But as YouTube grows, its users are quietly creating their own brand of exploitation theater. The New York Daily News is reporting on the phenomenon of "web thugging," in which some form of criminal mischief is committed and then posted to YouTube. In the News story, 21-year-old Gazi Abura was one of three men who stopped a 16-year-old Queens kid, impersonated police officers, and grilled the youth for a crime they said he committed. They filmed the incident and posted it to the Crack Cops DVD series on YouTube. Real cops heard about the prank, found the video on YouTube, and used it to track down the victim and apprehend Abura.

With regards to sex, YouTube's sheer sprawl makes it fairly user-unfriendly as an online destination. That's why Jim Bumgardner's YouTube: Hotties is so fascinating. What's a coverpop? Writes Bumgardner, "Each coverpop is an interactive mosaic, made of tiny images, such as magazine covers. These are called micro thumbnails. As you drag the mouse over each micro thumbnail, it pops up to a full-sized thumbnail image, and provides some information about the item." YouTube: Hotties collapses the top 500 sexy videos from the YouTube each week into one graphically pleasing desktop mural. Got to CoverPop.com for more cover pops, including a giant spread of every cereal box cover ever made.