ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a few visual and new media artists and their usage and definitions of both YouTube and social media more generally. It attempts to sketch the ways in which creativity and intimacy are being deployed by contemporary artists. The rise of user created content (UCC) and social media has also witnessed the growth in new media literacy emphasizing the 'creative vernacular'. As camera phones become more commonplace in the rise of UCC media, the ways in which the personal are negotiated through the public and private spheres are being transformed. Applications such as camera phone have both heralded a new type of user-lead journalism and media practice as well as being the tools for cyber bullying and youth narcissism. The aforementioned 'vernacular creativity' identified by Jean Burgess within social media can be linked to earlier media practices as Patrick Pound's exploration into the specters of photography illustrates.
