BooTube

What do you do on a beautiful summer day, when you have no work, no cares, no stress, and all the free time in the world? Go check out funny videos on YouTube of course! Why spend time in the great outdoors and enjoy your life, when you can enjoy the shenanigans of other people all around the world!

Good thing all we've been getting for the past week is rain, so I have an excuse to stay in and watch videos like THESE.

Some of you might have noticed that the interface and layout of YouTube has changed a bit. Oh well, things change, we'll get used to it (Personally, I don't like it). But the biggest change is the homepage. The warm welcoming homepage and offers you suggestions of what you might like to watch, has turned into this:



Do you see it? Instead of that basket of goodies that you expect to see when the page pops up, you are punched in the face with a big fat ad. GREAT, now I have to scroll down to see my video suggestions. That's a half-second of time that I have to waste to ignore the ad, but once I do that, it won't bug me anymore! Right? Right?

Now, maybe I wanted to check out one of my favorite actors on Letterman that I missed the night before. Let's say I type Meryl Streep in the search box, and the first result is the one I'm looking for. Perfect! All I need to do is wait for the video to load up and then I sit back and enjoy Ms. Streep's wisdom.

Wait. What?



I panic. Where did this come from? I try and stop the video by clicking the two parallel lines in the bottom left hand corner. NO LUCK! It's locked me out! The only option is that I close the browser so I don't have to watch the ad, but, MERYL, I endure the ad, and wait for the countdown at the bottom to reach zero.

At last, the video I've been looking for! I watch. It finishes. I am content. Wait. What? No, no, no! Not again. I haven't even clicked anything but it starts to play another ad. Madness! They are persistent, evil, and invincible.

I am defeated.

I came onto YouTube to watch Meryl Streep and I had to pay for it with seeing three ads. Two of which were forced upon me with relatively no choice but to watch or close the page.

Before YouTube was a haven of amusement. No strings attached enjoyment that was free to bask in. Now, we must pay with our time. As meek as their inconveniences may be, they have changed our relationship with YouTube.

We're pretty good at tuning out ads on radio and TV though, right? What's one more medium to learn to ignore.