Many who know me know that I hide from all things cinema and television. Seriously, I don’t even have Netflix. Part of this is because I’m an old soul who can’t figure out all the new fangled doohickeys. And part of it is just that I simply prefer YouTube.

In certain phases of my life, I have watched YouTube an unhealthy amount. At the moment, I’m productive enough that I’m not within the first 300 viewers of every video, but YouTube is still my favorite form of entertainment. While a lot of the content is directed at people younger than me, there is also a good deal of content that makes me laugh. I also have a good deal of respect for the content creators, which makes me like watching their videos even more. At this point, I think YouTube is better than television and movies. How is it better, you may ask? Here are a few reasons why I love watching YouTube:youtube-logo

1)   Variety of content

On the world wide web, there’s something for everyone! That’s why YouTube has pretty much every kind of content one can think of. Admittedly, this includes some strange things you wish you’d never seen, but once you’ve spent enough time on YouTube, you learn to detect and avoid the more disturbing content. And once you weed that content out, YouTube is a beautiful place with a lot to offer from fashion to skits to humor to animal videos.

I sometimes think that I have a strange sense of humor but I’m able to find content on YouTube that tickles my funny bone. I’ve also found content that inspires me, motivates me, relaxes me, and more. Whatever you want to get out of your YouTube experience, you can. You just have to put in the effort to find content creators that you like and subscribe to them.

2)   More content = more representation

Because YouTube has content for everyone, you can typically find content by everyone too! YouTube is a hub for all kinds of representation. For one, YouTube is a great source to find fashionistas with all different body types. Whenever Instagram is making me feel a little bad about my body or appearance, YouTube is the best social media turn my self-esteem around. It’s also easy to find beauty-related content created by women of all different races, and there’s a lot of LGBTQ+ representation as well.

Furthermore, if you’ve been through an experience, there’s probably a YouTube video about it. In fact, watching my favorite YouTubers open up about personal struggles has taught me a lot about issues that I didn’t previously know about. For example, YouTuber Arden Rose talked about her struggle with Trichotillomania, which was something I had previously never heard of.

Long story short, if you have trouble seeing people who look like you or experience your problems on TV or in movies, YouTube is the way to go! YouTube can allow anyone to feel happy, confident and understood.

3)   YouTubers support each other

Despite how hate-filled the comment section can be, the actual creators of YouTuber content are largely supportive of each other. There are few better feelings than seeing a collab between two of your favorite YouTubers, especially when you didn’t even know that the two YouTubers supported each other! Seeing YouTubers support each other is one of the reasons that the YouTube community has much more positivity than Hollywood. I have almost never seen YouTubers speak badly about each other, unless it is to combat a serious issue that a YouTuber caused.

I recall disliking one YouTuber because I thought his content was often offensive, and even when it wasn’t offensive, it just didn’t appeal to me. However, I saw a different side of this YouTuber when he appeared in many of my favorite Youtubers’ videos. While I still don’t support all of his content, it is the sense of community within YouTube that allowed me to see that in some ways, this YouTuber is a genuinely kind person.

In addition, YouTube has truly shown me why positivity between women is so important. YouTuber Lilly Singh aka Superwoman brought a new meaning to the girl squad by starting her #GirlLove campaign, which tackled girl-on-girl hate and brought many of the women of YouTube together in a beautiful way. This campaign alone made me into a better person by challenging me to make sure that I’m always supporting other women rather than thinking of them as competition.

4)   It’s great for a short attention span

I suppose I’m a product of my generation in this way, but I lose interest in storylines very easily. While I certainly can sit through a whole movie, I prefer not to. Usually my movie-watching strategy involves occasionally looking at the clock and waiting for the movie to have played for two hours, because if a movie is longer than two hours, I feel a bit more justified in saying it was too long. Name a classic movie and I’m bound to have (sort of intentionally) missed it. I mean, isn’t the Godfather like 3 hours long?

On YouTube, the videos are often under 10 minutes long, so even if I watch an entire video I don’t like, I feel like I haven’t wasted too much time. Ironically, I sometimes end up wasting as much time watching multiple videos as it would have taken me to watch a whole movie. But I prefer the idea of going through a variety of videos, rather than focusing on one plot. And if I don’t like a video, I can just switch to sometjenna-marbles-imghing else in my subscriptions, or in the suggestions on the sidebar. And yes, I know, my generation always needs our entertainment handed to us on a silver platter. As I said, I’m a product of my generation.

5)   People are much more genuine on YouTube

While there is censoring on YouTube, I find that people censor themselves a lot less. Daily Vlogs, which are video blogs of YouTubers’ lives, show way more realistic depictions of people than any reality TV show will. Of course, YouTubers edit their vlogs and therefore have a say in how they are presenting themselves. But regardless, vlogs give a much more genuine portrayal of a person than any show that has a production crew. By the way, most YouTubers are their own production crew, which is a large part of the reason I respect them.

The way YouTubers present themselves makes their fans feel closer to them. In fact, I would be way more excited to meet a YouTuber who I’ve followed for a while than a famous actor or actress. That’s because YouTubers have truly let their viewers into their lives. YouTuber Jenna Marbles even calls her viewers “friends that she hasn’t met yet.” And who wouldn’t be excited to run into a friend? One vlog briefly showed Jenna running into a fan and she said “Hi friend!” in the sweetest and most eager way. It was wonderful to see her do that and further showed how geniune she is.

And thus concludes the explanation of why I’m a weirdo. I’m kidding of course. That’s the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my weirdness. But those are just a few reasons why I love watching YouTube. From the honest and raw representations of people’s lives to the sheer spectrum of what you can find, YouTube is a magical place!