YouTube Users Attend First Official Get-Together

An anonymous reader wrote us with a link to News.com's coverage of the first official YouTube get-together. Video aficionados from as far away as Australia descended on the Pier 39 shopping complex in San Francisco to meet and, of course, videotape each other. An estimated 100 some people attended the 'As One' event, which allowed some of the most popular bloggers and video posters to meet their fans. "'I don't have any groupies yet,' said Ben Going when asked whether his Internet fame has changed his life. The 21-year-old waiter from Huntsville, Ala., has a regular YouTube audience that numbers nearly 26,000. Two minutes after making his joke, Going was approached by two red-haired teenagers who asked him for an autograph. Going, known at YouTube as Boh3m3, shrugged at a reporter and appeared simultaneously thrilled and embarrassed. Lowering his hat, the one Going wears in many of his videos, he signed away."

YouTube users

[linvir]

Here's what a realistic YouTube meetup would look like:

• 5% go as regular people and interact normally
• 60% go as regular people but will not speak except to tell the first 5% how much they suck
• The remaining 35% is arrested immediately and taken to Guantanamo Bay for uploading bootleg Daily Shows

Re:YouTube users

[PRC Banker]

Here's the link to Ben Going' videos [youtube.com], mentioned in the article but not linked.

Re:YouTube users

[Propagandhi]

I don't know if you give the 60% credit for the range of feedback they provide.. Often they not only inform the video creator how much the vido creator sucks, but also how much blacks/jews/gays/liberals/conservatives/whatever suck generally.

Seriously, Youtube comments set new standards for human stupidity... I assume those users don't go to Youtube meetups, but I'd still be wary.

Re:YouTube users

[BostonVaulter]

yeah, xkcd says it well [xkcd.com]

Re:

[savorymedia]

Seriously, Youtube comments set new standards for human stupidity.

You've obviously never read DC Craigslist's Rant & Rave board.

Re:

[onetwofour]

That 60% only act like that when they discover lonelygirl15 isn't there.

IHBT

[linvir]

IHL

Re:

[Bob54321]

WTF?

Re:

[Kijori]

BBQ.

Re: I haven't been told

[EveLibertine]

Possibilities include:

Inner House League [urbandictionary.com]

International Humanitarian Law [wikipedia.org]

or a combination of the two:
International Hockey League [wikipedia.org]

utube

[Football Player]

thats really nerdy imho

Re:

[veganboyjosh]

your an idiot

Re:

[that this is not und]

What is 'josh' and what makes it unique if it comes out of vegan boys?

I've known vegetarian lesbians who claim there's a big difference in the taste.

conversion ratio

[User 956]

'I don't have any groupies yet,' said Ben Going when asked whether his Internet fame has changed his life.

I wasn't aware that "groupies" were a media metric of success. How many football-fields or Libraries-of-Congress is that equivalent to?

Re:

[Sinryc]

Until the groupies put out, its not even worth mentioning. It just means he has some "Friends."

Re:

[markild]

Which, in it self, is pretty impressive!

Re:conversion ratio

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Please don't ask how many elephants or Volkwagens to a groupie, YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW.

Re:conversion ratio

[ofcourseyouare]

But getting groupies -- or, more generally, the ability to have sex with an unfair number of desirable persons -- has been a metric of success since the stone age. One in which the tech revolution has always fallen sadly short. Of course digital media represents a far bigger communications revolution than Rock and Roll, but how does the nightlife of the average deep-tech person compare with that of anyone in a band in the 60s?

I for one applaud the advent of groupies for youtubers, and can only hope this is a phenomenon which starts speading fast to other persons who are active online -- starting of course with /.ers...

Re:

[kfg]

I wasn't aware that "groupies" were a media metric of success. How many football-fields or Libraries-of-Congress is that equivalent to?

If all the groupies were laid end to end; I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

KFG

Re:

[SEMW]

> If all the groupies were laid [...] I wouldn't be a bit surprised. I would.

YouTube users..

[biscon]

Judging by the usual comments found under a youtube video I wouldn't like to attend that party ;).
I don't know why but I always have to read the first page of comments.. and then I get sad.

Re:

[Neon Aardvark]

The worst thing are those chain posts.

Eg something like "Don't start reading this. Oh, you already have. Now you must post this under every video you see or your intestines will boil and your eyes will melt, just like what happened to some chick years ago.

And then it duly gets posted all over the place, by idiots.

Re:

[Crysalim]

Please don't read this!

4 years ago there was a person named Al Chumbacklakala Gore who invented the internet and ran for president and was never heard from again. If you don't post this message in at least 5 other Slashdot threads, then your internet connection will be suspended by the MPAA die and you will never be able to orgasm for the rest of your life!!!!

Boh3m3 is a D*ckhead

[Anonymous Coward]

My verdict after sitting through a few seconds of his videos.

Activitives

[TodMinuit]

Activities at the party included lip-syncing to crappy songs, doing dangerous stunts, dropping mentos into diet coke, and trading bad SNL sketches.

Re:Activitives

[infonote]

Come on, There is also a lot of good original videos on Youtube. What do you expect, quality of a hollywood film. Why should people strive for perfection. After all it is just a hobby for people who like attention. The revenue sharing model may improve the quality of videos however.

Re:

[Threni]

> What do you expect

I expect blurry, over-pixellated nonsense. Come back when I can tell what's going on in the video. I hope Google gets their moneys worth from the 10 billion or whatever the hell it was it paid for this joke of a site before it gets closed down by the copyright holders of most of the clips on it.

Re:

[cno3]

Though I hear a lot of the crowd thinned out once the unruly teenage bullies and happy slappers came to the party.

I can't believe I missed

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

this CIRCLEJERK.

Re:

[kfg]

They should get together with all the MySpace retards.

It's called LiveVideo.

KFG

How is that news

[wumpus188]

All they going to find out is that lonegirl15 is not a lone, not a girl and not 15.

"approached by two red-haired teenagers"

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Girls? Boys? One of each?

If I'm going to be trolling for YouTube groupies, this kind of intel is vital.

Maybe I should just put 'Freckled redhead girls only' in the credits.

Re:

[game kid]

These [com.com] might be the groupies (sadly).

Re:

[iamstretchypanda]

well... ::thinks about it::... they move... good enough for me :]

Bah!

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

I'm not turning gay for THAT.

Cool, but...

[symbolic]

I think this is an interesting event, but in a way I feel bad because lately, YouTube has increasingly displayed the characteristics of an e-wreck. Comments not appearing, or not even being posted, stupid policies like the inane message posting limit, and the fact STILL, after sixteen hours from the time a video was posted, I get the "video not available" message. I find this steady state of decay pretty remarkable for a web asset that was once everyone's darling.

I assume they picked Pier 39 because....

[MobileDude]

nobody's parent's basement was large enough to host the 100 some freaks in attendance.

Reminds me of the old BBS gatherings

[GWBasic]

This just reminds me of the BBS gatherings that used to occur back in the 80s and 90s. It appears that many of these people use YouTube as a video-based BBS.