Is one of youtube’s biggest themes Atheism? Or is it just that I am a) more likely to notice Atheism videos as I’m an Atheist and b) Youtube is more likely to show me Atheism videos because it suspects I’m an Atheist.
It’s suprising how often I’ll click on a video that has no outward sign that it’s an Atheism video and it turns out to be an Atheism video. Even videos that appear to be Theistic/Creationistic turn out to be parodies done by Atheists (Some amusing, some not).
If youtube is being a conduit for Atheists to speak out then that’s great. I’m glad Atheists (who have always existed in large numbers) are now able to be more outspoken than previously.
I will say one thing against one specific Youtube Atheist - Amazing Atheist. For God’s sake calm down dude!
Oh And I wish to OG I had the courage and confidence to blog on youtube. I think I’d enjoy the process. I love the likes of Shay Carl (sp?) Sxephil (Difficult not to like, even though he’s a bit full of himself), That nice blonde lady who teaches us things (I forget her name)
Well youtube shows me Atheism videos in the ‘top rated’ section - which is the one I look at most often. I tend to ignore the ‘recommends’ section. I should have mentioned that in the OP but I didn’t think of it at the time.
I was going to ask something similar, but with a larger portion of the internet. There seems to be a odd rise of people on line who are atheist (and oftentimes liberal or libertarian, but I’ve seen that correlation less). I suppose you could say it’s just where I hang out, but is there any real reason for there to be a correlation between gamers and atheism? Gamers certainly aren’t smarter (to shoot down the “positive correlation between intelligence and atheism” statistic), but anywhere from casual to hardcore games there seems to be just in general an abnormal population of atheists.
In fact, it’s almost a novelty to find a site brimming with Christians, or whatever else (though I’d say generally the closer you get to “popular” like Yahoo answers, or Myspace etc the stronger the religious population gets). I’m guessing there’s a large bit of confirmation bias and just general interest in where we navigate that’s influencing both of our results here, but I still think it’s at least a LITTLE slanted. Are people just more open about it online. Like they’re “closeted” atheists in real life and actually admit it under a when they’re “safe” under a pseudonym? I can’t really think of a good reason, maybe it is just flawed observation.
edit: I don’t think Youtube is the best example though, it’s too popular. It’s certainly abnormally slanted towards atheists (meaning atheists aren’t necessarily in the majority, but much more prevalent than in real life), but there’s no shortage of hellfire sermons on Youtube.
Now that I think about it (and this may refute my gamer idea as well, even if games are mainstream people that bother with forums aren’t), keep in mind that I can’t prove this, but I think “nerds” are in general more likely to go through the trouble of registering and voting, and nerds are also generally more atheist.
Looking at the “Top Rated” videos under today shows…
8 video blogs including…
2 anti-gay screeds & A pro-gay screed called “Queer Man’s Cumback”
3 how-to videos
A Family Guy clip
A Halo machinima
A celebrity tabloid show snippet
Jeff Dunham on Jay Leno
The latest Chad Vader episode
And a few other random videos
No atheism to be found. Now, have you met my friend Confirmation Bias?
That’s strange. I did the ‘today’ on ‘top rated’ and got a video from Amazing Atheist.
Then I changed it to ‘this week’ and the NUMBER ONE video was by Thunderfoot. A video about how someone had used a rating bot against his Atheism videos.
Point being that almost every day I look at youtube’s top rated today list (often on my mobile phone which doesn’t remember me - I can’t log into youtube - just watch the videos) there’s at least one video from a popular youtube Atheist.
The problem with that is that you’ve mutated “popular YouTube video blogger who happens to be an atheist” with “popular YouTube atheist”. If someone is a popular YouTube video blogger they will have a legion of fans that will follow them and rate their videos highly (thus continuing to ensure they land on the top rated videos list). The Internet is wide enough that the number of people needed to ensure this may not be very high, so subject matter becomes irrelevant.
I mean, look at the number of views on that video, it’s among the lowest on the page.
Secondly, going further down the top rated videos list produces a number of common tropes: video games, teenybopper music, video blogs, how to videos, comedy, television clips, karaoke videos, etc, etc, etc. Just because atheism is a common subject to appear once does not make it a prevelant theme.
Finally, for people who don’t follow the video blogging scene (I find it ridiculous and a blight on YouTube for example), these usernames and video titles that you’re pointing out as atheist don’t scream “atheist” on their own. OK, Thuderfoot is an atheist, how would I know that if I didn’t watch his video first?
I’m an atheist, and I’m yet to see anything on Youtube about atheism. Actually, I’m yet to see anything about religion, except sacred music and pictures of religious buildings.
That might be because Youtube videos don’t jump at you.
A few posts in this thread make me wonder if some people are on a different youtube than the one I go to. Either that or I have to admit that I’m particularly good at spotting the videos by Atheists about atheism (Not just by people who happen to be atheists) amongst the ‘white noise’. Perhaps most people don’t notice them because often they don’t have obvious titles.
I admit that Atheism isn’t a ‘main theme’ and it was a bit silly of me to suggest it was (I did because I haven’t noticed any other themes that come up as often as Atheism) but still, there are a ton of videos on youtubes from various Atheists about atheism. It is one subject which, if you looked at the followup videos (often by the same person or links to other Atheists) then you seem to go on forever. I’ve not had this with any other themes - (being able to watch video after video after video just by clicking on the ‘similar videos’ type links afterwards)
