I loved this story so much I copied it word for word from No Man's Blog. Enjoy…
Every person is a story that needs to be toldEvery person is a story. We all carry an unwritten book about in us. Everything is to be found in our lives. We can just produce it. All things are found in everything. As people we are very similar to one another. The greatest drama passes you by without your seeing it.
(Svend Wiig Hansen, Painter of the Human Condition).
This is how I felt when I came across Grandpa YouTube (better known as Geriatric1927) - the new star on YouTube, 78 years old widower (Peter) from the UK midlands.
As YouTube evolved, we grew accustomed to think of it as a creative playground for the young, tech-savvy or the MySpace generation. With LonelyGirl and Brookers we sort of perceived it, just as any other web 2.0 phenomena, to be the the territory of 16-32 years old who come here to be cool and creative and do all kinds of lip-synching and mash-up wonders.
And then out of nowhere, came Peter, a 78 years old technology enthusiast, who proudly tells of IMing many friends on MSN Messenger and Skype prior to his YouTube experiment where he sits with his eyes closed and with great humility in front of the camera and "Telling it all" - recounting excerpts from his life story. He is close to tears telling about the thousands of support emails he receives and since I've read about him (via Steve Rubel), 6 hours ago, 52K more views added to his videos.
His video autobiographies been watched more than 200,000 times and if you want to get a sense of the power of WOM check out the stats on his profile - the growth is absolutely amazing - more than 1000 more views added in 30sec (!) with currently more than 9000 people subscribed to get his next video. Check out also the abundance of video responses (e.g.) his diaries sparked - he really managed to move a lot of people.
#4 - Most Viewed Channels (Today)
#17 - Most Viewed Channels (This Week)
#25 - Most Viewed Channels (This Month)
#1 - Most Subscribed Channels (This Week)
#1 - Most Subscribed Channels (This Month)
#7 - Most Subscribed Channels (All Time)
He, I believe, is going to teach us that all of us are heroes and have the power to change our communities, ourselves, and, ultimately, the world
