100TTMMH
Click to viewMy first entry, I think because I was just browsing around the Internet at the time of setting up this fabulous list of '100 Things That Make Me Happy' (or TTMMH for short) was YouTube.
I am not going to explain what YouTube is, or how it came to be, or what it does. You are HERE. ON THE INTERNET. RIGHT NOW. If you didn't realise that, turn off your computer and sit down for a while, you're in for a shock.
What I suppose I really should be explaining, is why it makes me so happy (Bear with me, this is an exercise in thinking in more that 140 characters again, particularly more than 140 characters that you might actually, you know, want to read. #damnyouTwitter)
YouTube makes me happy because it exists.
No, more than that. It's like a marketplace of the Internet. Everyone knows where it is, everyone knows how to find it, and everyone knows what it does and what it doesn't do. The metaphor doesn't end there; people DO sell on it, they do shout and rant and persuade you to buy their goods, whether that's a make up range, a phone wallpaper, or their own particular brand of comedy.
And that's just it. It is so wide and varied and exciting. It's people doing what they do best, what they've done for centuries, just without the other person being there at the same time as them. People are telling their stories on YouTube, and furthering their careers; Charlieissocoollike is one such example of someone who lives off the revenue YouTube makes from the ads on his blog. I suppose, a bit like the Internet itself, from the pioneering glory of Tim Berners-Lee, YouTube facilitates everything that is great about people, for free. The bad bits too (commenters and all that) but I can leave that. What I love, and the reason that YouTube makes me happy, is that it's a People's Paradise. And I kinda like People.