I think it is safe to say that the majority of scrapbook pages are prompted by a photograph. Probably the next most common prompt is a piece of memorabilia, such as, a ticket stub. Granted, there are books, websites, and so on offering other ideas for scrapbook pages and plenty of folks are making pages prompted by something other than a photo or a piece of memorabilia.
A few weeks ago, someone shared a link to an article about Sad YouTube. It struck me for a couple of reasons.
First, it made me think of YouTube as scrapbook-like. Isn’t commenting sometimes comparable to journaling? Aren’t we also able to share videos of memories that might alternately be photographed and placed in a scrapbook? There is certainly a lot to wade through on YouTube, but parts of it certainly share features with scrapbooks.
Second, Sad YouTube is worth exploring. Music prompts memories for people–memories that might not otherwise be prompted. This is hardly a groundbreaking thought. Slightly more interesting is that the same song can prompt very different memories for people. Even this isn’t that interesting. What is worth exploring is why would someone share their story anonymously (or semi-anonymously) on YouTube? Why would they put their story there? In a place where no one they know may ever find it? YouTube shares some similarities with other types of social media, but it’s still different.
I certainly haven’t offered a full analysis of YouTube or Sad YouTube, but wanted to put this out there and ask you:
Do you record or share memories on YouTube? Why or why not?
Stephanie Medley-Rath is a sociologist and scrapbooker who studies scrapbooking and memory keeping. Scrapworthy Lives is a blog focused on her sociological analysis of scrapbooking, with a sprinkling of posts about Stephanie's own scrapbooking projects.
