In this YouTube monologue, Tom Guarriello, Ph.D. reacts to mainstream media coverage of the inaugural YouTube Video Awards. He reads excerpts from The New York Times critic Virginia Heffernan and from Rolling Stone, highlighting their skeptical tones and specific criticisms of the winners—namely the Wine Kohn series, Ask a Ninja, and LonelyGirl15‑style videos. Guarriello questions the credibility of the awards’ nomination and voting process, suggesting possible gaming, and contrasts the media’s dismissive stance with his own advice for new YouTube viewers to explore hidden‑gem content. He ends by directly asking the audience what they think of the winners, who should have won, and how future awards could be improved.
Chapters
¡Hey guys! ¿Cómo están? It's Tom Guarriello. Well, this was a funny, funny morning. Earlier today, got up, had my coffee, looking at my New York Times, and what do I see? Hey, look! The YouTube Video Awards on the COVID front page of the New York Times art section. Wow! Let me go read what Virginia Heffernan. She's a Times critic. She does— now she just, you know, other people do theater or films or television. Virginia does screens. Wow, it's a pretty neat beat to have, the screens beat. So I'm sipping my coffee and the first line of Virginia's review is "Et tu, YouTube?" Oh ho ho! See, whenever, whenever an article like this starts with a reference to Julius Caesar getting stabbed, you know, it's probably not gonna be so good. Ah, so Julia, uh, Julia, Virginia, Virginia is not all that crazy about the choices, uh, that were made here. She thinks that the whole thing wimped out, that, you know, there were better people than Wine Kone, that there were, you know, Askaninja. She actually felt like Askaninja and the Wine Kone episodes that one were kind of like Lonely Girl 15 backlashes of some kind, you know, that they were like real guy commentaries on the Lonely Girl 15 thing. And, you know, I kind of read it and I thought, yeah, you know, it's the New York Times, you know, it's How hip is the New York Times, right? Come on, what do they know? You know what I— you know what I'll do? I'll go check Rolling Stone. I'll see what Rolling Stone had to say about the video awards here. Let me see, Rolling Stone, what did they say? Oh, you know how their article starts? We're worried about YouTube. According to viewers, uh, okay, go most creative. We're not gonna parse out the mammoth level of disappointment we felt with some of those winners. Two memorable duds are Hotness Prevails. Hey, poor Wine Kohn. No, no hotness, they say. Hoki ask a ninja series, they say. They like the kiwi. You know what? The best thing about the Rolling Stone article are the last two sentences. Check it out. What do you think about the winners? Who should have won? Now there's an interesting question. What do you think about the winners and who should have won? You know, I think the last lines of these things might be better than the first. Let me go see what Virginia's last line was. Hmm. Of course, it's the New York Times, so you can't just read the last line. You have to read like the last 2 paragraphs. Here's her last two paragraphs: The pity of these awards is ultimately that they might be some people's first contact with YouTube. It's probably true, isn't it? That would be sad. My words of advice for people new to YouTube: Forget the awards and forget hip. Of course, it's the New York Times. Instead, follow your pre-internet interests to vintage film on YouTube, and that will lead you to video commentary, parodies, and community. That's us. For starters, why not track down Ernest Hemingway with a man-sized Marlin? Shirley Verrett as Lady Macbeth. Great singer, Shirley Verrett. Interviews with Sigmund Freud. And Color Film from the Korean War. So, uh, even though both of these pieces kind of kick the awards around, I think they both make an interesting point. Who do— what do we think of the awards? Who should have won? And what advice do we give new people coming here to YouTube? I mean, we've done the hidden gems, we've done A lot of us have done a lot of digging to find a lot of great things, and all that stuff continues to be secondary to the stuff that wins the awards. So what do we think of the awards? What do we think of who won? Can I tell you, I wasn't real crazy about the whole award process, the nominations, the, the voting. You think maybe the voting got a little, uh, Gamed in a few places? I don't know. So anyway, your thoughts. How'd we do with this first time around on YouTube Video Awards? And what should we do instead? Take it easy. I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
