About
“Deep Into YouTube” is an expression used to describe a variety of obscure video content found on YouTube that are marked by amateur production value and incoherent narrative, in a somewhat similar vein to the content said to be hosted in the “weird part” of the video-sharing community. However, these videos from the so-called “depth of YouTube” are mainly distinguished from the former by their relatively low view counts and lack of exposure in the social media.
Origin
The exact origin of the phrase “deep into YouTube” is unclear. The earliest known use of the expression in the context of bizarre content found on the video-sharing site was posted on February 5th, 2010 by Student Pilot Forums[2] member AirVenture, who commented about searching “deep into YouTube” to find a video of a woman regurgitating into a paper bag while flying in a jet airplane.
Precursor
“I’m in that weird part of YouTube” is an expression used in response to a video post that may be deemed disturbing or eccentric in content. Commonly seen in the comments section of YouTube, the phrase first surfaced in Google’s YouTube Help forum as early as 2009.
Spread
On April 19th, 2012, Facepunch Forums[5] member Fkpuz posted a playlist[5] of bizarre fetish videos, claiming he “searched deep into YouTube” to discover them.
On March 25th, 2013, the /r/deepintoyoutube[1] subreddit was created for submissions of YouTube videos with less than 200,000 views that had been uploaded at least five months prior. In the first two years, the subreddit gained over 60,500 subscribers. On November 13th, the YouTube news blog Tube Chum[7] launched its “Deep Into YouTube” series, which highlights “the weirdest, creepiest videos that the Internet has to offer.” On May 31st, 2014, Redditor TheMBlabla submitted a cartoon titled “This is how you know you’ve gone too deep into YouTube” to the /r/videos[6] subreddit, where it garnered more than 2,200 votes (78% upvoted) in the next two months (shown below).
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]Reddit = /r/deepintoyoutube
[2]Student Pilot Forums – AirVenture
[3]YouTube – Deep Into YouTube Playlists
[4]YouTube – Awkward Fetish Videos
fn5 Facepunch Forums – Introducing the Awkward Fetish YouTube Playlist
[6]Reddit – This is how you know youve gone too deep into YouTube
[7]Tube Chum – Deep Into YouTube