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motbob
United States12546 Posts
I was thinking recently about online communities and websites in general and what makes them fade away or change their character. I mean, certainly something like Putfile (anyone remember that site? It was Youtube before Youtube existed) had no reason to exist after 2006. Others, like digg.com, changed in character completely over time. Initially, Digg and Slashdot were very similar websites... Digg stole away a lot of the "I just want to see cool stuff" audience from Slashdot, but it mostly focused on technology issues. Now Digg and Slashdot are two almost entirely different websites in terms of content, with two entirely different audiences.
This brings me to YTMND, which is a dying site with a userbase in exodus.
YTMND filled a niche that no other site really could at the point that it launched. Flash movie/game sites were a dime a dozen, with Newgrounds, Albinoblacksheep, and others doing well for themselves. But YTMND, when it first launched, was revolutionary: you could put up a picture and a sound clip and BAM: you had a piece of work that was more than the sum of its parts.
This was one of the earliest examples of a successful YTMND:
http://picard.ytmnd.com/
It doesn't look like much, but remember... this was before Youtube was around, and to someone who hadn't experienced much in terms of multimedia on the internet, that simple image and loop of music was hypnotic. The first time I saw that site, I must have spent a good minute and a half just listening to the loop. YTMND really was revolutionary at the beginning.
Of course, the site couldn't survive based on simple pictures and loops of sound, so the lifecycle of YTMND, or the "fad," was born. After someone posted something mildly catchy, like, say, the Bill Cosby clips from Family Guy and The Simpsons, people took those clips and twisted them into unrecognizable shapes. It was astounding to see the creativity and technical genius put into what was basically nonsense.
YTMND got bigger and bigger, with users contributing more and better content, all the way until Youtube started getting popular. Then the popularity of the site started dropping considerably, and the fact that fewer people were really contributing anything anymore created a snowball effect, where all of the contributing members slowly left the site until a precious few were left. That's where the site is at today. There is still content being produced that is simply genius, but quite honestly, no one is around to see it.
It took me about a year to come to terms with the fact that YTMND is dying. I couldn't accept the fact that what was effectively the same quality content (if not better) as two years ago wasn't generating the views and discussion that it had been. Now, of course, it's obvious to me why only hardened site veterans remain: Youtube is a superior site in almost every way. It provides more flexibility and provides greater benefits for the people who contribute to it.
So what happens when Starcraft dies? What will Team Liquid look like as viewership dwindles, as something better comes onto the scene? Of course, that won't happen for many years, but it's fascinating to think that the pattern of forum vets staying at the site while the general userbase leaves to go somewhere else might be a predictable phenomenon. I can't wait for a peer-reviewed psychological paper to come out analyzing this aspect of online communities.
Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say. I dunno why I wrote this blog... I guess I just got nostalgic while browsing YTMND.
To close, let me give you a sample of what YTMND used to be like at its prime.
http://pizzatheft.ytmnd.com/ <--- the inspiration
http://th3pppp.ytmnd.com/
http://pggdt.ytmnd.com/
http://th3p1zz41sm1n3.ytmnd.com/ (refresh after it loads)
If you don't get it, it's OK... one of the main reasons YTMND was so great was that users would start modifying source material with a simple photoshop, and others would up the ante... it was really fun to open up YTMND every day and see how someone had taken things to a new level.
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I don't like quicktime.
Maybe that is part of the dwindling reason? Who the h*** uses quicktime.
It reminds me of the time you needed to install a new codec for every movie you wanted to see. Then you had these big codec packages with all of them, supposedly. And then came vlc.
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On December 08 2009 03:40 Navane wrote:
I don't like quicktime.
Maybe that is part of the dwindling reason? Who the h*** uses quicktime.
It reminds me of the time you needed to install a new codec for every movie you wanted to see. Then you had these big codec packages with all of them, supposedly. And then came vlc.
i never visited because of quicktime either. especially now that it's bundled with itunes fuck that shit.
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Lol VLC is for people who don't know much more then how to turn on your computer.
Quicktime has an excellent AAC and H.264 codec not really the greatest as it used to be but one of the better ones in terms of time of encoding.
On that not i'm not installing shit on my computer just for one website i still don't have flash fuck that, x64 IE 8 all the way, secure and fast so shove it.
Anyways YTMND i've always taken as the best one of like albinoblackshepp 4chan etc just becuase lack of idiots being able to post comments.
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YTMND has been a great source of quick entertainment for quite some time.
http://cuffs.ytmnd.com/ A personal favorite of mine.
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The YTMND that used the departed clip...simply priceless
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oh, ytmnd
used to be such a good site
then it got overrun by boring, stale, overly memed content and just got so boring
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For me, ytmnd was 4chan before I knew what 4chan was; mindless 10 second pictures with sound that could occasional be fairly entertaining albeit stupid. It's sad to see any site go, but I never was really too into this one.
And yeah, all communities eventually die, I was part of an Advanced Wars forum that lasted a good 4 years., Now it simply no longer exists because everybody lost interest. Sad really. That's why the longevity of Teamliquid (and starcraft in general) is so interesting and appealing to me; there are people who have been members here for 7 years now, which frankly is amazing.
Btw, does anybody know if Newgrounds is dieing to now? I used to be fairly active there, but after you-tube there was really no need to go back there.
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On December 08 2009 04:25 Athos wrote:
For me, ytmnd was 4chan before I knew what 4chan was; mindless 10 second pictures with sound that could occasional be fairly entertaining albeit stupid. It's sad to see any site go, but I never was really too into this one.
And yeah, all communities eventually die, I was part of an Advanced Wars forum that lasted a good 4 years., Now it simply no longer exists because everybody lost interest. Sad really. That's why the longevity of Teamliquid (and starcraft in general) is so interesting and appealing to me; there are people who have been members here for 7 years now, which frankly is amazing.
Btw, does anybody know if Newgrounds is dieing to now? I used to be fairly active there, but after you-tube there was really no need to go back there.
newgrounds has pretty much been a shithole since the last Pico lol
some user comments there make me facepalm more than 4chan's /b/
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User comments = shitty site, in truth all sites should not have user comments unless it's a forum.
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17007 Posts
Omg I saw the first frame of this and new it was going to be sad 
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This website was so good before. Then 4chan and advertisements fucked it over GG
edit: I just found this, holy shit Im cracking up http://mychainsaw.ytmnd.com/
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my first introduction to YTMND was nigga stole my bike, I was never too enamored with the website though. I liked the days whe people were optimistic about internet culture and not pessimistic.
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the william tell version that is
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I remember this one from back when i played wow, never really knew much about the site sept for a few cool links here and there http://lorelol.ytmnd.com/
I also remember one with a stormtropper pelvis thrusting to the bad touch by BH gang.
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WHAT IS THE SONG FOR THE ANIMAL CROSSING ONE!!!! tiz so familiar, but i can't put my finger on it. Its an anime ending right?
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ohh wait- final fantasy!!! yes got it!
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As long as tl can adapt to SC2, I don't think the general populous will leave in droves like they did with ytmnd
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man I loved YTMND back in the day
I could remember just being entranced for minutes at just gifs and music
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I loved YTMND like 4 years ago. It'd be one of the first sites I'd go to everyday. I just kinda lost interest in it, but man did that site make me laugh
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I still have a bookmark folder on my Firefox containing nothing but YTMND bookmarks, but I honestly don't mind seeing the site die. I got tired of YTMND around the time you started having to dodge endless screamers and ear bleeders, internet memes, just film and TV clips adding fuck all, and complete and utter trash in order to get to the good stuff.
Like you said: it filled a niche for a time, and it was good. But I think it died a long time ago.
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I always thought YTMND was kind of lame. Albinoblacksheep and newgrounds were where it was at before youtube.
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Great post.
This is something that I've been wondering about as well. However, I've always thought about how websites especially old ones where the user base has dwindled seem like internet graveyards. Does anyone remember, xanga?
I remember that my freshman and sophomore year of high school everyone was raging about Xanga. People would post on their xangas about things that happened, their feelings, or just use it as a way of social interaction. However, now most people have gotten myspaces and even migrated to facebook. Xanga has been dead for years now, but sometimes I run into xanga's that have been abandoned, but still have all the content. The users who made the accounts have completely forgot about it.The stories are still there, the emotion, the sense of teenage angst, and well it's simply frozen there on a web page.
I remember going on YTMND my junior year of high school. My friends all made ytmnd's and so did I. Sure, they weren't exactly funny, but most of them were inside jokes. It seems that most of the fan base went to either 4Chan, or just simply log on to youtube to find interesting stuff to view.
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EPT
