Government Employees Went To YouTube 178,000 Times In One Day

Though it may seem like we’re paying federal government employees to run the country, ensure order, and argue with one another, the truth is much more simple: We are paying them to watch YouTube. A recent expose from ABC7’s Watchdog team revealed that, on a random Friday in September, the 32,000 people employed by the District of Columbia visited YouTube 178,000 times.

That massive number amounts to an average of five or six visits for each employee, which was almost more than the number of visits to Amazon and Pandora combined. Of course, YouTube paled in comparison to #1 procrastination tool Facebook; the average Washington employee browsed the world’s most popular social media network 16 times during the workday in question.

Before we protest the amount of our taxpayer dollars going to Nyan Cat views, let’s remember that this is in no way scientific and that most of us have already checked out by the time Friday rolls around. Plus, five videos a day never hurt anybody. We watch way more than that at Tubefilter HQ, and we’d like to think we’re doing OK in life.