Laura has many different channels with a large amount of views for all of her channels. Her videos are crappy with mostly youtube responses or poorly done spoofs and parodies. The one reason she has a large amount of views is because in every video she wears a shirt that reveals a large part of her breasts. I personally find issue with this because there are so many better pages that are struggling for views; most notably significant feminist groups that have a youtube page. They are lucky to get a few thousand while this girl gets 100,000+ views for her videos. Maybe I am wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/user/LauraSparkling
JB, your simple observation is really a core issue of the internet... and probably life itself.
More breasts equal more video or anything else views. It's painful but true. It's probably also true of smaller factors in smaller quantities: do you get more views if you put on lipstick? Do you get more views if you brush your hair?
Was all of human culture before the internet any different?
I think you are right in observing this, and I think we always need to educate and be clear on these factors.
While education is enormously important, and while we don't want to be marginalized because we pay more attention to the content of our character than the cut of our dresses, my personal feelings are, I must confess, ultimately elitist: I don't really care about a lot of humanity.
I guess I really just said that. But it's true: there's all sorts of horrible content in old and new media both. Can you believe that we live in a world that has a restaurant called "Hooters"? I don't want to crucify a man or woman just for eating there... but really... how much in common can I have with them? Are we really likely to have a meaningful, intelligent conversation about life here in the 21st century? Maybe we would. To be honest, I've never eaten there. Not only is it my untested presumption that the restaurant and its customers don't share many of my values, but it's my further presumption that their menu focuses on lots of unhealthful things that I don't really want to eat either.
Uggh. I guess I have to go eat at Hooters now. :(
What I'm ultimately trying to say is that we shouldn't throw in the towel on internet content-based chauvinism... but realistically I think the "Laura's" of the world will be gaining attention in this fashion for some time to come... but are those viewers really viewers that you or I would want?
Having a million people view your work is an amazing thing. But if 999,999 of those viewers are there because they want to see a hint of your breasts, then you've actually got fewer viewers than if you had 10 viewers who actually found your ideas compelling.
Yes, a little sex appeal can help build a career. It is a messy space. I think we just have to educate and demand equality, but also understand that sensationalistic things will always gain the most attention in old or new media.
Fortunately, this global brain of ours is bringing an ever larger percentage of earth's 7 billion minds within easy access of many ideas. We'll never have a singular global culture, but if we can develop meaningful conversations with engaged and thoughtful participants wherever on the globe they may be, I think that's pretty good.