On street corners everywhere, people are looking at their cell phones, and it's easy to dismiss this as some sort of bad trend in human culture. But the truth is life is being lived there. When they smile - right, you've seen people stop - all of a sudden, life is being lived there, somewhere up in that weird, dense network.
Ze Frank
Let me think about the people who I care about the most, and how when they fail or disappoint me... I still love them, I still give them chances, and I still see the best in them. Let me extend that generosity to myself.
Trust is a confusing thing. It seems so simple, but when you try to pin it down, it can be so elusive.
I don't want to get too philosophical, but in a sense, you're given this gift, this sort of creative force in you, and I think everyone has it, and it's completely unique to you. And you as a person have a little bit of a responsibility as its shepherd if you choose to incorporate that into your life.
I'm obsessed with media and the way audiences can become creative participants.
I think this is one of the greatest gifts of this era: Because of the Internet, we can start to type a question into Google and watch the question auto-fill. In that moment, we know someone else has asked that same question. The gift of realizing you're not alone is incredibly powerful.
I'm fascinated by simple joy.
YouTube has become more mature, both as a platform and as a community. So much content has been added in almost every conceivable category that there are no more free passes on just getting there first. I think there are greater expectations for audience participation, the kind of participation that makes a real impact in a show's community.
A good procrastination should feel like you're inserting lots and lots of commas into the sentence of your life.
Video has become much more social, and as a result, there are many opportunities to use video as a way to connect people, to give them opportunities to play and participate, to make things together and have a shared social experience. I think we are just at the beginning of really exploring what social video is and what we can make of it.
I studied neuroscience at the cellular level, so I was looking at learning and memory in the visual cortex of rats. Neuroscience mainly exposed me to a way of thinking - about experimentation, about what you believe to be true and how you could prove it - and how to approach things in a methodical manner.
Anything that makes you feel the most alone also has the greatest power to connect you.
The thing that has always struck me is that there has always been a bit of a hole at YouTube when it comes to authenticity, human emotion, fun and play.
If you want to get into the creative world, you have to just keep flogging away even when nobody's paying attention. Because then when somebody finally does pay attention, it's certainly a lot more interesting when you have a ton of stuff to show.
We can't all be like Ryan Seacrest... the perfect platform manifestation of a human. I don't know if we all have those gifts for restraining our emotions... or whatever it is he does.
The story of technology seems to go up and then retract into simplicity again.
I've been fascinated by the Internet from the very start. In 2001, I had made a funny black-and-white film called 'How to Dance Properly,' a short video of me dancing to a Madonna song. I sent it to 17 of my friends on a Thursday, and by Monday, one million people a day were logging on to view it.
I'm always glad when people come together to help each other - whether they're raising money for somebody in a bad situation or making a creative piece like a song.
What's so funny about cats is that they have this kind of aloof, superior vibe to them. Even if you love them, they are unpredictable. Dogs are more social, and the way that they attach and bond to us is much more human.
For some reason, we stopped getting gold stars at some age. It's time to bring them back.
Mobile video is now a reality and a force to be reckoned with. I think it is essential to think about how people interact with their phones; how they consume content and how they share.
The naked mole is, like, the ugliest freakin' creature in the world. It is so radically, unbelievably disgusting. And the star-nosed mole is also. It looks like it snorted a firecracker. They live way underground, and to get footage of them is basically impossible.
In an ever-changing technological landscape, where today's platforms are not tomorrow's platforms, the key seems to be that any one of these spaces can use a dose of humanity and art and culture.
I've been super impressed with what BuzzFeed has done on Facebook with inspiring list posts and on Twitter with political scoops, but YouTube is a giant social platform that has its own quirks and oddities and will require some new approaches.
I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your creativity - you can feed it with content, with some rational prodding and sleep and things like that, but the mechanisms by which your creativity work are largely unknown.
When I was young, I had this feeling that there was this handbook that I had never gotten that explained how to be, how to laugh, what to wear, how to stand by yourself in the hallway. Everyone looked so natural - like they all practiced and knew exactly what to do - even the way they pushed their hair out of their face.
Most of us yearn for really intimate, healthy, in-person relationships. People have a deep desire to be understood, to be told that it's OK, that you're not isolated and broken, that this is part of the human challenge, and that there is hope. The capacity for online interactions to do that is powerful.
What better way to connect with people than by staring and talking straight at them? Don't blink - that's one less connection you could have made.
We have this incredible ability to communicate with each other. I want to play around with it, see what this mass audience is really capable of.
