YouTube Visual Arts- Time to Mobilize in #awesome2012!
Channel: Merrill Kazanjian
Date: 2012-01-01

WE NEED A VISUAL ARTS CATEGORY ON YOUTUBE Petition- http://www.change.org/petitions/create-a-visual-arts-category-on-youtube

- For the first time in history, artists from around the world are communicating with each other and learning from each other.
- We can not only see each others work but often, we can see how the work was made.
- The master artists of this generation are exhibiting their work on youtube right now. 
- This is unprecedented in history.
Artists of the past have their work exhibited in museums and museums have overflowed with generations of masterpieces. Our generation has YouTube. Yes, it is a museum. Think about it. Even major museums are exhibiting on YouTube right now. The current generation of artists has more expressive possibilities of artistic media than generations of the past, and I think that we have carried on arts rich tradition. Here are 20 examples of what I consider to be, Master art work. Click on any of the annotated links and they will open in a new tab.

But does YouTube fully understand the scope of what its created?

That question will be answered in time. But as of right now there is no category specifically for visual artists. The closest three categories are howto and style, education and film and animation. Howto and style is dominated by make up tutorials, workout videos and fashion tips. The Education category does not mention the visual arts and that is especially scary in a time when so many schools have totally eliminated the arts from their curriculums. Film and animation is the closest match but its classification is much more limiting than a Visual Arts category. 

It is time to mobilize people. A Visual Arts category would mean a lot more views for all of us. And if you think about it, that is all an artist ever asks. They want a chance to create and to be seen. Just like how a poet uses words, we use imagery to communicate. And many have said that a picture is worth a thousand words. It is my new years resolution to help YouTube realize that it needs a visual arts category. But the good thing about YouTube is that they do listen. Think of how they are always asking for feedback.  

So what is the plan, Merrill? I am going to ask you to consider doing two things. One.....Post a V-Log telling YouTube why they need a visual arts category. I don't care if you are Mark Crilley with over 400,000 subscribers or if you joined YouTube yesterday. If you are tired of ranking behind 10 pages of make up tutorials, do a V-Log and either post it to this video or mail it to me. I will put your v-logs in to a playlist which I will attempt to present to YouTube. 

Two.....leave a comment in the youtube forum. I recommend going to the forum that I linked to in the video description. My friend Teresa Richardson, who has the fourth largest arts channel on YouTube already started this conversation in this forum. If there is enough comments, an administrator might respond. I encourage you to keep your comments positive and take the perspective that YouTube has given us a great thing, but we want to suggest a way to make it better.