What vidnik means to me.

[David Phillip Oster]

I wrote Vidnik, but I truly didn't understand what it meant until I
watched this video: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION TO YOUTUBE (55:33)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU

Particularly, toward the end about 48 minutes in, where the author is
looking at the tiny glass dot, the lens of his webcam, and says:

"Consider again that dot. That's "there." That's "somewhere else."
That's everybody. On the other side of that little glass dot is
everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of.
Everyone who's living out their lives that has access to the internet.
Billions of potential viewers, your future self among them. Some have
called this the biggest and the smallest stage. The most public space
in the world, from the privacy of our own homes.

"It has been used for many things, a political soapbox, a comedian's
stage, a religious pulpit, a teacher's podium or just a way to reach
out. To a next door neighbor or across the world to people we love,
people we want to love, or people we don't even know. To share
something deep or something trivial, something serious, or something
funny. To strive for fame or to simply connect.

"It can be many things, but it cannot just be one thing. And it cannot
be only what you want it to be. It is not just what you make of it, it
is what we make of it. It is a little glass dot and the eyes of the
world."