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Tyler, The Creator x M.I.A. x Earl Sweatshirt...and 10 other reasons to be psyched about the YouTube Awards
Tyler, The Creator x M.I.A. x Earl Sweatshirt...and 10 other reasons to be psyched about the YouTube Awards

Top 10 Tuesdays: 10 Reasons To Be Cautiously Amped About The YouTube Awards...As Explained Through YouTubes

Tyler, The Creator x M.I.A. x Earl Sweatshirt...and 10 other reasons to be psyched about the YouTube Awards

This morning YouTube announced that M.I.A., Tyler, The Creator + Earl Sweatshirt, will be joining Lady Gaga & Eminem on the line-up at their first ever Music Video Awards Show next Sunday November 3rd. In a statement posted to their official blog, team YouTube shared that much of their motivation to launch an Awards Show was rooted in a desire to "celebrate music fans and the music you love." Ourselves, we're kind of geeked about the launch of this show if only because has  strong potential to (positively) disrupt the music video awards space and the democracy behind celebrating various achievements that go into music videos. Of course the performances from the artists named above could be reasons 1-3 to be amped In anticipation of the upcoming show, but we compiled a list of 10 other good reasons why the YouTube Music Video Awards Show might be pretty dang tuff--explained of course, with 10 YouTubes. Click through--->

1. It's been "A Long Time" Coming..

At this stage of the game, it just makes sense for YouTube to do a music video awards show. In fact, the timing might be a bit over-due.  The MTV Music Video Awards seems to be the dominant music video awards show, but when was the last time that you can actually remember tuning into  MTV to *watch* music videos (as opposed to watching some crass teeny-bopper reality show hot mess that you sadly and secretly check out every so often)? Its now been three years since MTV dropped "Music Television" from its official logo, and eight years since YouTube first arrived on the scene. It’s been a long-time coming, but the time for a YouTube Music Video Awards has clearly arrived, and is clearly right.

2.  The Show Will Be Broadcast With “Computer Love”

On some levels, traditional TV is getting tired. C’mon – admit it. You’re already totally bout that Hulu-Netflix-Youtube-AppleTV life. Instead of broadcasting the show on TV, The YouTube Music Video Awards will be streamed live to…(you guessed it), YouTube. The medium is the message and in this case the medium definitely makes for a unique experience in watching an awards show.

3.  The YouTube Awards Will Support Artists on "The Come Up” 

While the specific award categories and nominees for the YouTube Music Video Awards will be announced in the next upcoming weeks, it’s been reported that rising stars and breakout artists may have an opportunity to get recognition. On traditional music/video awards show, they generally don't stand a chance. it's about time awards recognized the power of the web (and yes, the blogs) in a way that doesn't involve dude from "Gangam Style" being on stage.

4. YouTube is broadcasting the Awards Show from a Pier in "LES" NYC.

In all fairness, MTV stepped up its game this year when they brought the MTV Music Awards to Brooklyn at Barclay’s center, but much respect is due to YouTube for picking an even more unique space to hold and broadcast heir show at  - pier 36 in the Lower East Side of NYC. Thankfully, YouTube strayed from the “been-there” / “done-that” typical venues (particularly in NYC) for events of this nature.

5. Spike Jonez is Directing the YouTube Music Video Awards Show.

Yup – the guy who directed Being John Malkovich, Where the Wild Things Are and the classic music videos for The Beastie Boys, The Pharcyde and Bjørk--plus that all-G.I.-Joe-everything action movie with Santigold, is directing the YouTube awards. Let's hope he combines his go-to tropes and gives us an awards show montage featuring puppet-monsters with 1970's ill-fitting toupés and moustaches dancing around backwards to 90's hip-hop.

6. #RapGod

Listen. Love him or hate him, Eminem is himself a positive-disruptor of the rap game, every time he deigns to step back into it. If Em was being asked to represent our genre and culture by himself, that might be problematic. But with the knowledge that Tyler, The Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and M.I.A. will be representing different styles and hues of the MC game, this promises to be a breath of fresh air for the artform that created the need for lyrics videos in the first place. Plus without the FCC directly involved M.I.A. is almost guaranteed to go off.

7. The YouTube Awards Will Truly "Belong To The World”

Leading into the awards show, YouTube will feature performances from Seoul, Moscow, London and an undisclosed location in Brazil. With YouTube localized in 56 countries and available in 61 languages, its only fair and sensible that our often blinded and privileged U.S. sense of superiority gets a much-needed chin-check on recognizing YouTube’s global impact.

8.  If All Goes Well – the Show Might Evolve Into an “Award Tour.”

It’s been reported that if the YouTube Music Video Awards show goes well, we can anticipate a possible YouTube Concert in the works (and we want you to know we wrote this before ATCQ announced that the Yeezus tour stop in NYC would be their last show ever -ed.)

9. You Won’t Have to “Wait in Vain” for Re-broadcasts of the YouTube Music Video Awards if you Miss the Live Stream

Unlike traditional TV Awards show, you won’t have to wait on standby to find out when the re-broadcast will happen if you miss the original view date of the YouTube Awards. Danielle Tiedt, YouTube's vice president of marketing, said that about 90% of the total views on YouTube for live events come after the event has happened, so we can easily head over to Youtube to conveniently see the entire show on our own time…and CLEARLY not have to worry about the link being pulled down for any copyright violation.

10. Let’s Face it – YouTube is giving "Poetic Justice" to the Music Industry

Yes, YouTube is giving poetic justice to the music biz, but don't get it twisted, this article isn’t a poetic ode to YouTube or its parent company Google in general. We're just giving respect where respect is due. YouTube has nearly 1 billion unique visitors each month; and over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube – almost an hour for every person on earth. And as far as its significance in the music industry is concerned, earlier this year Billboard officially made YouTube spins part of its formula to determine its Hot 100 formula.

Set your DVRs to remind you to open your computer on November 3rd--and stay tuned for more info on the YouTube Music Video awards as this story continues to develop.