking about long elephant trunks being cool. I love how people talk about what they ate for lunch today, what obviously very interesting thing they'll be doing later, and mindless rants about important subjects like pineapple on pizza. I love how TV programs upload segments of their show just so people can rewatch the same thing over and over again because that's all they can watch. I love how people react to other videos and have none of their own, because it's very original. I love how people reupload videos from other places, because obviously I'm too lazy to watch them elsewhere. I love how numerous videos are just memes and not people's own jokes, as I need my daily dose of edgy children listening to "Darude - Sandstorm" while shooting 360 No Scopes.

I love how YouTube works. I love how Content ID functions perfectly and has not missed millions of illegal videos. I love how people can get copyrighted for content not even in their video. I love how people are paid based on the amount of views they have, and the most popular videos are always shown near the top. I love how YouTube Red exists, as I want to support creators by paying money to watch ten videos despite them getting millions from hundreds of other videos of basically the same topic. I love how even if I want to watch YouTube Red, I am unable to because I live somewhere that's not America. I love how YouTube's comment filter allows comments like "first" or "1 subscribe = 1 girlfriend", so I can see the incredible insight people have about the video. I love how YouTube recommends me videos of my favorite topic, sports, despite never watching a single video on sports. I love how YouTube removed active subscribers from people they were subscribed to along with actual inactive subscribers.

I love the people who make content on YouTube. I love how many have quit their job and make a living off of videos of playing games people are too lazy to go out and buy. I love the people who ask for subscribers or likes, as they need to "remind" their viewers to hit those buttons. I love how people put pictures of women in their thumbnails for Call of Duty videos. I love how singers who have bots post videos for them have some of the most subscribers because people don't listen to radio anymore. I love how the most subscribed to person on YouTube makes videos of him shoddily performing a skit or creating contests to make memes of himself.

There's so much to love about YouTube, but I don't I can sum it up very well. I think I may have to take the words of someone else, just like so many creators on YouTube have. In the words of Judy Brady, someone with (hopefully) similar sentiments: "My God, who wouldn't [love YouTube]?" (Brady 541).

Truly Free Chickens & Eggs

If I were asked to give an example of the word "free," I would probably take out a bunch of coupons for Kroger that they give for recycling: free milk, free eggs. Some people might say "free shipping," but those people don't actually read the terms of service and fail to realize it's more of "free-with-tax-and-some-other-fees-so-it's-not-actually-free" shipping.

Google defines freedom as "the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved" and "the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint." There are a few other definitions, but these two are probably the most relevant.

Speaking of free Kroger eggs, many of these cartons have labels that say "cage-free" or "free-range." Cage-free, despite popular belief, is more or less replacing a smaller cage with a bigger cage. Free-range is the same; the chickens that lay the eggs just have a wider space to roam, but they are still limited in how far they can move. Indeed, the chickens have some freedom as cage-free and free-range suggest, but they aren't actually free. They're owned by farmers or other people and can't go where they please (and if they weren't, we wouldn't have chicken or eggs as they would all wander off in some aimless direction). In any case, chickens can't really be called "enslaved" as they do no work and probably don't mind their state of affairs, but they're definitely imprisoned on their farms/factories. The chickens don't care, in any case.

In order to be free, however, being able to go wherever is not enough. Patrick Henry equates being free with "preserv[ing] inviolate those inestimable privileges" (Henry 230) that were taken away from him and the rest of the colonists. The trusty Google dictionary defines privilege as "special rights" granted to people; moreover, Google defines right as "a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way."

The "legal entitlement" part is easy to explain. The government grants rights and, by the transitive property of equality, freedoms. This should be a logical conclusion with no flaws- but there is one big contradiction. If the government is the one granting rights, are people truly free? They can exercise the right, but only within the bounds the government dictates. The right is in the hands of the government, not the person- the government controls the freedom, so "legal entitlement" is not a true freedom.

"Moral entitlement" is a bit harder to deduce, so it's easier to think of them as "moral rights" or "natural rights." One way of viewing them is that they are "[unalienable rights] endowed by [our] Creator" (Jefferson 236). This would be acceptable if morals were entirely based on religion, but many of society's morals aren't derived from God. This brings up another point: moral rights and morals in general only work if society agrees on them. Someone's own moral code made counteract with another person's, but who is right? Let's say I just dropped a fire diss track on someone, and he or she was greatly offended by it. I may have the freedom of speech, but there's one catch; many people forget about pursuit of happiness. Society has dictated insults are (more or less) morally wrong and they should be used sparingly (or not at all). Defining "natural rights" as the right to have my will protected and to protect the wills of others, I have therefore infringed on the poor victim's natural or moral rights- however, the only reason I think this is due to my morals. I would have thought nothing of it if not for my morals, and morals are created by society. My sense that insults are "wrong" is universally agreed upon by society. As such, moral rights were created from generations of human thought and realization and thus are not a true freedom.

True freedom is unobtainable. People will always be around to hamper freedom through laws or morals. Going against what society thinks is one thing, but laws still limit what someone can do. People in a government-less area will still think murder is wrong and punish the culprit. This is not to say being truly free means being a heartless anarchist, as that will probably mean death with everyone being your enemy. Instead, be like a chicken; despite the obvious boundaries, mind your own business as you do as you please. That mindset is the closest to true freedom as anyone can get.