VloggerHeads Is Our Site

¡Hola! Well, hi, it's Tom. You know, I haven't said that since I've been making videos over on Vloggerheads, because that's my YouTube— I don't know, it just became a habit for me to start my YouTube videos that way. Just got home, Karen and I, from our trip out to Texas, and I wanted to make a quick video about what's going on on Vloggerheads. For those of you who are watching this video on YouTube, Vloggerheads is a 3-week-old experiment that Renetto, Perry Urban, Ken Argi, Faint Starlight, Joseph Boyes, and myself have been, uh, well, we've been kicking around for a long time. And so 3 weeks ago we launched this site. Now, why did we launch a site? I mean, come on, there's YouTube for crying out loud. Why would you— what kind of a nonsensical thing is it to launch a site for vloggers called Vloggerheads? When there's YouTube? Well, you know, I've been deeply involved at YouTube for a couple of years. I was on the first YouTube Community Council with my friend Sari Cray, several others who— you know who you are, you suspects you. But I wanted to mention Sari because, um, as you know, those of you who are here on YouTube and those of you who are on Vloggerheads who've been on YouTube and live video, uh, things changed a lot in 2+ years on YouTube. I'm coming up on my second anniversary of my first video. This coming week will be 2 years. My first YouTube video. And the excitement that many of us felt when we discovered YouTube was the excitement of seeing real people talking about real things that they cared about and meeting people from all over and just, you know, that sense of real connection with real people. And that was great. And that was great. And shortly thereafter, things started to happen which happen in any kind of a society. You know, not everybody has the same point of view on things. People want to— I don't know, they want to have fun. They want to have fun in ways that are different than the ways that you want to have fun. You know, they want to, um, They want to demonstrate that they're powerful. They want to demonstrate that they can use this new medium in ways that kind of negate your ability to use it the way you want to use it. And, you know, for, for 2 years on YouTube, we all did what we had to do in order to maintain the kind of presence and maintain the kind of relationships that we wanted to maintain. That was what we wanted to do, and it was, and it was fine. But all the while, in the back of my mind, was this idea about, well, what if, you know, we had a place where people didn't, you know, want to do that but wanted to do something different? Nothing against what people want to do on YouTube, honestly, you know, nothing against what anybody wants to do. Go do it. But some of us want to do something different. Well, You know, 3 weeks ago, in a— I wish I could say it was in a very planned for way, but it wasn't. Not that we haven't made tons of plans as a result of hundreds of hours of work and conversation that many of you, many of you know about. But really, just kind of in a serendipitous way, we launched Floggerheads, and we launched it on a Ning network, and off we went. Boy, in 3 weeks people just were so excited, and the, the kind of vlogs that people were making and the kind of connections that people were making, they were terrific. Now we knew that it wasn't going to take long before the people who we've met on YouTube, the kinds of people we've seen on YouTube we're going to come on over and try to get in. We have an invitation-only kind of a system, and we're about to launch a verified identity system. But with any of those things, I mean, it's not like you're trying to get into the CIA. We're not going to do a fingerprint and background check on you. We just want to make sure you are who you say you are so that there's some accountability for what you say and do. Because we know people have done things and said things on YouTube that have not just been you know, nasty and incivil, but they've been illegal, some of the things that have been said and done. So we wanted to try to do what we could to create a place where that wasn't going to be easy. It didn't mean it wasn't going to happen. It meant that it wasn't going to be easy, and if it did happen, that there would be some recourse because, you know, we would know who you are. Well, Now we're under attack, and we're under attack by, you know, all of the people who you would expect to attack us. The people who have, you know, made YouTube a place where people can't say things that are real to them without being attacked. I mean, you know, we've all seen What happens to people who are, you know, disabled or not articulate or just women, you know, or whatever? You know, we've seen what happens. We've seen, we've seen what happens. So those people have now attacked us. Why do they want to attack us? What, what What possible reason could there be for this systematic attack on our little 500-person website? Why would that be? What's the attraction? There's millions of people in the audience on YouTube. There's 500 people over on Vloggerheads just making boring videos to one another. You know, talking about, you know, nonsense. Nothing anybody cares about except us. Why would that be such a threat? Well, I don't know. I'm not going to try to figure it out. All I know is that now we're under attack. And if you've seen Renato's latest video, he sort of humorously takes on one of the attackers who's threatening to blockade the harbor, kill the women and children, burn Vloggerheads to the ground, have airstrikes, you know, the whole nine yards. We're, you know, we're, we're about to be obliterated. You know what? Obliterate us. Obliterate us. Do whatever you want. Do whatever you want. But here's what you're not gonna do. What you're not gonna do is to shut us up. You're not gonna shut us up. We're gonna talk— we're going to have the kind of conversations that we want to have because we wanna have them! You have the kinda conversations you wanna have wherever you wanna have 'em, and we're gonna have the kinda conversations that we wanna have where we wanna have 'em! You wanna shut down Vloggerheads? Shut down Vloggerheads! We'll open up Vloggerheads 2, Vloggerheads 3, Vloggerheads 4... Bloggerheads 50, because we're not gonna let anybody take away our ability to communicate and to relate to one another and to talk about whatever the fuck we want to talk about with whoever we want to talk about it with. That's what we're gonna do. You do what you're gonna do, we're gonna do what we're gonna do. It's that simple. The only way you win and we lose is if we don't get to express ourselves the way we want to express ourselves. And that's what we're going to do. That's what we're going to do. So, um, I just wanted to let you guys know, those of you on Vloggerheads who were there, we'd love to have you stick with us, uh, through this time. Uh, if you decide you don't want to do so, I certainly understand completely. Hope you come back if, uh, after the, you know, the, the fire crew comes in and, you know, goes through the wreckage and finds whatever's left. You want to come back? Come on back. You're always welcome to come back. Those of you on YouTube who have no idea what I'm talking about, come on over. I'll leave the link over in the description over here to vloggerheads.com. We'd love to have you. Be warned, Monday we're going to be attacked, so we're going to do what we're going to do. Everybody's gonna do what they're gonna do, and, um, you know what? We'll see you. Take it easy.