Slogan Doctor: YouTube: 'Broadcast Yourself'

By John Morrish Wednesday, 01 July 2009

YouTube's slogan, conjured up by founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, was introduced in late 2005, shortly after the site's launch.

Replacing a dull line - 'Upload, tag and share your videos online' - it taps into the impulses of an egotistical age. With people aspiring to appear on Big Brother, who wouldn't want to broadcast their doings to a waiting world? Hence YouTube's diet of skateboard tricks, juggling, pratfalls, practical jokes, video diaries, funny babies and pets at the piano. But this makes up a small portion of the content. The rest is culled from TV, DVDs, concert footage and so on, all of which belong to someone. This is a problem for Google, YouTube's owner, which is under siege from content owners to remove their stuff. 'Broadcast Yourself' is a fig-leaf of respectability professing YouTube's good (and legal) intentions. The slogan's days may be numbered, as it emphasises professional material, licensed from content producers, over user-generated amateurism. So if you want to make your musical cat famous, hurry.

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