Transformer reviews: More than meets the eye

Julian has been obsessed with Transformers for at least a year now. Sure, he loves playing with the toys themselves, but it's the vast library of Transformer reviews on YouTube that have truly captivated him.

It's a simple concept: Take a video of yourself or your hand while you transform the toy and talk about why you like it or don't like it. The majority of them seem to come from guys in that 18 to 40 age range who either loved Transformers in the first go-around in the 1980s or, like Julian, discovered them with this most recent trilogy.

There are a few, like Sean X Long, who have racked up millions of video views and are probably making a living off doing toy reviews. It's really fascinating.

Julian likes to watch them on my phone, on the iPad or on the TV (though YouTube on the xBox), and though it might seem like a classic example of the de-evolution of society, you wouldn't believe how they've impacted his vocabulary and ability to describe things.

He uses words like "articulation," "orientation" and "translucent" outside the realm of talking about toys, and he has a desire to capture stories, ask questions for the "Mythbusters" hosts and record important moments with a digital video recording device, whether it's a phone or a camera.

He eventually decided to start making his own review videos. He's made too many of them to upload and link to them all, but here are just a few. (He's even convinced Ruby to review a My Little Pony.)

These videos also gave him the idea of using boxes of soy milk to build a Transformer and review it:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GDTAU-Jr6M&feature=plcp&context=C3b17c23UDOEgsToPDskKrk13dPRawdM_2mFCrJYne