Mimi Ito, a research scientist at the University of California at Irvine, gave an introduction to DIY Video. She is a cultural anthropologist studying new media use, particularly among young people in Japan and the U.S. Her research right now focuses on digital media use in the U.S. and portable technologies in Japan.

Mimi explained that there are many variations of videos that are made by amateurs. They can be broadly classified under these categories: Machinima, Vidding, AMVs, Political Remix, Activist Media, Arts/Independents, Youth Video, Video Blogging. Each one of these are niche categories and there are people who specialise in them. While there are special events for each one of the above categories of videos, there wasn't any single platform that brought everyone together and as a result, the idea for the DIY 24/7 event was born.

Mimi showcased about an hour of videos that had became popular online. She and her team tracked down each of the producers to better understand the motivation behind their creativity.

To the question of what activates people to move from a positive mood to an expressive mood, this is what Mimi had to say: "You move from first trying to make something and showing it to a few friends. And then you start getting to know some people online and you might get it uploaded to the organisation. Or you could enter a competition. When you decide to go to a big convention and meet other AMV creators, then that's another level. It's at the big AMV conventions that we get to talk about each other's video and that's when you realise that the videos are actually conversations amongst the AMV creators. You wouldn't just know that just from downloading the videos. The videos are a result of conversations that editors are having through a lot of private channels like at conventions or on IM."

You can listen to the podcast with Mimi by clicking on this link.