YouTube Stars!

YouTube continues to celebrate its 5 year anniversary with a new Birthday logo at the top of the page and a new FiveYear channel that has videos from some of the YouTube Stars of the last 5 years. We have been documenting YouTube right here for the last 4 years! We like the funny stuff and even some of the stupid stuff, but what we like the best is to watch interesting vloggers and entertaining musicians. So here are 4 videos; two vloggers and two singers.

But first, The News!


Thanks to everyone who regularly visits our YouTube Top 100 Weekly Chart! Now we are introducing our Top 200 Chart. You'll be able to see who fell off the bottom of the Top 100 and who is climbing their way up to soon debut on the Top 100. This week's Featured Video on the Top 100 Weekly Chart is a cover of Whitney Houston's classic "I Will Always Love You" by one of our favorite YouTube singers Christina Amato. Click her lovely pic at the left to watch her sing!

I recently received a package from YouTube's favorite teacher, HotForWords! Marina sent me a beautiful signed glossy publicity pic along with a copy of her excellent and educational book that describes word origins. Click the pic to the left to see a much bigger version of the signed glossy, and click the book on the right to order your copy!

Visit the HotForWords Bio page to read more about Marina, and check out the Subscriptions widget and Total Video Views widget we made for her!

Okay, now here are four great videos for you!


YouTube is 5 years old and in the early days, no one really knew what to make of it! What should one do with videos - what could one do? You could vlog or play music and just be yourself. OR, you could be someone else!

Before there was LonelyGirl15 and Little Loca, there was EmoKid21Ohio. Back in the Spring of 2006, "Matt" began to blog about his Emo life. Then he met EmoGirl21 and they began replying to each other's videos. If you don't know about the early history of YouTube, read this article and this post here.

Matt is back on YouTube after several years away. He is complaining about OlgaKay's parody of Emo people in his own satirical video. Watch it and try to understand what this really is - it really is brilliant! If you don't get it, you'll need to read the article and post.





Here's an interesting woman from the UK named Alexandra on the flashcrashbang channel who vlogs about what to vlog about! Got vlogger's block? Watch this video and you'll surely find a great topic for your next vlog.

Alex looks cool in this video! She wears Renetto style glasses, a pearl necklace with a tank top and sweater - I like her look! Watch now, and come back again next time you need a topic to vlog about!





This is a fun video from KristaHeatzuz, a talented singer who usually sings to her dad's guitar playing. But lately she is singing with Tyler Ward, another talented and popular YouTube musician. Watch as they sing this charming duet that looks like they are making it up as they go!





Our last video is from a singer with a beautiful voice who loves to smile! AndreaLovesMusic116 plays her guitar and sweetly sings an original song with Spanish lyrics. Andrea says " i love music more than anything! :) I love love love to sing, its one of the things about me that very few people know about me, cause i can only sing in the shower or when i'm all alone!" I'm glad she decided to share her music with us on YouTube!

Labels: AndreaLovesMusic116, anitsirhcmarie, Emo, EmoGirl21, EmoKid21Ohio, flashcrashbang, hotforwords, KristaHeartzuz

posted by KennyCrane at 5/17/2010 03:39:00 AM 0 Comments

This post is for people who are 18 years old or older. If you are not yet 18, please click here to read an excellent article I wrote about the popular Nickelodeon TV show, iCarly.

I have known about this new site for a few months now, and I've been debating about whether to write about it, or not. I am now posting on it because I want to get the word out to parents with younger kids, or people with younger brothers or sisters. If your children have access to the internet, they will more than likely hear about this site and may be interested in visiting it. Read this post and watch the 4 videos to understand what this site is about. Then decide if you want your children to visit it, or not.

ChatRoulette (CR) is a website that connects the webcam on your computer to the webcam on someone else's computer, at random. You will see and hear them, and they will see and hear you. You can also type to each other. You have no idea who's image is going to pop into the top window of the CR screen. You have no advanced warning of what they might be doing. You also have no idea if they are actually on the webcam or if they have hacked the site and are playing a pre-recorded video, which is not uncommon.

In many cases, it is fun and interesting to see who shows up to video chat with you on CR. The videos below will give you a taste of what kind of craziness goes on at CR. But please be warned! A high percentage, as high as 10% or more, of the people who will pop up in the video box will be guys who have their sexual parts exposed. This is something that you probably don't want to see yourself, and you wouldn't want your younger children or siblings seeing this. There is no way to know what will pop up in the video box. You can "Next" the person, which disconnects them and brings up a new connection in a few seconds. But you will never know what they may be doing.

Women do not expose themselves as often on CR, but there are often groups of guys using CR who encourage females they may be connected to, to flash their chest, etc. Please be aware of my main point - you never know who will randomly be connected with you when you go on CR, and what they will be doing or showing. The rules on the CR site are succinct: "Rules: 16+, clothes, report button" so if you do visit the site and see inappropriate behavior, use the Report Button!

Here are 4 videos recorded from the CR site that are very popular on YouTube right now. They will give you a taste of what goes on, on the CR site. Beware - there is some bad language in these videos.




MeMeMolly has been on YouTube for years and lately has been making videos for the RocketBoom channel. Molly gives an introduction to the site, letting you know how to do the initial setup. It doesn't take long before Molly runs into a guy with his penis out - it occurs at 1:40 and they have blurred the scene out. Molly agrees with me; at 2:26 she says she would not recommend it for anyone under 18, or those at work.






"This video is not suitable for children" - this is the opening warning in this video. Adults may get a laugh out of 2 guys who are improvising comments and songs in response to whoever shows up in their video box. One comment they make is, "Aren't you glad we're not a couple of naked guys!" Of course they did get connected to a guy masturbating, at one point. I repeat, you might not want your kids on this website!





This video starts off by stating, "Viewer Discretion Advised, This video may contain swears" - and it does on 2 occasions. But for adults, you may be amused and impressed by the improv this man does. He sings an improvised song in response to whatever he sees in the CR video box. "Merton" of the PianoChatImprov channel just joined on March 08, 2010 and only has 2 videos so far. But he was already up to #79 on our YouTube Top 100 Weekly chart. This video has over 3 Million views in the last 6 weeks.





Ben Folds did something similar to Merton, but he did it live in front of 2,000+ people. This video starts out with the comment that "there are dirty words, ... but we edited out the penises." This video has 3.5+ Million views.

Labels: bad language, ChatRoulette, children, curse, girls, guys, kids, naked, parents, random, sex, warning, webcam

posted by KennyCrane at 5/01/2010 03:28:00 AM 0 Comments