The deep link and its implications for mutual understanding

Two comments in the following example make use of the design feature that allows users to tie comments specifically and accountably to a place in the video, the so called deep link. Again, the simple use of this deep link function signals that a comment does not refer to any other comment in the spatial surroundings, but to a place in the video, which, if the reader of the comment is interested, can be accessed by clicking on the link. This presupposes a lot of extra work on the reader’s part: a reader must be interested and willing to click on the link, which can have a disruptive effect on two levels. For one, the current activity of reading comments is interrupted by directing the reader’s/viewer’s attention (back) to the video; and for another, if the video itself is still playing, it will be interrupted and moved forward or backward to exactly the specified place, resulting in a discontinued audio-visual track. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there are no statistics or further insights on the actual click-rates of these deep links available, nor have I been able to find reactions to comments with deep links that provide clues as to how they are received. Thus, I cannot comment on consumer behavior in this case. But it is my assumption that precisely because of the disruptive nature of these links, not many viewers/readers click on them. The following analysis presupposes the comment authors’ expectation that their link will actually be clicked on.

13 as mentioned before, there is a design feature that allows visibly staying within the written mode – the reply function

191 Example 2

Figure 7.8, Screenshot of vlog at 2:16

Transcript of vlog at 5:18

1 track number nine is xyz,

2 which are actually the last three letters in the English alphabet, 3 if you did not know,

Figure 9, comments to I GOT A BOY ALBUM & MV REVIEW – Soshi Vlog #43

Comment 1 (cf. screenshot) ties to a place in the video where the vlogger lip-synchs a song. At 2:16, the song (which seems to be interpreted by a woman) is at a particularly

192 high pitch. Comment 2 ties to a place in the video where the vlogger is talking about music.

One assumption one might make about the deep-link function is that commenters could use it to approach a conversation-like state, in that they could tie to, say, a particular spoken question, e.g. “what’s your favorite color”, and then provide the answer in a comment, e.g. “blue”, thereby creating adjacency. This rarely seems to be the case, though, and I assume that this is so because while a deep link provides the starting point for a relevant referent in the video, it does not automatically stop. This makes it more complex to precisely point out what the comment ties to, in that it could potentially be any stretch from the deep link to the end of the video¹⁴. Both comments 1 and 2 do not approach this hypothetical conversational scenario.

Both report on an immediate reaction that supposedly took place in temporal immediacy to the watching of the relevant scene. Comment 1 reports on a feeling of anxiety in reaction to the lip-synching (cf. screenshot of video above), and comment 2 reports on laughter in response to an apparently humorous remark (cf. transcript above). However, the comments do not themselves represent the respective reactions directly, and thus adjacency is not created. What is presented in the two comments is a report of a situation where two temporally adjacent contributions occurred: “u scared the shit outta me” and “I laughed at 5:18 waayyy harder than I should have”.

Both of these comments are marked as a reaction to the previous contribution that can be retrieved independently of the reported incident by clicking on the deep link.

As previously mentioned, a reader/viewer who wants to make sense of these comments has to do considerable work. A time stamp as such is simply a string of numbers which, in itself, cannot create coherence. It only becomes relevant as a context creating device when it is clicked on. However, it simultaneously becomes a context changing device in that it directs attention away from the written comments to

14 I have, in fact, seen a commenter use two deep links in one comment, similar to “best part: 2.15 to 3.03”, cf. Figure 7.2. While this pointed out to a reader both beginning and end, it was not useful in terms of the function of the second deep link, in that this one, too, would be treated as a starting point if one clicked on it. A speculative explanation of this ‘misuse’ could be that the commenter did not actually want to use a link, but his or her simple text was automatically converted.

193 the recorded video. A viewer has to be prepared to concur with this change of context and the resulting change of mode. Subsequently, they have to actively search for the element of the video that is actually meant, for it might be any number of things, either verbal/audio, visual, or a combination; and it could be only a fraction of a second long, or much longer. Thus, the placement of such a deep link in a comment reflects a certain confidence of the commenter that whatever it is that is referred to in the video will be identifiable by the reader/viewer with the help of this link, and it reflects a presupposition by the commenter that a reader/viewer who clicks on the link will assume that this link will help them find the relevant referent. In other words, there is a mutual agreement between commenter and reader/viewer that, by inserting and clicking on the deep link, both parties collaborate to create coherent interaction and therefore make sense of each other’s actions.