When Did YouTube Take Over?

The other day my daughter wanted to use the computer but I was busy writing.  She had no problem with that.  With her tablet in hand she went to her room.  I didn’t see her again for hours.  When she finally came up for dinner I asked her what game she was playing.  She informed me that she wasn’t playing one (Although she is a Minecraft fanatic.)   She insisted that she spent the entire time on YouTube.  I’ve used YouTube before but only to find videos and never for very long at a time.  My daughter explained that you could find just about anything in there.  Then I was noticing on my Twitter feeds that a good number of people were posting things from YouTube.  So I started to check it out.  At first I found my videos.  Then I found episodes of old shows I used to watch in their entirety.  There was even a cartoon series I had watched growing up with all the episodes to view for free.  Then I checked out my online gaming Twitter followers.  It seems they are able to record their games and post them on YouTube for others to watch.  Many of them had podcasts about games like World of Warcraft.  Never really having the time or outside influence to do any of this it all came as quite a surprise.  My daughter said she would watch other people play Minecraft.  I already am and appear to be an out of touch father so I didn’t ask but I could not help but wonder what the attraction was to watching someone else play an online game?  Are you trying to see how they beat certain levels?  Are you looking for hidden items in the game you didn’t know about?  Are you just trying to learn new moves?  Then I thought about my love of football.  I watch those games and never intend to go out and do what the professionals do.  Maybe it is just entertainment in the same way?  All I know is, watching someone else play a video game is boring to me but apparently not to everyone.  I don’t even know what to look up on YouTube but I am in the minority there.  My son had an interview and I was at work.  He needed to know how to tie a tie so he watched on YouTube and learned that way.  People make up their own music videos to songs.  Why?  They aren’t being paid for it.  Then there are the Justin Beibers of the world who see YouTube as their path to fame.  It is hard to argue but it is annoying when you want to see a video of something and most of your options are some dude on his guitar playing the song off key.   Is it becoming a parent to our children?  Sometimes my daughter spends more time on that site than she does with me.  I am not condemning the web site.  Far from it.  I just can’t believe how it has become so big and I have hardly noticed.