Mulvey's argument and YouTube

What is the effect of looking at Mulvey's argument through the lenses of YouTube and the widespread availability of MiniDV cameras?  Technological advances have affected the nature of the spectator as increasingly the spectator becomes both a spectator of videos and an active maker of videos.  Does this change facilitate identification or distance the spectator-creator?  

In his manifesto "The Council of Three" Kino Vertov revels in the potential of the camera to evoke change and educate the masses.  He views the camera as a mechanism for improving upon and extending the eye with the result being a new being, which more than capturing reality, improves upon reality.  "The camera 'carries' the film viewer's eyes from arms to legs, from legs to eyes and so on, in the most advantageous sequence...I am kino-eye, I am a mechanical eye...I decipher in a new way a world unknown to you" (52, Cousins, et al.).  Though writing in the 1920's, Vertov's manifesto holds new significance today as the camera becomes the extension of not just the eyes of professional filmmakers, but amateurs and dilettantes.  Mulvey argues that there are three looks: the look of the camera/cinema apparatus, look of the spectator, and look of the characters on screen; and that the latter  subordinates the former and thus allows the spectator to passively identify with the characters and to take pleasure in the viewing process.  As the spectator becomes spectator-maker, the first two looks continue to be subordinated, but in a different way: not solely by the third look as Mulvey argues, but also by the camera becoming the extension of the everyman.  In this way, the look of the camera/cinema apparatus is less important since it is so familiar as to go unnoticed.  Similarly, the spectator's awareness of his spectatorship becomes irrelevant since it is commonplace and the difference between spectator and maker diminishes.  One could use the above argument to say that the growth of YouTube facilitates identification by aiding in the break down of the first two looks defined by Mulvey; however, one can find an equally strong argument in favor of YouTube having a distancing effect.

YouTube can be said to have a distancing effect by breaking down the invisibility of the first two looks.  It heightens the look of the apparatus as the spectator-maker is increasingly aware of the process of filmmaking and can thus view films with a more critical eye and conscious, judgmental lens.  Similarly it heightens the look of the spectator and awareness of spectatorship by creating a community of viewers.  YouTube clips are shared through online social-networking sites, through emails, etc... However, a similar community was created by the cinema.  I would argue that the YouTube community differs in the immediacy of response and awareness of response: view counts on YouTube's website, response videos, and spoofs.  Consequently, the first two looks that Mulvey argues are subordinated by the third look become exaggerated so that the audience is unable to subordinate them to the the third look of the character on screen, disallowing identification.

However, YouTube is not wildly successful because it eliminates the pleasure experienced in film-viewing.  Indeed it has heightened the ability to be seen, to show off oneself and to observe others.  YouTube provides an unprecedented outlet for scopophilia as defined by Mulvey's article.  However, it seems here to function on a much more personal level as the viewer does not identify with glamorous Hollywood star; it is simply the basic pleasure in looking.  So while YouTube does not fit precisely into the looks and the interrelations of the looks as defined by Mulvey, one finds that the basic premises for the pleasure derived in both classic cinema and YouTube stem from the same base.