Welcome to the wacky world of YouTube, the latest internet sensation to threaten a cultural revolution. Why trifle with texting or instant messaging when you can communicate with the rest of the world via your very own online video site?

The global spread of mobile phones and digital cameras with video capability has spawned a new form of web-based television that is exploding in popularity. More than 50,000 video clips are uploaded daily at YouTube, and they are watched an astounding 50m times.

The emergence of do-it-yourself video entertainment — in bite-sized packages that are never longer than 10 minutes and sometimes last only a few seconds — has sent shockwaves through the corporate world of American entertainment, which is scrambling to decide whether to sue YouTube for stealing material or to embrace the huge audience that flocks to the website each day.

It is also creating a new generation of internet stars, at least one of whom has become globally renowned for filming himself making farting noises. Another YouTube celebrity is Brooke Brodack, known online as Brookers, whose short videos about eating glue and playing with her pet ferret attracted a cult following. Last week she signed a contract with a Hollywood production company.

The genius of YouTube — founded last year by a pair of California nerds in an office above a pizza parlour — has been to combine the seemingly global enthusiasm for doing silly things in front of a camera with an idiotproof technology that makes uploading and viewing the video clips a doddle.

The result is what the Los Angeles Times dubbed “citizen cinema” — a vast archive of amateur videos that are alternately numbingly dull and screamingly funny. Who can forget the three Japanese wags who sneak into a friend’s bedroom while he is sleeping, carry his bed out of the house into a nearby field, tie his feet to a horse, and then fire a starting pistol?

While most of the videos are of little interest to anyone but the cameraman’s family and friends, some strike a multinational nerve. Such was the case of the now infamous Bus Uncle, a Hong Kong bus passenger whose antics have become an internet legend.

When Elvis Ho, a 23-year-old estate agent, politely asked the older man sitting in front of him to lower his voice, neither of them knew that what happened next would be filmed by a fellow passenger clutching his mobile cameraphone.

The older man, Roger Chan, 51, did not take kindly to being tapped on the shoulder and launched into a six-minute tirade in Cantonese. Chan swears, curses, rants, rages, insults and threatens. Ho was so cowed he started calling Chan “uncle”, a Cantonese term of respect.

The clip has been viewed millions of times. One columnist suggested its popularity was due to the fact that “each of us has a tiny, raging Bus Uncle buried deep within. One tap on the shoulder is all it takes”.

Yet there’s no easy explanation for the performance of a YouTube contributor known as Smosh, who attracted 12m viewers to a clip of him lip-synching to the Pokemon cartoon theme song. Nor can Judson Laipply, a 30-year-old small town comedian, explain how he became the biggest name on YouTube by spoofing different disco dancing styles.

For entertainment executives struggling to harness rampant internet copying, YouTube poses numerous problems. Many of the clips use copyrighted images or music. Yet television networks quickly realised they could not afford to alienate an audience of millions of mostly young people who are increasingly abandoning television for the internet.

Having initially threatened lawsuits against video websites, the NBC television network is now reportedly negotiating to supply its own videos to YouTube, including “sneak peeks” of new shows and other promotional clips. One of the most popular videos on YouTube last week was a Nike commercial showing Ronaldinho, the Brazilian footballer, performing tricks with a ball.

US television critics have been describing YouTube in near-apocalyptic terms as a shift from an era of corporate-provided entertainment to popular home production. “It’s the masses talking to the masses,” said one California academic.

Not everyone is excited. An editor of PC Magazine coined the term “iVideots” for the “me” generation of supposed video idiots who have adopted YouTube’s motto: “Broadcast yourself.”

Yet, for now, YouTube is becoming the first port of call for a worldwide generation of computer users whose idea of having fun is to watch a video clip called “My ‘Porn’ and Your Daily Dose of Undiluted Boredom” (163,000 views last week) or others called “The Monkey Stole My Fanta” (98,000 views) and “Catfight Over Bikini Model” (55,000).

Before everyone rushes off in search of that “Hot Sexy Blonde Chick”, by the way, a word of warning: the clip lasts just 19 seconds and it really does only show her putting on her socks.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• 'Devastating' abuse found amongst Aborigines
• LA profits from Michael Jackson stimulus
• Was Jörg Haider murdered?