Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents some suggestions for people who publish music videos on YouTube and, especially, for people who don't speak English but want English speaking people to view their YouTube videos.
I was motivated to publish this post after happening upon a comment written in English in the discussion thread of a 2015 video of a South African high school choir which asked why there weren't more views for a choir that sounded so good.
As curator of this pancocojams blog since August 2011, I surf YouTube a lot. Sometimes I return to artists/performers whose names I've learned in previous YouTube searches or whose names are mentioned in the discussion threads of videos I've purposely visited or happened to come across. Sometimes I decide to surf YouTube by music or dance category or by nation's name or region (such as the Caribbean). But when I search YouTube videos by categories, nations, or regions, most of the time I don't know what I'm looking for until I happen upon a video that I really like and/or a video that I decide to showcase on pancocojams because I think it will be of interest to this blog's visitors.
Here are my top two suggestions for people who publish YouTube music videos:
1. Include the singer's (or group's/choir's) name followed by the name of the song
(example: Yemi Alade - Johnny)
You'd be surprised how often the titles for YouTube music videos don't include the singer's or choir's name and the name of the song that is being sung.
For example, "Holy Rhythm" is the title of a video that I happened upon today https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBgLEXb0UPc. "Holy Rhythm" does suggest that it's a video of Christian music. But is "Holy Rhythm" the song's name, a description of the song or something else? As it turns out, "Holy Rhythm" is the name of the choir. I think the title should have been something like "Holy Rhythm High School Choir" followed by the name of the song that the choir is singing.
2. Include where the performing artist is from in the video's summary if not in the video's title
You'd also be surprised how many YouTube video titles and/or video summaries don't include what nation the featured artist/performer is from.
Using the "Holy Rhythm" video as an example again, that video's summary mentions that "Holy Rhythm" is a group of individuals from Germiston High school"... Some commenters in the video's discussion thread mentioned "South Africa". Even though they knew that that high school is located in South Africa, people who aren't familiar with South Africa wouldn't know that was where that high school is located.
You shouldn't have to read through a video's discussion thread to find out where an unknown singer or singing group is from.
Note: "Yemi Alade's "Johnny" video doesn't include that she is from Nigeria, but that's because Yemi Alade is already internationally famous and information about her nation of origin is easy to find.
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Here are my top two suggestions for non-English* speaking people who publish YouTube music videos and want English speaking viewers:
1. Include (in English) what language/s this song is performed in
2. Include (in English) what the title means
3. Include whether the song is religious or romantic or other broad categories. If the song is "traditional", explain what that means. (Traditional to who? Is it a traditional rendition of an old song or an updated version of an old song?)
4. Include lyrics to this song in the language/s that is (are) being sung
5. Include an English translation to this song or summary of this song
6. If dancing is included in the video, include whether this dancing is traditional, and if so what was its traditional purposes.
While all** of this information could be included in the discussion thread, it's much easier to find it in the summary. If the video publisher and/or others include this information in the discussion thread, it may be difficult to find in large discussion threads, and/or requests for this information (and responses) may be repeated multiple times.
**The information that I've listed may not be of interest to many viewers, but I sure would love to know it.
*Unfortunately, a lot of English speaking people (including myself) from the United States, in particular, don't speak or read any other language. However, I try to translate some comments in discussion threads using Google translate. However, Google translate doesn't include a lot of non-European languages, and some of the results for the non-European languages that it does include are clearly inaccurate.
Although it's true that people in the United States and elsewhere should speak and read more languages and although I recognize that discussion threads from other nations will and should include comments written in the language/s of that nation, if people want to attract English speaking viewers and commenters, then I think it behooves them to include this information in English or in another European based language such as French which only English speakers can find translations for relatively easily.
In addition to those top two suggestions for non-English speaking people, I would also suggest that:
1. The publisher of the video responds to comments, particularly to comments directed at him or her.
This shows that the publisher is interested in those who view his or her video.
2. The video publisher and/or the discussion threads commenters be courteous toward other commenters who ask courteous questions about the song or the video itself.
I've only come across a few videos where commenters blatantly wrote that if you weren't from that particular nation or ethnic group or geographical region, you shouldn't be writing anything on that discussion thread.
However, a number of times I've read comments in English from people praising a song (for instance one in Haitian Creole or in ixiXhosa) without giving any information about what the song is about, even though some commenters had asked in English what the song's title meant, and/or what the song was about.
3. Commenters be welcoming toward people who respectfully comment.
Reading YouTube video discussion threads can be hazardous duty, filled with argumentative diatribes, profanity, and sexually explicit references. I don't mean to imply that people should be welcoming of those types of commenters. But people who respectfully comment because they are seeking information should be welcomed, even though their comments may reveal the lack of some basic information. For instance, one person who asked where a video was filmed received the response that he should have known that the country was [x] because of the flag that was in the video and because of how the people were dressed.
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Additions to this list and comments about this list are welcome.
One love!
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