YouTube Is Art. There, We Said It.

We’ve been thinking about this for some time and felt compelled to give our opinion on the topic.

YouTube is one of those mediums that we consume and pick apart, yet we rarely think of it as anything more than entertainment. Why is that? Why is a medium that people spend countless hours crafting and piecing together for the viewing pleasure of others not considered art?

John Baldessari, American Conceptual Artist, once said, “Art is anything an artist does.” So, is it simply that YouTubers don’t call themselves artists? And if they started walking around referring to themselves as artists, would we then consider their YouTube videos art?

To be fair, we want to make one distinction. We aren’t referring to every video uploaded to YouTube. We’re talking about the creators who have developed a clear voice, look, point of view, and overall vibe through their work.

For Selfless Art, we consider YouTube art, and here are a few reasons why.

A).More Than Just Hitting Record

We’ve seen firsthand the amount of energy, time, and creativity that goes into not only building a YouTube channel, but creating an individual video.

We’ve interviewed a few YouTubers over the years, including Tilek All Better and Kimberly Placide, creator of Nimberly, and they’ve spoken about the amount of time that goes into creating their videos and, more importantly, the creative thinking involved.

Whether it’s a painter, sculptor, filmmaker, or musician, creatives have always taken time to think through what they are creating and how they want to create it. A painter considers color and composition. A musician considers sound, rhythm, and lyrics. A filmmaker considers framing, pacing, and what makes the final cut. So, couldn’t we say YouTubers are doing the same through their videos?

B). It Is Created to Be Experienced

Like other art mediums, YouTube videos, whether they are vlogs, think pieces, video essays, or something else entirely, are created for others to engage with in some form.

Maybe I watch a video purely because it entertains me. Maybe it makes me laugh. Maybe it makes me uncomfortable. Maybe it makes me think about something differently. Or maybe I simply like the way it looks and sounds.

But isn’t that what we ask of art?

We stand in front of paintings. We walk around sculptures. We listen to music. We watch films. We read books. And in each case, something has been created by another person and placed in front of us to experience.

Why should a YouTube video automatically exist outside of that conversation simply because we watch it on a laptop or phone? C). YouTubers Have Their Own Voice

Think about your favorite YouTubers for a second. Chances are, there is something about their videos that feels distinctly theirs.

Maybe it’s the way they edit. The music they use. The pacing. The camera angles. The lighting. The way they speak to the camera. Maybe it’s what they choose not to show at all.

These are creative decisions.

A painter decides what colors belong on a canvas and where. A photographer decides what belongs within the frame. A filmmaker decides how long to hold a shot before cutting to the next one. YouTubers are making many of those same decisions when they create a video.

And over time, those decisions can become a voice of their own. You can sometimes watch thirty seconds of a video without seeing the creator or the name of the channel and already know whose work it is.

One YouTuber who comes to mind as having a distinct voice is Casey Neistat. Everyone knows a Casey Neistat video, from his camera angles and skateboard to him zooming through the streets of New York. Casey made it cool to be a YouTuber, to be an outcast, or simply to be yourself, all on video. And we all know the amount of time and creative energy Casey puts into his videos.

So we ask, do you not consider Casey an artist? If an artist can develop a recognizable style through paint, photography, sculpture, or film, why can't a YouTuber develop one through video?

D). YouTube Speaks to Our Time

Last but not least, YouTube speaks to our time.

Throughout art history, certain styles and mediums have come to represent the periods in which they existed. And like it or not, YouTube screams our generation.

YouTube, like many other platforms, changed the game. From the early 2000s to now, it has captured what it means to live in the 21st century artistically . We’ve watched people grow up on YouTube. We’ve watched careers begin, relationships end, people move across the world, sit alone in their bedrooms, talk about things they may not say anywhere else, and document ordinary days that otherwise would have come and gone.

And maybe that ordinariness is exactly what makes YouTube so representative of our time.

Centuries ago, artists painted the people, places, beliefs, and everyday lives that surrounded them. Today, someone picks up a camera.

The medium has changed, but has the impulse to document our time really changed all that much?