Exploring time-coded comments on YouTube music videos: The past, present, and future of an emerging source for digital musicology
The potential for the systematic analysis of YouTube comments has
been recognised by many researchers in fields including music
information retrieval (MIR), sociology, and musical ethnography (Yadati
et al. 2014; Thelwall 2018; Born and Haworth 2017). Notably, since 2008
YouTube has automatically detects timecodes in user-generated comments,
converting them to “deep” links that skip playback directly to the
moment in the video cited (Vliegendhart et al. 2015). Presenting the
history, use, and future prospects of these time-coded comments (TCCs)
on YouTube, I assess their value as a novel primary source for digital
musicologists.