Communicating creativity on YouTube: what and for whom?

This article addresses nonprofessional users' expressions of everyday creativity on YouTube, adopting the idea that making entails connecting on different levels. By combining different materials and ideas into a video and sharing it within the social context of the platform, uploaders can connect with its enormous audience. In our first study, we explore patterns in the elements that are used when creating a video. We also question whether these pattern combinations are aimed at different types of viewers. Our results show that videos with self-made content that display various skills are mainly targeted at viewers situated close to the uploader (e.g., family, friends). However, videos that incorporate instances of popular culture, either as a whole (e.g., a pop concert recording) or in part (e.g., remixed with other content), are directed at a much broader audience. In our second study, we question whether these self-made videos convey a message about uploaders' personality traits commonly linked to creative behavior. We found that independent observers are able to accurately predict the uploaders' actual openness to experience, a trait marked as the substrate of creativity. Next, we discuss our results in light of a pessimistic view of today's democratized culture. We show that uploaders appear to have a tacit knowledge of what kind of videos are interesting for what type of viewers. We conclude that, despite the lowered barriers to the production and dissemination of video, YouTube viewers are still able to identify variations in the personality trait most commonly associated to creativity.