Can you remember an Internet, even a world, without YouTube? Videos were restricted to fairly brief Flash animations (remember Newgrounds, guys?), low quality homemade videos and illegally shared P2P files. Videos were hard to come by because few Internet connections could handle the loading time for large files.

 

This was a dark and nasty time.

 

So, let’s all give a big “Thank you!” to Web 2.0. We now exist in a time with nearly flawless multimodal integration; or, put simply, we can watch videos in our browsers and not overload our crappy AOL connection.

 

Again, thank you Web 2.0!

 

Blogging was just hitting its stride at the turn of the millennium, and as technology improved, the means of blogging diversified. The first video blogs became popular in the mid-2000s just as Web 2.0 was kicking off and making all our lives better. Many were simply blogs narrated to a camera: peoples’ personal lives, opinions, hopes, and dreams.

 

That was all well and good, but eventually niches were carved and video blogs became more focused. Video games, music, comics, and anything else imaginable is probably covered by a video blog somewhere online. There are even video blog series, like “lonelygirl15,” a YouTube channel that billed itself as a video blog but was actually (SPOILER ALERT) a fictional show disguised as a video blog.

 

Also important to video blogging (and the Internet in general) is a work’s memetic potential, or the ability to become popular through word of mouth on the Internet. This potential to become viral is what makes video blogging so interesting: many who try to become viral fail, while the most unassuming and strange videos often rise to the top (looking at you, Diet Coke and Mentos guys).

 

Here’s an exhaustively brief list of particularly noteworthy contemporary video blogs and their memetic potential:

 

Today’s Big Thing

[http://www.todaysbigthing.com/]

Today’s Big Thing brings you not only a hilarious daily video clip, but five more specialized videos ranging from music to sports. Each video is guaranteed to be hilarious and entertaining, while an extensive back catalogue of videos will keep you exploring the site for hours.

 

Memetic potential: High. There’s something new every day and the content is generally very funny. The site specializes, obviously, in what’s big on the Internet at the moment, so expect to find fun and contemporary videos.

 

Hey Ash

[http://www.heyash.com]

From the fairly twisted minds of the Burch family (siblings Ashly and Anthony, dad David, and dog Dusty) comes this highly popular gaming video blog. “HAWP” finds Ashly and Anthony playing, reenacting and parodying popular video games from The Sims to Metal Gear Solid to Left 4 Dead.  Don’t worry if you’re not an avid gamer: Ashly and Anthony are good enough writers to make every video funny to those unfamiliar with a game. And for those who have played it, the videos are downright hysterical.

 

Memetic potential: Very high. Ashly and Papa Burch are endlessly quotable, from “You’re too late! Enjoy the poop!” to “METAL GEAR!” to Ashly’s unbelievably adorable/vulgar tribute to gaming set to the Discovery Channel’s “boom de yada” theme.

 

Retro video

[http://www.everythingisterrible.com/]

“Everything Is Terrible!” is what YouTube would look like if it existed in the mid-1990s. The site specializes in cheesy, bad, and just plain weird footage from the pre-Internet era. Want to see the creepy, low quality videos you watched in church or summer camp when you were a kid? Confounding public access television programs? So-bad-it’s-good clips from 70s and 80s B-movies? It’s all here in one useful location. After watching for awhile, you can’t help but throw up your arms and say “WTF”.

 

Memetic potential: Medium. Although “Everything Is Terrible” offers very entertaining material, it often becomes very esoteric. Certain videos aren’t even funny but deeply uncomfortable or creepy. What does hit hits well, but don’t expect to visit the site without being more than a little weirded out.