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The Essential Michael Wesch: Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us YouTube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube YouTube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU A Vision of Students Today YouTube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o Digital Ethnography MediatedCultures.net/ksudigg

Anthropology professor Michael Wesch once beat advertisers at their own game, inadvertently. On February 5, 2007, Technorati reported his homemade video was being discussed on more blogs than the multimillion-dollar Superbowl ads that aired the night before. His work wasn't virally cute like Star Wars Kid or Numa Numa, but was an analysis of human communication that ended with stern words that all marketers should heed: "We need to rethink ourselves."

Wesch's approach was academic and the video, called "Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us," was initially uploaded to get feedback from fellow academics. But the video, like those that have followed, uses evocative music and a definite artistic style to make his message clear and broadly appealing.

As a communicator, his knows his stuff. As a digital ethnographer, he is someone you must check out to understand the scope of the media culture this industry is currently struggling with.

Wesch and his students are dedicated to examining how human interactions are changing as online media integrates deeper and deeper into our lives. Their work might not tell you how to best monetize Twitter, but it will put serious holes in any lingering belief that social media is a fad driven by ego and idle hands. Wesch's 2008 presentation to the U.S. Library of Congress called "An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube" painted a vivid picture of how drastically media has changed (60 years of network television content-1.5 million hours-was outpaced by YouTube uploads in a six-month period).

Perhaps more importantly, many of those uploads are parts of conversations exploring the nature of the Internet, relationships, honesty and basic human emotions. When was the last time a Superbowl ad did that?