The Beast With A Billion Eyes

In just seven years, YouTube has become the most rapidly growing force in human history. Where does it go from here?

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David After Dentist

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Take another look at Nyan Cat. It may just be a cartoon cat in space (with a Pop-Tart body and trailing rainbow), but it has a serious lesson to teach us. If you search for Nyan Cat on YouTube, you'll find hundreds of versions of it, reflecting thousands of hours of work from people all over the world. There's an Indian Nyan Cat (its body is made up of garlic naan instead of a Pop-Tart). There are live-action versions featuring both cats and humans dressed as cats. There are cover versions scored for solo piano, solo violin, a smooth-jazz combo and a full orchestra. There's a Lego version, a 100-hour-long version and a Nazi version (Nein Cat!). There's a Schrdinger's Nyan Cat. There's a Star Wars version in which Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi watch the holo-message from R2-D2, only instead of seeing Princess Leia, they see Nyan Cat. There's a video of a cat watching Nyan Cat, and a video of a cat watching that video and a video of a cat watching that video.

If the studios would have laughed at Sal Khan, what would they say to Nyan Cat? What Nyan Cat tells us is that when you put amateurs in charge of broadcast media, odd things happen, and that's what YouTube does. When all we had was bland, corporate network television, we assumed that we were bland and corporate too. But if we're the ones running the studio, the Nyan Cat will be out of the bag. We're only beginning to find out how weird we really are. Stay tuned, because YouTube is going to show us.

FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE PHENOMENON, GO TO TIME.COM/YOUTUBE

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