Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropology professor at Kansas State University, gave an extremely well received talk at the recent Personal Democracy Forum.  High quality video of his PDF 2009 talk is not yet available, but below is a longer talk he gave to the Library of Congress entitled “An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube.”  While a bit long at an hour, it is worth blocking out the time to watch.

I loved this Lev Grossman quote that was included in presentation:

“Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.”

Start watching the video and I bet you’ll make it through the whole thing.