Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber
polygon.com
polygon.com
It has been very interesting to see youtubers come and go, a lot of them seem to burn out on the schedule of trying to produce content regularly, which I can understand, anyone who's edited videos would realise the time it can take to produce something of good quality.
Pewdiepie is an interesting case as he's far and away the biggest "real" channel on youtube (i.e. not VEVO or one of the generic youtube channels).
https://vidstatsx.com/PewDiePie/youtube-channel gives you an idea of the size, he regularly gets 5-10 million views a day!
The controversy seems very click-baity to me, I read the articles and watched his response videos. It seemed to me that he made some pretty bad taste comments (if you've seen much of his content that shouldn't be a surprise) and the WSJ deliberately sliced it up to take it out of context and produce the most sensationalised headline possible.
All reminded me of the quote generally attribued to cardinal Richelieu.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
I really don't think what he did was "honest" i.e. not meant to be provocative. As many sibling comments have pointed out, if you're making a living as a public personality, you kinda have to accept a higher level of scrutiny simply in order to avoid media hit jobs.
The hit job was some of the other items they'd cut together to make the "anti-semetic" charge stick. One item where he was comparing youtube policies to those of the Nazi's (i.e. casting both in a negative light) the WSJ used as "proof" he was pro-Nazi. that's what prompted my thought of the quote.
And their fans then defend them with "If you've seen their other stuff, you'd know that isn't unusual," which is a pretty thin defense---a bit like defending an arsonist with "Oh sure, nobody cared when they burned down all those grocery stores, but now that the WSJ is reporting on that orphanage..."
> There really is a joke there somewhere at Fiverr’s expense, and I think that’s what he was going for.
> The parts are there, loosely, if you cock your head and squint a bit. There’s an air of exploitation (on Fiverr’s part, but also often claimed to be on PewDiePie’s part) but it was a rush job. Seinfeld, in contrast, maps out goofy jokes about Pop Tarts down to the syllable.
I read and understood what slowbeef wrote. Delivery is the unmentioned point of discussion -- landing the delivery. It's the difference in whether a joke is funny or not. But changing delivery keeps the raw essence of the joke the same.
And I don't think it's fair to call it "holding someone accountable", if the same raw essence of a joke told with better delivery is suddenly OK. It's the same accountable action. If you're really interested in "holding someone accountable", shouldn't the same raw essence of a joke be wrong no matter how it's delivered?
I don't disagree that delivery is extremely important to landing a joke and it being funny. I do disagree that holding people accountable for bad delivery of a joke is somehow a moral impetus. That good joke was just as morally bad as the bad joke.
In other words, you could have taken a lot of George Carlin's material and run it through the ultra-politically-correct filter and come out deaf from the blaring alarms. But he's somehow above moral reproach because he's good at it? I don't buy it.
I think all this really goes back to the idea: Only the fool can criticize the king. Anyone else, and it was grounds for treason. I would have hoped we moved beyond that model.
I think that's why you see a lot of people saying that none of this was surprising for people who knew his material before hand. And I think the comparison elsewhere to shock-jocks is very apt. Such material is often suddenly found lacking when it gains an audience wider than it was targeted for.
And this also plays into the wider idea of, how responsible should a speaker be for "triggering" [0] a listener? That's a very heavy burden when your audience suddenly -- and not necessarily intentionally -- becomes "everyone".
[0] Yes, this is a somewhat lax usage of that term. However, it is also a common usage, so I use it as such.
It was predicated on the fact that WSJ took statements completely out of context to have the exact opposite of the in-context meaning.
("The hit job was some of the other items they'd cut together to make the "anti-semetic" charge stick. One item where he was comparing youtube policies to those of the Nazi's (i.e. casting both in a negative light) the WSJ used as "proof" he was pro-Nazi. that's what prompted my thought of the quote.")
My point was the the part where they conflated PewdiePies comparison of Youtube and the Nazi's as being him supporting the Nazi's, this was entirely take out of context. I wasn't referring to the sign there at all.
One of the best points I've seen was that Youtubers have a lot in common with talk radio hosts. When Howard Stern said something offensive, it was a bit rich to act surprised. He was paid to be shocking, he did better the harder he pushed on the edge of acceptable, and so of course he eventually went too far. Everyone from PewDiePie to Penny Arcade have run into the same issue.
(Under this framework, JonTron is a fundamentally different issue - he doesn't seem to have been looking for views, just melting down.)
PDP, unless he's stupid, should have known what DISNEY wanted. And it's not anti-semitic jokes, particularly following repeated use of Nazi iconography in his videos.
You're right that it exactly mirrors PDP's situation: off-the-cuff, inflammatory content creator partners with advertisers, does something extra-inflammatory, gets dropped by same.
What you're witnessing is mainstream (pretty much) America rejecting something they're now aware of that's too outside the norm. PDP can keep making content, but there's not really a likely scenario where he gets paid by Disney to do it.
And that is pretty much what all of this is about.
When that guy, who was dressed as Jesus, was banned by Fiverr, Pewdiepie stated: "Isn't it ironic that Jews[1] found another way to fuck Jesus over?"
Whether his quest to push the comedy envelope extends further than Nazi/Jew related material, I don't know.
[1] Fiverr is based in Israel.
Edit: And the predictable downvote within minutes. How funny that the fans of Pewdiepie, and his "free speech", have such a reaction to a post stating objective facts about what he said.
Is what you listed a complete listing of things he attempted to get through? Or just your selection of what he tried that was prejudice? It seems likely he also would have tried to get some other dumb things through on the level of dick jokes.
"Is what you listed the complete list of ingredients to this homeopathic medicine? Or just your selection of the poisonous ones? It seems likely they would have put in some other healthy things on the level of ginseng"
In this case, if the list contains mild things and racism, then its probably just that PewDiePie is racist. If the list contains nothing socially acceptable and some of it happens to racist well then clearly the whole thing was for shock value, and the racism was probably just a way to push your buttons.
Also, are you so sure we won't find something similarly damning in your whole life, or even in just in your past month?
This is kind of related to the part of the story that informs you that you need weekly updates to stay visible to your subscribers because YouTube is weird. I'm not sure if that is true any more, especially with options like Patreon. I support 3blue1Brown and Primitive Technologies through it, and part of the reason I do is that they both take their time to produce quality videos.
It's worse than that. Richelieu was talking about absolute power of the State. Now the online power is made up of hordes of folks whose only reason to exist is to make their views the predominant ones and silence anyone who's diverging from them, even if that person was simply joking. There's a surprising good share of folks who are anti-Freedom of expression especially in Gen X and Y. Anyone who lived during the 80s would find the present situation intoxicating.
And I am confused how anyone here was silenced. This person's views, and the views of everyone who objects, and the views of everyone who objects to the objection, are all public. The video is easily available. Discussion forums that have nothing to do with his usual material, like this one, are discussing it. There's rich public debate about what he said and why he said it, fueled by an independent press that is not constrained to write only what serves those in power (any sort of power), and fueled even more by social media.
This seems like the epitome of freedom of expression. If I saw someone say "Hitler was right" and nobody commented on it, I would wonder where freedom of expression went!
Remember that the position that Hitler was indeed right is not one that lacks for support. The third Google result for me for 'pewdiepie hitler' is from The Daily Stormer, an actual, non-joking Neo-Nazi website, and the comments are celebrating how PewDiePie's viewers are being "red pilled" into understanding that Hitler's position is defensible.
According to Pewdiepie, the WSJ pushed Google to suspend his Youtube account.
The very notion of "I disagree with you (and will bring it to light) but will defend your right to say it" seems to be dead in modern outrage culture.
I support PewDiePie's right to say whatever he wants. I posted a link to his own video in another comment. I am thrilled to bring it to light. I don't believe that defending his right to say it involves defending his right to receive corporate funding or popular appreciation for what he says; "I disagree but will defend your right" seems to imply quite the opposite to me.
I agree that if you find yourself destitute (or actually lynched) as a result of public outcry, your right to speech is impacted, but I don't believe there's ever been such a case. Can you point me to one?
Celebrities, unfortunately, are going to get hit when they say or do things that could piss off a bunch of people. I mean look at Muhammad Ali. He refused the Vietnam War draft as a religious conscientious objector. They stripped his title, his endorsements, and banned him from boxing. Not only that, but the appeals court did not even consider the merits of his case when they upheld the conviction. Or how Charlie Chaplan's passport was revoked after a FBI smear campaign and accusations of communism.
I understand people tend to look at current events in a vacuum, but saying something provocative and only losing endorsements is historically pretty good. Not even 50 years ago he would have had his passport revoked, been falsely accused of a crime, or some shady bureaucracy would have opened a file on him.
PDP: HA HA HA dead jews
His advertisers and many audience members: Not cool
white-flame: But my free speech!
PDP remains free to make any jokes he desires; he's just not free to continue to get his preferred advertising revenue or outlets.
(Besides, I think that the "outraged" crowd often shoots themselves in the foot. If the content is not terribly out of taste, then the controversial content often get an added allure that may make it more popular. This was even true in much older times, books that were "banned in Boston" in the early 20th century often became more popular as a result...)
Oh, I think this is very different now from when it was happening back in time. Back in the 60s-80s, younger generations were the ones actually fighting for the Freedom of Expression. Nowadays the younger generation is the one pushing for harder stances to make people shut up. Look at safe zones in university campuses, it's actively enforced by students themselves.
Do our college students really need to be kept "safe" from mere disagreement?
Quite the opposite. Typically safe space warriors are demanding that people have different rights in public based on their genetics, not the same rights.
E.g. "You're a white man so shut up, I should have a special right to speak over you because of [XYZ]."
Here are some examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK4MBzp5YwM
Part of maturing is learning how to stand for one's ideas and beliefs, as well as learning how to deal with (bigoted) opposition to those. Isolating yourself, locking yourself in the echo chamber will make you unprepared for dialogue with those outside of it, or worse, will end with you radicalizing because you'll grow up with your standing never contested.
This is also going the other way. If you'll remove yourself from discourse, you will willfully marginalize yourself. How can local population know that LGBT people are living among them and are their friends/relatives/normal folk, if those people will lock themselves up in their safe spaces?
My favorite example when it comes to LGBT is polish activist turned politician, [Robert Biedroń](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Biedro%C5%84), who has spent life being vocal and visible activist for LGBT rights - extremely courageous feat in mostly catholic and conservatist Poland. The culmination of his work was gaining enough popular support to become mayor in 100k large city.
If this guy ran in my city, he'll get my vote. Even if I disagree with 90% of what he says because politically he always aligns himself with socialists and I'm moderate, I believe that what he does for making our society less bigoted is worth every support.
Now ask yourself, how many such Biedrońs will not come to be because they'll close themselves in their small worlds in fear of their feelings being hurt by some bigots?
I know you'll argue against that point, but I mention it not for you, but to put what you said into context for other readers.
Is your argument "oh, but racists are also shaping discourse of their societes"?
My post wasn't for you.
To pick a hopefully neutral example, should it be "safe" for you to go to a chess club meeting and diss everybody there because you think Go is superior? They'll ask you to leave, and rightfully so.
It's a good thing to have these small "bubbles" for all sorts of minorities in which they get to define the rules.
Where it gets more interesting is when it affects the broader public sphere. That said, the particular examples you gave are ones where you'd be rightfully excluded depending on how you approach the subject. The evidence seems pretty clear that being gay or trans are real things. It took me some time to figure that out, but I found that as long as I approached the topic in a civil way, others responded in kind.
The problem is that the kind of people who complain about "anti-freedom of expression" or "excessive political correctness" are usually not the kind of people who approach those topics in a civil way. They have a certain foregone conclusion in their minds, and aren't ready to accept anything that contradicts that conclusion. So naturally, they end up being (justly) excluded from the discussion.
Also, that entire last paragraph requires a great of assumption and stereotyping on your part.
Your framing of this issue as simply being about LGBT wanting to be able to meet together without harassment is disingenuous.
The point is: Yes, the public sphere is also changing, but it's changing slowly, and the participants of the discussion who see a danger to freedom of speech are >95% hysterically exaggerating.
Meanwhile, it's good to keep in mind that there are <5% crazies in every group, including chess players and LGBT people. Listening to them is never a good idea.
[0] When you dig down, what you usually find is some minor committee discussing whether they should change the language used in their own bylaws and/or publications. I.e. it's not legislation, nobody is being forced to do anything, and most of these initiatives don't even pass in the first place.
> Examples of Violations
> a. Intentional or repeated refusal to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun or title. For example, repeatedly calling a transgender woman “him” or “Mr.” after she has made clear which pronouns and title she uses
[snip]
> And this isn’t just the government as employer, requiring its employees to say things that keep government patrons happy with government services. This is the government as sovereign, threatening “civil penalties up to $125,000 for violations, and up to $250,000 for violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct” if people don’t speak the way the government tells them to speak.
I think you nailed it that stress is so bad that many have lost appetite to release new videos on a regular basis, and I've seen this in many youtubers I was following for years. Some gamers I know just don't want to edit anymore and instead release most of the gameplay or switch to Twitch completely and depends on just donation.
While the top youtubers can make over a million a year, it can become a no-life job in the end. There's also an impression at least from my PoV that many YouTubers are now in LA making LA their "Silicon Valley" (yes, after all LA is the SV for entertainment industry) but since the living standard there is pricey and different some YTers might be under unhealthy stress. There was a YouTuber who committed suicide last year. We don't know exactly why, but it was very unexpected for fans and friends, and while I really don't want to speculate, I just can't help but think career might contributed to the cause regardless.
WongFu Production ran from a channel of three college students making videos about Asian life in America to a production company of its own (their made shorts, movies, and even a YouTube original series recently, and also making films for others). Their production quality is amazing. My favorite gamers on YouTubes just record from their computer and have no production crew whatsoever. I think Smosh Brothers is behind a production team at this point, and their videos are pretty fun to watch. It depends, there are good and bad ones.
We don't need that type of tactless behavior in online gaming. What happens on 4chan should stay on 4chan.
You're welcome to your opinion. But you also have to take responsibility for it.
There are countless millions of people with no careers at all. Clearly, our society doesn't believe in a right to having a career at all, let alone a right to keeping one's existing career.
If we're worried about the threat to PewDiePie's ability to make a living, to his life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, it seems like the fundamental problem is not with people on the internet having opinions, it is with the system where losing a career threatens all those things. Fix capitalism, implement a UBI, whatever, and then his loss of a career wouldn't seem like a threat to his ability to live a fulfilling life or to reach an effective means of speaking to people.
The same argument can be used to say, "Your opinions have consequences. In this case, shutting down the TSA's security theater program put a lot of TSA agents out on the streets. You have to take responsibility for it." Or "In this case, Edward Snowden almost ruined the careers of many NSA spooks who could never make it in the private sector." Or many similar things. Would you agree those are bad arguments for not fixing the TSA or reforming the NSA?
Just like no one gets to decide what kind of jokes are allowed to be told, no one gets to decide how someone reacts to those jokes.
We do have a serious problem that someone can say things in what feels like private, to what feels like a private audience, and they can attract a global audience very quickly. I said lots of dumb stuff both in person and online (on AIM or Xanga or something) as a teenager, and those are gone from the internet and that is very good. That seems to no longer be true for today's teenagers. I'm worried about this, and I'm specifically worried about the inevitable media circus once the generation that grew up on Facebook and Twitter starts running for elected office. Democrats will be vilified for liking Ayn Rand for a few weeks in 10th grade; Republicans will be vilified for liking Karl Marx for a few weeks in 11th. If you remember the hullabaloo over that one Bernie Sanders college essay, imagine that, 24/7.
But I don't see the "destroyed their career" argument being applied to teenagers; I see it being applied to people who basically have communication as their job. PewDiePie's entire career involves making as many people as possible watch him talk about things. Of course people are going to have opinions on what he says, and of course his career is going to be affected by whether the general public likes what he has to say. That's the career he chose.
Yeah, and people saying "Death to Jews" managed to murder six million of them. Yet apparently you think that is funny and beyond reproach, while taking issue with it is a serious problem.
But should pewdiepie be punished for it?
Example: If an anti-vaxxer published their opinion in a private blog, you'd probably be OK with their speech (as misguided as it is). If the same person started promoting their "opinion" using a national newspaper, you'd be a lot more upset.
Moreover, it's documented that the WAJ article authors went after PDP's livelihood directly (they contacted youtube and Disney, PDP's sponsor) with their allegations and were successful when Disney dropped PDP and Youtube cancelled PDP's new show!
I don't think this is quite what you're saying, but "Why is your definition better than mine" reminds me of a lot of discourse I see about free speech, where free speech is an inherent virtue, and you should be able to say whatever you want to say without anyone doing anything about it - neither censoring it, nor objecting to it, nor listening to it with a critical ear or responding with anything other than "Yay, speech."
This seems to me to be the most fatal form of censorship. We're essentially sandboxing speech. Say whatever you like, as long as it doesn't actually mean anything. Participate in public debate, as long as it doesn't change. Respond to others, as long as you don't dare to claim that any idea might be wrong. What is the point of free speech in such a society?
If all ideas are equally valid, or at least the ideas of the inside crowd are valid and outsiders get a "who are you" response, why do we even try to have a democratic society? Just let the king do what the king wants, or the CEO do what the CEO wants. Comment and criticize all you want, as long as it doesn't have an effect.
But if we believe in there being a point to free speech, we should respond to speech with "Why do you believe that, and can you try to convince me that I am wrong while I try to convince you that you are wrong" instead of "Who are you to disagree with me".
What the articles critical of PewDiePie are saying is, "here is what he said and why we think it is offensive and why we no longer watch his channel. If you agree with us, you should also not watch his channel"
Everyone is free to read this opinion and then decide for themselves if they agree with the writer, or if they want to keep watching. If it turns out that so many people agree with the articles that PewDiePie no longer has an audience large enough to sustain him, then that sucks for the people who DO want to keep seeing him, but is just reality. If not enough people want to watch content of a certain type to sustain the producer, then that content will not be produced.
That said tactless behaviour is unwelcome in online gaming.... really? I'm not a big gamer but large swathes of the community seem to be pervaded by tactless behaviour, PewDiwPie is hardly alone in that.
The fact that he's got 54 million subscribers implies that a decent proportion of the online gaming community are not averse to that style of content, for better or worse.
I get pewdiepies humor. I watch his videos anticipating his originality and I guess 54 million subs do for varying reasons.
His ability to express himself and generate content that makes me laugh repeatedly. He's not insensitive despite what some news articles say. The anti-semitism thing is so overused today its a little meaningless. The only way to push its worth is to generate headlines and articles to emphasis its importance.
He jokes broadly about every culture and only seems to have issues with one culture in particular, unsurprisingly.
It's reached a point it feels he's holding back something funny to please WSJ - a huge, huge tragedy and loss to his freedom and originality.
The anti-semitism problem is a very specific angle to take particularly related to Disney and PewDiePie. Someone clearly combed his trove of videos and found every single Nazi reference; seem like a stretch to begin with. Idk theories.
Clearly the writings of a deranged individual.
I know it sounds all funny and stuff, but if someone is curious about how context, in this case at least the statements exposed curator pewdiepie, matters, Foucaults 1969 essay "What Is an Author?" is a great starting point to dig into:
His freedom of speech doesn't override Disney's freedom of association or YouTube's freedom of the press; they're under no obligation to publish or promote anyone's content, and the counterweight to that is that people who don't like their policies can boycott them.
But you're unlikely to find a successful boycott organized around the notion that there should be no ramifications for paying strangers to hold up signs that say "Death To All Jews."
Our incentive is to pay lip service to freedom of speech while taking the path of least resistance and censor to keep angry 3rd parties happy. You might think this shuts down only speech beyond the pale. But we are still rewarding those who act most offended, and our wisest course is to kowtow more and more.
That stuff is no danger to a society when the soap boxes are distributed about land. But YouTube is a single platform in the position where it can one of the most effective censors of film on earth.
It is more more powerful in this field than any government, -- except those which can force our hand. Yet Google has the rights, and indeed duties of a private company. And that is a long-term danger to society and to the company.
I'm certainly not defending hate, etc. Just wondering - out loud - if the old countermeasure rules still apply.
Nobody is calling for zero offense; that's a slippery-slope argument that doesn't really apply to the situation. And nobody has silenced PewDiePie; he's completely free to continue to publish his content on YouTube (with proper community flagging, within the guidelines of the YouTube community, and even if he were no longer free to do so, he wouldn't be "silenced;" he'd just have to move his content to .mp4s hosted out of his own pocket).
What has happened is YouTube and Disney have both exercised their option to no longer pay the guy for being offensive, which they are perfectly within their rights to do.
In terms of the more general "Just wondering aloud" question: The old Streisand Effect is still in play, but the Internet is now a mature enough platform that it has "these sites" and "those sites." You can find all manner of things completely unacceptable to YouTube's community standards linked off of 4chan. Keeping them off of YouTube does probably make them a little harder for most web users to find (since YouTube's search, indexing, and relational systems are so convenient). That's likely working as intended.
Helping people say anti-semitic stuff doesn't seem like an inspirational position. Isn't the greater danger to society acceptance of intolerance?
On the contrary. Its completely acceptable for PDP to say whatever he hell he wants. The problem is that he wants to be paid by Disney while doing it.
The USA has freedom of speech. PDP is legally allowed to say whatever he wants. Unfortunately, PDP's revenue stream is (or perhaps... was...) Disney. And Walt Disney did not like PDP's Jew jokes.
There's no censorship here. This is PDP losing a financial sponsor / financial backer. Welcome to the real world PDP, your sponsors actually care about what you say.
---------
Wall Street Journal can do whatever. People have made fun of PDP all the time in the past years. That's not what's hurting him right now. Its the loss of Disney as a sponsor.
He wants what most people want, to make a living and Disney withdrawing as sponsor will likely not hurt. A bigger issue is WSJ and co efforts to have his ads pulled altogether.
You know the WSJ has absolutely no power over advertisers, aside from the SAME freedom of speech powers that PDP has.
If people feel he was "holding back his freedom" then Disney should NEVER have been a sponsor and WSJ did a service to wake up the community to sponsorship of content creators not creating content for the demographics in which his revenue was being generated.
my 9 year old used to love him, sang "this sammich doesn't have turkey on it" all the freaking time but now won't even admit his existence mostly because kids want to watch youtubers have fun and not hate.. even if its in satire - its not the right demographics..
There, updated for contemporary KPIs.
Assuming the attribution of that quote is correct, that's got to be one of the most ironic utterances ever...
/Richelieu was anything but a saint, for a supposed "man of the cloth"...
After subscribing to a few channels I started watching stuff regularly. Basically if I want to kill 10 mins I'll open up YouTube and there'll be something to watch. I'm committing so little time I don't need to really think about it before clicking (unlike say Netflix). On the other hand when I step back a minute I notice that the videos provide incredibly little value as opposed to usual entertainment sources. I could watch a crappy 20min sitcom and it may be deemed trash but it still has a story and characters it feels like it provides some value to me. I don't get that on YouTube. I've tried a variety of the most popular channels and some other stuff and it's largely memes and clickbait and something I forget about the moment I'm done watching.
It seems like a lot of the popular creators don't actually produce good content but instead have managed to built a personality cult around themselves that hooks very young people. I've noticed comments where people praise 'hustle' and 'content' and 'awesome product placement'.
Just interested on other people's thoughts on the platform and content.
Edit: Thanks for the replies everyone, very interesting.
There's a tonne of content out there and a lot of it isn't great, but on the other hand there's also some very funny stuff.
I don't watch any fiction on YouTube except for Adrian Bliss [1] who mocked vloggers and actually has story arcs running through the videos.
I subscribe to many channels but my favourites are Casey Neistat [2], mainly just from the production quality point of view. Tom Scott [3] because he just covers some very interesting topics. And Techmoan [4] because I also have a fascination with old HiFi gear and his puppet sketches at the end of some videos are brilliant.
1. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChYARX5Yj8CapM-F2Z2vPxA
2. https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat
Just in case you haven't heard of them In A Nutshell and Life Noggin are also awesome for well produced super high quality science stuff
Cool, thanks for the reply. This is one of the channels I'm following. I have seen the occasional cool video (there was a motivational one a few weeks back I loved[0]) but largely it's just some dude running and not doing/saying very interesting things. You mention production quality which is interesting as one of the types of comment I see often on his and other videos is "awesome transition/angle/effect" (he even did a video last week where the premise was "here's a cool new transition I'm gonna use for the next 10 mins".
I didn't discover the channels I watch based on popularity, but on what interests me. Occasionally I'll find another channel that puts out high quality and interesting content, and add it to my list, but it's not something I set out to do methodically. Most of the channels I watch have less than 500,000 subscribers and several have less than 100,000.
I've never watched one of Pewdiepie's videos, or anything remotely resembling one of his videos, and have never had the slightest inclination to do so. He might as well be living in a different world.
That said, I find Youtube to be invaluable as a platform and don't feel the time I spend on it to be in any sense wasted.
Sturgeon's law is very much in effect. I suspect Youtube is especially predisposed to encouraging clickbait and low-effort content. It's all a matter of finding the quality stuff at the long end of the tail.
Here are some of my favorite channels that I find watching almost always a good use of my time:
Engineering Practical Engineering: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMOqf8ab-42UUQIdVoKwjlQ
Physics Sixty Symbols: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvBqzzvUBLCs8Y7Axb-jZew
Woodworking Matthias Wandel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCckETVOT59aYw80B36aP9vw Frank Howarth: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3_VCOJMaivgcGqPCTePLBA
Astronomy DeepSkyVideos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo-3ThNQmPmQSQL_L6Lx1_w
Chemistry Periodic Video: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtESv1e7ntJaLJYKIO1FoYw
Blacksmithing/Machining Clickspring: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCworsKCR-Sx6R6-BnIjS2MA Alec Steele: https://www.youtube.com/user/alectheblacksmith Brian Oltrogge: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOywIdppbhn6hkgcEtDMatg
General Interest Science Veritasium: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA Vsauce: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6nSFpj9HTCZ5t-N3Rm3-HA Smarter Everyday: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6107grRI4m0o2-emgoDnAA Tom Scott: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBa659QWEk1AI4Tg--mrJ2A
Cooking Chef John: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRIZtPl9nb9RiXc9btSTQNw Andrew Rea: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHA_jMfCvEnv-3kRjTCQXw Byron Talbott: https://www.youtube.com/user/ByronTalbott
I believe he was a computer programmer full time before his YT channel and website took off. Watching him work makes me want to become a woodworker. Maybe someday I'll have the appropriate space and give it a shot!
PBS idea channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3LqW4ijMoENQ2Wv17ZrFJA
Historia Civilis - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv_vLHiWVBh_FR9vbeuiY-A
Langfocus - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNhX3WQEkraW3VHPyup8jkQ
Crash Course - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6b17PVsYBQ0ip5gyeme-Q
Baz Battles - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx-dJoP9hFCBloY9qodykvw
Wendover Productions - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9RM-iSvTu1uPJb8X5yp3EQ
Practical Engineering - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMOqf8ab-42UUQIdVoKwjlQ
has been my favorite recently. Hits the engineering and problem solving part of my brain but is also weirdly very meditative without any talking.
I enjoy some math channels like Numberphile https://www.youtube.com/user/numberphile, computerphile https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9-y-6csu5WGm29I7JiwpnA, standupmaths https://www.youtube.com/user/standupmaths, 3blue1brown https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw, Vi Hart https://www.youtube.com/user/Vihart, Mathologer https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1_uAIS3r8Vu6JjXWvastJg, singingbanana https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMpizQXRt817D0qpBQZ2TlA, and some of Vsauce https://www.youtube.com/user/Vsauce.
For "general interesting random facts" there's Tom Scott https://www.youtube.com/user/enyay, Wendover Productions https://www.youtube.com/user/Wendoverproductions, CGP Grey https://www.youtube.com/user/CGPGrey, Lindybeige https://www.youtube.com/user/lindybeige, Shadiversity https://www.youtube.com/user/shadmbrooks. and Today I Found Out https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC64UiPJwM_e9AqAd7RiD7JA.
Science/Tech/etc: engineerguy https://www.youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo, Kurzgesagt https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q, and C0nc0rdance https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPFnHiJx1P9UY05_F9sOu1g.
Miscellaneous: kaptainkristian https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuPgdqQKpq4T4zeqmTelnFg, CaptainDisillusion https://www.youtube.com/user/CaptainDisillusion, and the more recent videos of suckerpinch https://www.youtube.com/user/suckerpinch/videos.
Politics: I unsubscribed from most political content a long time ago. But Last Week Tonight https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3XTzVzaHQEd30rQbuvCtTQ and Vox https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXo7UDZvByw2ixzpQCufnA are pretty good.
Humor: That's pretty subjective, but I think everyone should know about The Onion https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfAOh2t5DpxVrgS9NQKjC7A. Also Fitzthislewitz https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPswLO6Jrrmg8hXY03eXHAw.
If you don't need to see things live, it's a much better experience than e.g. Twitch.
For example, if you want to to watch someone take oscilloscopes apart [1] or tell you the amount of glass fibre reinforcing in different brands of electric drill [2] or pick hundreds of specially made locks [3] or watch hundreds of performances from a serious ballet competition [4] Youtube can provide that. Content like this wouldn't have any chance on Netflix or broadcast TV*
Of course, 99.9% of the content on youtube is absolute junk, and they do an awful job of highlighting stuff, the logged out homepage is full of absolute dreck, and so on. And I certainly don't see the creators I follow posting a video every day or any of that stuff.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/EEVblog/videos [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/arduinoversusevil/videos [3] https://www.youtube.com/user/bosnianbill/videos [4] https://www.youtube.com/user/PrixdeLausanne/videos
*I'm not even sure if it's economically sustainable on Youtube
If you like building stuff, and industrial tools: https://www.youtube.com/user/arduinoversusevil
If you want to learn about sailboat cruising: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantrautman
I have always been interested in ways to make videos better, so: https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat
(He's also just an interesting, motivating person)
There are some other, really good channels about machining (precision metal working):
Oxtoolco, Keith Fenner's channel.
--
I think the thing about youtube that made it click for me was watching primarily content that is at least somewhat educational. I know a lot more about sailboat cruising because of watching delos than I did before, and as a guy living in landlocked Phoenix AZ, that is pretty cool :)
I watch a lot of "let's play" and other game videos, mostly with well known YT personalities. Their format may be different than a "crappy 20min sitcom" but their value is the same, entertainment. You don't watch a sitcom for the story, you watch it to turn your brain off and laugh.
Just like a sitcom you get more out of YT videos if you've watched the whole series. There will be running jokes and references.
Keep in mind that a lot of top YT content is targeted at 12 year old boys. Unless you fit the demographic you're not going to enjoy it. Keep trying other channels. There are so many people on YT putting out quality content that it's nearly impossible to not find something you'll like.
There are alternatives; Snapchat stories, Vimeo, AWS has a video distribution system available without Amazon branding. YouTube is still the defacto standard for "me and my buddies made a video and want to put it online for the world to see."
The lesson I've learned is that branding is everything. The technical side of putting up a video on website is easier than ever these days, thanks to the march of technology, but Youtube lives on.
My metric for content is if the videos seem to be improving or not. I'll keep watching if it looks like they're pushing at something other than just more eyeballs and cash. ERB's content just kept getting better and better, those guys are all seasoned entertainment industry veterans. Likewise for Team Four Star, they're all solid voice actors and they just get better and better at their craft.
If all you're trying to satisfy is an audience, your schtick gets tired quick.
- Computerphile: Interesting stuff about computer hardware and software: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9-y-6csu5WGm29I7JiwpnA
- Deep Astronomy: Space stuff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQkLvACGWo8IlY1-WKfPp6g
- Deep sky videos: more space stuff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo-3ThNQmPmQSQL_L6Lx1_w
- Grant Thompson: Expiriments, building things, explosions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1zZE_kJ8rQHgLTVfobLi_g
- Numberphile: math stuff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoxcjq-8xIDTYp3uz647V5A
- Nurdrage: chemistry experiments: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIgKGGJkt1MrNmhq3vRibYA
- Retro game mechanics: implementation of retro gaming software and hardware: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwRqWnW5ZkVaP_lZF7caZ-g
- Sixty symbols: general physics stuff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvBqzzvUBLCs8Y7Axb-jZew
- Stuff they don't want you to know: conspiracies:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrOic-og4HzhleZqOq4L-A
- Vsauce: Thought experiments, interesting facts, etc: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6nSFpj9HTCZ5t-N3Rm3-HA
I don't know if you're into gaming or inane comedy, but I also watch a lot of Funhaus: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCboMX_UNgaPBsUOIgasn3-Q. dfinitely not for everyone.
- Actually Hardcore Overclocking (buildzoid) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrwObTfqv8u1KO7Fgk-FXHQ
- Micah Elizabeth Scott (scanlime) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaEgw3321ct_PE4PJvdhXEQ — "Art, engineering, reverse engineering, and cats"
- The 8-bit Guy https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww + https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcTt3O4_IW5gnA0c58eXshg
- Druaga1 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-7I1gU1r6PxBSl87o-7YEQ — "Windows 98 on an SSD", "Installing an SSD in a G4 Cube [Part 2]"… you get the idea
- Kim Justice https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ZWVL1Elyt2cdiQYjxS_1w — very interesting in-depth retro gaming videos
- hbomberguy https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClt01z1wHHT7c5lKcU8pxRQ — critical videos about games and social/political stuff too… I recommend "Fallout 3 Is Garbage, And Here's Why" :D
- OzTalksHW https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Jxh95N32m1JvKG_-fQ6QQ — hardware reviews and stuff
- Paweł Zadrożniak https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCximsD7EJ38jzCNgfP_YTmA — next level floppy drive music
You've already gotten lot's of great tips, I'll go ahead and list some more channels that I find interesting and/or entertaining. Youtube is what you make of it, unfortunately it's not very good at relevant suggestions. It depends on if you want to watch people build things, talk about science, drive expensive cars, British panel shows, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/user/EngineeringExplained
https://www.youtube.com/user/physicswoman
https://www.youtube.com/user/arduinoversusevil
https://www.youtube.com/user/theCodyReeder
https://www.youtube.com/user/Techmoan
https://www.youtube.com/user/standupmaths
https://www.youtube.com/user/shedscience
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCworsKCR-Sx6R6-BnIjS2MA - Clickspring
https://www.youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff
https://www.youtube.com/user/1veritasium
https://www.youtube.com/user/destinws2
I would actually say restricting to 20 min or longer videos is a real key. I was looking for some information on backpacking yesterday. I did a couple searches, restricted to long videos, watched a few pieces of several of them until I found one I really liked then dug into the channel that made it.
EG, Robert Fisk, 20 mins, sort by view count.
Yep, although it's usually in the background while working or reading as with most entertainment nowadays. My YouTube to TV ratio is easily 3:1. It's really all down to what you subscribe to. You can make it as high brow, low brow, mixed, technical, non-technical, or whatever as you want - there is really a channel for everything and that's where it's even better than TV.
Now finding those great channels.. it's a HUGE discovery problem. I mean, I know what I'm looking for and am still surprised to find excellent channels I'd never seen before.
As far as these types of popular or personality cult channels go, I pass. I don't understand the draw. I understand the ones where you watch people play video games; that makes sense. What I don't understand is watching people open boxes, reaction videos (where you watch someone react to a video they are watching), or those videos where people are complaining about something/someone on Youtube/Twitter/Facebook/Snapchat and how that affects them.
Pachter Factor on SIFTD Games channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFaBUWXO8o4jSfF6PhJOyZA Discusses the game business.
The Alientube browser extension will display Reddit threads about a video (if available) in place of YouTube comments, which I've found is often a good way to find new channels as people discuss similar videos. The more you watch, the more good stuff you'll find. It doesn't all happen at once.
That seems like a perfect analogy. I hate 90% of the popular Reddit stuff (I don't even understand how people enjoy or find it funny) yet I got really into it after digging down into some subreddits.
It's important to note, however, that YouTube is first and foremost a kids network(kids video ads convert the best), and then secondarily a music network(music videos provide most of the audience growth). All the rest of the stuff comes way after those two in their priority list, so you have to wade through all the screamy reaction channels and music channels to scrape something wholesome for adults at the bottom of the barrel.
Also, slowbeef is being humble; he literally invented the LP and curated the scene forever ago. His Metal Gear 2 annotated playthrough (from the mid-00s at the latest, I'm remembering HTML tables) was absolutely hysterical (at least to my teenage self), and was the only way I could read the earlier plot to that series at the time. He's also been able to figure out how to hack ROMs for translation that nobody else could and ran translation projects, like with Policenauts. He's a hero in the gaming community and totally underrated, so I'm always upset to not hear his name come up more often when people discuss Let's Plays.
On his personal channel, slowbeef has been streaming ROM hacking as well: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-DNICST8Zbw9ytaMAl66Ghzx...
I didn't think I was that old...
Jim Sterling has the most objective take on the sequence of events: http://www.thejimquisition.com/youtubers-say-the-darndest-th...
I don't have high hopes for how we look back on this period a few years into the future. Many people with their head stuck in the sand.
Personally I don't really, mostly because his personal views never come into play on his actual show. This kind of thing always happens when you get someone involved in comedy to participate in a serious discussion, you start realizing they have opinions and views that you may not like.
I'm sure many of his casual viewers won't care (or even know), but spaces like his subreddit have a lot of people condemning him and saying they're done with his channel. That's the sort of thing that can eventually eat away at content quality by breaking your relationship with bigger fans - think of how Many A True Nerd depends on subreddit feedback to fix mistakes and guide playthroughs.
Yet he broke 50k subscribers on March 16 and he's at 51,798 as I write this comment. It's almost like you can say anything you want on Reddit.
My point was a very specific one, which is that a lot of longtime viewers who heavily engaged with his content (e.g. posted at length on the subreddit) seem to have walked away from engaging or perhaps subscribing at all. I think that's damaging even if his viewer count doesn't tank, which is why I gave a specific example of how it could hurt a channel.
On the contrary - a large number of them had little or no history on the subreddit and it reeked of a bizarre form of astroturfing with plenty of new accounts repeating very similar messages. To what end? No idea. He's popular enough that it is totally possible he had a number of subscribers that felt the need to join Reddit and speak out. But any long term fan would know Jon's opinions on such things. So if anything, they weren't the most engaging of fans and "no harm done".
Mostly smelled of rotten fish to me.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2017/03/23/yooka-layle...
In response, many gamers are revolting and asking for refunds. Their reason is that Playtonic did it as a political move and games shouldn't be political. And a lot of "SJW" stuff. Playtonic, in response, is banning a lot of people from the Steam forums and refusing refunds. (I don't know if Playtonic is banning people for asking for refunds of them just being rude).
There's probably a point to be made that a real publicist would also help do damage control, which both Pewdiepie and Jontron (and I imagine most people) are clearly are terrible at.
(One difference I would draw is that I don't think PewDiePie is genuinely racist, he just made a really, really stupid joke. Conversely, JonTron was pretty clear about what he thought about undesirables polluting the gene pool...)
For, I think, understandable reasons, a lot of people consider that a difference without distinction.
I still have no idea what JonTron did, I guess he said something racist ... somewhere?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/comments/5z676o/we...
A major highlight:
> We've gotten rid of discrimination in our western countries. If you don't think we've gotten rid of discrimination, you're living in a fantasy land.
The true meaning of freedom is that you are free to do what you want, if you are willing to accept the consequences.
You are free to say that, just accept that someone can beat you up for it or harass your employer/girlfriend/boyfriend till they fire you or ...
Value per subscriber goes way down when you're no longer on the critical path for ad monetization.
Everything in this article about a capricious Youtube is true. Everything in this article about the underappreciated difficulty of producing this content is true. I produced a lot of media, but I easily put 5x hours into it (it doesn't help I play simulation and builder games). Everything about how expensive and difficult that job is is true.
And it's also true that the communities of Youtube and their related satellites (a lot of fandom on Tumblr, SA's leftovers, 4chan, Twitter, even obscure stuff like GaiaOnline) are... They're hateful. People will find a reason to hate you. Your fans will pick fights in your name. You'll frequently get criticism from both sides of an issue, and they're not always as cut-and-dry as the PewDiePie Nazi joke cards were. I was threatened doxing by a 15 year old, I called in to the SF police to warn them that I was expecting my workplace to be SWATed because people were mad I was "an ally of the feminazi gay community".
But... Folks, at the end of the day none of this really excuses humor about rape, violence, racism, etc. And if you do cross that line because you're desperate or exhausted you do get an out. You can say Mea Culpa, apologize profusely, donate some revenue to charity and people move on. The PDP's particular crisis keeps hovering (besides his degree of exposure) is that he's decided to ally with the unrepentant, openly racist parts of Youtube like Sargon.
There is an implication from this article, as I read it, that it's inevitable that people will break down or make mistakes. I agree with this part, but it also implies that we should forgive unrepentant bad actors who effectively say, "It's about the money. I thought I'd make more if I had people put up cards making light of antisemitism."
That's not a new thought, and these consequences are not new consequences.
What I'm saying is that far too frequently by the time a young person who craves fame gets it, they're naive on how the system might chew them up and spit them out, and just as they're getting some valuable experience, their time has passed and they're forgotten to the sands of other failed acts.
But I also think it's a somewhat inevitable outcome that as you become a focal point for attention you'd better be ready for said scrutiny and for you to be interpreted within the dialogues other people are having. Asking people to do otherwise is absurd, they cannot.
This created in the audience certain expectations about what it means to be famous. Don't treat the audience wrong or do anything too far outside those expectations or face the audience's wrath.
The internet changed what it means to be "famous" because the internet is media access. Unfortunately, the sociology of the audience hasn't caught up and often still apply the old expectations.
In the past, it was possible to walk away from fame because it wasn't your normal life. Being famous was a job you could (usually) leave. However, a lot of people that have become famous through the internet cannot leave. It was their normal life that became famous. Tight coupling between fame and personal life causes or amplifies a lot of these problems.
For a much better explanation, I highly recommend watching Innuendo Studios' video essay "This is Phil Fish"[1]. In spite of the name, it isn't really about Phil Fish. It's about everybody who isn't Phil Fish and how they (miss-)handle internet celebrity.
Maybe I'm the asshole, but I just can't muster up sympathy to empathize with the plight of someone who makes millions of dollars playing video games and making off color remarks.
Also, people tend to write off the work that youtubers do (they just play video games for a living!!), but nobody bats an eye that pro athletes can make 6-7 figures playing games. I don't think being a youtuber is much different than running a TV show, except that generally they do all or at least most of the work on their own, creative, technical, business, etc.
Then it was extremely poor writing because I got the impression that was one of the main messages. Maybe there was an interesting message in there but it didn't come through.
I agree that making a good, well produced, YouTube video takes a lot of work. I've never seen PewDiePie's videos but they don't sound very good or like they are much work to produce.
The problem is that YouTube goes after much smaller people, as well, quite frequently, often for arbitrary or small reasons, and resolving such content disputes is Kafkaesque, taking weeks. Often someone (usually a competitor) will flag a video and then YouTube will pull it and suspend the account or put a restriction on the length of videos (often a 15 minute length restriction for flagged accounts), citing 'copyright infringement', which is a favorite boilerplate explanation, even though nothing was actually infringed upon and no DCMA report was made. If could be trivial as a ringtone or a 10-second clip of some music on a TV in the background, or a midi file from a video game made 25 years ago.
Let's Plays are videos where people play video games and commentate over them.
Fivrr is a site where people can offer small services for about five bucks.
Pewdiepie is a extremely famous youtuber who produces lets plays, and is especially popular with younger audiences. He got in trouble for playing some indian men on Fivrr to wave around signs with racist messages on them ("Death to Jews" IIRC) on camera as part of a joke. The joke was delivered extremely poorly, and even in context it just seemed really scummy. It understandably didn't go over well and lots of people wrote angry articles about it. It ended up with Disney, who were affiliated with him, disavowing him and ending that affiliation.
Some people can't deal with it. But a lot of people want it.
Personally, I think that's why I love Dave Chappelle so much. He seems to be able to get away with a lot as well.
Few things relaxes me like someone making jokes with no filters.
Why do entertainers whose viewers come for edgy jokes apologize for occasionally delivering a joke in excess of poor taste? It seems like most of the outrage comes from non-core audience members. It's a long-tail kind of thing. I'm willing to bet a big portion of any given entertainers' audience is willing to excuse the occasional bad joke for all the funny ones.
Some groups have louder voices than others when you make bad jokes at their expense. Why not say, "that's what this channel is about"? There are plenty of twitter personalities I follow that occasionally go on shit posting tirades but I ignore it because everything else they post is gold.
Seriously, why not say "fuck you this is what my channel is like if you don't like it don't watch"?
You think the people who walked out of Amy Schumer's show in Florida were her core audience? Why'd she apologize? She jokes about how bad her pussy smells. I mean, there's a certain group of folks who love her stuff and they probably aren't easily offended by her brand of vulgarity, but would light their clothes on fire at someone else's. To each his own. Find a niche and unabashedly own it. I mean... it got Trump elected.
Look at Trump: He never apologizes for anything, and controversies and scandals slide off of him like they were nothing.
It seems so obvious to me that I've been tempted to try my hand at the crisis management business, but I fear a strategy of "do nothing" isn't very protectable.
Even the traditional distance-Holywood celebrity model makes people go crazy, but when you're letting people right into your life and they're encouraging you to do crazier and crazier stuff, you're either going to burn out or blow up.
Maybe I am trying to look too much into it, but it's pretty clear there's a network of content producers behind the scenes of all the famous Youtubers, doing all the editing, selecting 'crappy' thumbnails, and playing the videogames on which the stars will later put their own voice over.
Doesn't this make a lot more sense than assuming some youtubers are supernatural and can churn out content by the hour?
I think the article makes a good point that it is kind of amazing that Disney bought Maker Studios but doesn't seem to be putting in the work to make sure their employees don't do something stupid.
I have a hard time finding much sympathy for this argument. When you build your business on top of somebody else's business, you get to be subjected to their whims. that's how it works. If you wanted complete control over your platform, you're welcome to host your videos on your own website. And then you can see how many people view them, and the value that youtube is providing.
I see Youtube acting as a buffer between the wishes of the content creators and the wishes of the viewers as a big part of their value. I subscribe to a few channels, but i absolutely don't want a push notification every time any channel i subscribe to uploads a new video. that would be annoying as hell, and i'd stop subscribing to channels if that was the default behaviour. But that seems to be what the author of this article wants. For me, the fact that youtube is exerting some control to make sure their channels don't abuse notifications is a great thing.
If not, then content producers are simply in a bad long-term position and they need to start looking for leverage against it, whether it's taking their subscribers elsewhere or getting a seat at Google's table so website and mobile app updates don't start mucking with subscribers getting their content to users.
OTOH, as a user, I don't want to be inundated with notifications and especially begging notifications if I unsubscribe to someone.
I remember Eli the Computer guy talking about how he got two community strikes on some really old videos and couldn't really appeal (I don't think they supported it at the time) it. It wasn't until he made enough noise that he was finally able to get a rep from YouTube.
YouTube is a good platform and I can't think of any competitors as good as YT, but they really need to improve communication with the creators.
I've watched a few videos of people talking while playing video games. I usually wish they'd just STFU and play the game.
Is there, or has there ever been, a platform that doesn't change the rules on the fly, all the time? I'm not talking about video alone. Tastes in comedy, music, film, and books change yearly. The requirements to become successful on any platform are always in flux and never totally clear. Survivorship bias abounds.
Also, I have very little sympathy for anybody making videos about gaming. Mindless drivel. If you can't keep up, it's because the market is saturated and your product or execution is not as good as your competitors.
For some reason, that reminds me of the Four Noble Truths...
1. Life's a bitch...
2. ...Because you are an idiot.
3. So stop being an idiot.
4. No, really, just stop.
> If there is someone who’s making the stuff you enjoy ..., find ways to contribute. If they have alternate payment systems like merchandise or Patreon, consider it so they don’t have to play the “ad revenue works in volume” game.
Do this.
I support a number of creators via Patreon, including Daily Tech News Show and Drunk Kids Gaming.
If you get value out of the content you consume, please consider giving some value back, using a mechanism (like Patreon or PayPal) where you know that most of the returned value is reaching the creator who's content you consume.
This video shows that crap uploads and clickbait rule youtube. I was actually fooled by these content creators and they used it as an example in their follow up video. It was really eye opening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXRWGbDfVlw
I wonder if youtube has or will have a "panda" event.
Fivrr is a site where people can offer small services for about five bucks.
Pewdiepie is a famous youtuber who produces lets plays. He got in trouble for playing some indian men on Fivrr to wave around signs with racist messages on them on camera as part of a joke. It understandably didn't go over well and lots of people wrote angry articles about it.
The Fine Brothers produce videos where people "react" to things. So you might show a bunch of kids the twist from some movie, and show their reaction to it.
Website:
1. If my google home is playing music in my kitchen, I can't watch videos. It just cuts them off and gives me a licensing error. Instead it should just downgrade me to ad-driven youtube.
2. Most videos have huge 'annotations' that I can click off, but automatically get clicked back on for the next videos. Its usually people begging for you to subscribe to their channel. Its almost never to annotate anything and even if it was, the UX is terrible. It should be something I call up, not something that blocks the video content.
3. In-video ads. On top of the ad to watch the video I now need to be pestered with this little pop-up adds their ruin immersion. Oh I have youtube red, but I get these anyway sometimes. I imagine this is just a bug but even then they're a terrible experience for non-youtube red subscribers.
4. Audio quality is often terrible. Not sure if its the video itself but even the official music video channels usually have audio that sounds, at best, like 56k MP3 streams circa 2002.
App on Android
1. Holy hell is is slow to startup. Worse, if you accidentally hit a youtube link and try to press back, you need to press the back arrow about 3 times before it responds. Its probably my slowest app. Meanwhile an mp4 served from imgur is near instant. Heck, even a big ugly gif starts up much faster. There should be no scenario where a 100mb gif starts up faster than a 3mb youtube video.
2. Autoplay of next video means that if I'm reading the comments and if the video ends then it wipes the comments I'm reading and replaces it with the description of the new video.
3. Quality seems variable even though I'm pegged to the same 50mbps wifi connection at home with full bars.
Not to mention, the comments ranking system encourages 'hilarious' jokey comments over the more serious content. Youtube comments are usually terrible but for less popular videos they can be insightful, the problem is that the top 5 or so comments are either jokes or fairly obvious trolling attempts.
I wish someone wold disrupt this space but I imagine the deep pockets you would need to host all these videos on top of the legalities of it all means that only the top 5 tech companies would be able to compete and they're just not interested. I imagine the margins are fairly low here.
Also, the fact that vertically-filmed cellphone videos don't fill the screen when you try to watch them in portrait mode is so bone-headed it's actually funny.
I suspect he's the exception to the rule, though.
The author mentions Game Theory (another youtube channel) which has some videos that delves into these mechanics instead.
My fear with Youtube as a casual viewer is that content creators (such as the author) are too focused on scandal with other channels they themselves are friends with and not focused enough on keeping engaging content and/or keeping engaged with the fans who made them money in the first place.
For example, assume there is some controversy over some gamer on YouTube. YouTube Channels dedicated to talking about Internet culture, like h3h3productions or PhillipDeFranco, take the opportunity to make a video titled "YouTube is Dying" with a lot of question marks in the thumbnail. They do this because videos about meta-controversies get more views than specific things. So the video gets more views, and other YouTube channels talk about the 'controversy' in order to get views themselves. Then the gamer may make a video titled "Response to YouTube controversy" which gets way more views than his average video, because it's a meta topic that everyone's talking about. And the cycle continues.
TL;DR: Controversies help content creators get more views.
I saw one of them about YouTube reprioritizing its recommendation algorithms to prioritize channels that A: release every day and B: prefer longer videos to shorter videos, in order to drive "engagement", that is, people staying on YouTube longer rather than shorter.
The problem here, to me, seems to be that basically what YouTube wants out of its channels is in excess of what one person can produce anymore. Not just "produce" in terms of producing raw minutes of video per se, but produce in terms of writing, too. Even the most interesting person in the world would have problems being "interesting" for an hour or two, every day, day after day, if only because the very activities one needs to become "interesting" are themselves inhibited by the needs of this video schedule.
YouTube is basically telling individual content producers to eat their seed corn, which is the only way to maintain this for any period of time at all, so that YouTube's engagement numbers will boost. But how long will YouTube's numbers boost while it also encourages its biggest content producers to eat their seed corn?
I've already unsubscribed from a couple of channels that tried to adapt to this format. (I mean, I feel for them, but it's no help to anybody for me to suffer through it.) I've got a couple of others that have gone from me watching everything they put up on a weekly basis, to seeing several weekly-esque shows being jammed on to the same channel to make YouTube think it's got engagement, where I'm still only interested in the once-a-week bit, but now my subscriptions page is clogged up. And I've seen channels go from producing relatively tight 10-15 minute things to splaying out to hour+ videos, with little-to-no increase in content. The only channels that I like that have not been negatively affected by these changes are the ones that simply ignore all this crap and just keep doing their thing. A couple I've got covered on Patreon, the others are just labors of love that now have basically 0 chance of ever having any sort of "success". Which isn't intrinsically a problem for them either, as they know this; the questions it raises to me are not about those channels, but about the future of YouTube. Not whether it has a future, but what that future is. It seems like it's becoming harder to find niche content to me.
Zoella does a good job, she had a breakdown thas was very not problematic, but is mostly very professional.
Pewdiepew pewdiepie whatever. he's stupid. fuck that shit. fuck hacker news. fuck you all.
PewDiePie was obviously targeted. JonTron was not.
If he wants to perform for children he needs to respect the fact that his words have exaggerated consequences because he's dumping them into impressionable, insecure minds. Don't reduce me to some 'outrage crowd' and write me off when I'm concerned that a children's performer is feeding them rape & jew 'jokes'.
What? Pewdiepie was seeing what people would do at fiverr for five dollars. Most of the jokes were him being rejected. The joke is very clearly not at the expense of Jewish people any more than, say, Nazis doing stupid things in Indiana Jones movies is.
He did. See the other people on fiverr he got to do other, stupid things. You did actually watch the video, right?
> likely to be rejected by people who understand English
They understand English perfectly - their email replies discussing the task were about the same level of English as spoken on HN.
> Now middle school kids can chortle together on the playground, "haha, 'death to all jews', that sure was funny".
If a kid thinks that they've misunderstood the joke (and I'd support rating the video something like '15+ mature' or whatever youtube's equivalent is).
I don't like the video, mainly because it seems like Pewdiepie is exploiting poor people, but saying it's making antisemitic jokes is simply Vox being Vox.
He did all those other things and he still did 'death to all jews'. I'm saying he didn't need to do that one at all. If he did other things in the video it supports my position.
> If a kid thinks that they've misunderstood the joke
Yes, kids are by and large stupid.
The biggest real hit for PewDiePie was that Disney studios dropped him as affiliate. Disney does not feature '15+ mature', they children+parents friendly as a strategy.
The latest X men film, 'Logan' is R 18, as was the previous one. And Buena Vista have a bunch of dramas aimed at adults.
For any adult looking at PewDiePie's shenanigans it is clear that he isn't actually supporting organized racism, or if he is he is astoundingly bad at it (perhaps as bad at being funny. But to a an unprepared kid (or dumb adult) this stuff can seem shocking and the jokes might be missed on them. PewDiePie simply didn't care some kids might see and wasn't concerned about it.
Parents can prepare their kids and create open environments where the kids can ask questions. If done right the parent can create situations where they can simply explain that PewDiePie lacks good taste when the kid asks what its going on.
This is a bunch of idealist rubbish, but at least a few parents have done it.
Hell, jontron was innocuous for a while. A parent could have reviewed his entire oeuvre up to a point, however many days of video it would have required, and decided it was alright. Until a week ago, when suddenly it was not alright! And by the time a parent is aware of it and is shielding their children from it, they have already been exposed, at least for a bit. Jontron built an audience when he was safe and failed the responsibility he adopted when he decided to influence children by exposing them to his abhorrent views, and there was very little a parent could do about it.
Moreover, it's not just about _my_ kids being exposed to racist bullshit. I also want for _other_ kids to be shielded from it (this is beyond my power without going to the source of the bullshit and shutting it down directly). Otherwise, my kids may still be cursed to live in a world where they are threatened for their heritage.
Given the sheer magnitude of outrage which predictably follows "racist bullshit" being publicly displayed, I can infer, if people are acting somewhat near rationally, that they rate the chance of "racist bullshit" winning the day somewhat higher than "slim". Do you agree with that? If so, why are you worried about reason losing the day? Is it the quality of your ideas that you find lacking, or the reasoning power of the people around you?
Why are you so eager to police anti-racism, then? By the same logic, if racism is right you'll be fine.
No, not quite. It's the way in which you react, which is to silence the opposition. If you believed your ideas would win reasonable minds on their merits, and you believed the minds in question were reasonable, and you yourself were a rational person, you wouldn't feel such a strong need to shut down the dissemination of other ideas. Have I gone wrong somewhere in my reasoning?
Why are you so eager to police anti-racism, then?
Sorry, where have I attempted to police anti-racism? Do you consider asking questions to be tantamount to policing thought? I've expressed no outrage over your ideas. I've never hinted at a desire to shut your ideas down at the source. I've simply asked you to defend them in a calm, reasonable conversation.
If asking you reasonable questions counts as policing your opinion, that is a very serious condemnation of your opinions.
In the end these discussions come down a fundamental moral question, outside all reasoning and apologia: "Is racism inherently bad?" I posit that it is and no matter how you or I react to racism, no matter how many minds are swayed to or against it, it is still wrong. From the position that racism is inherently bad, my arguing against racism is not evidence that my position is weak; my belief that left unchecked racism could fester in us and cause great harm is not evidence that anti-racism is irrational and racism is rational; I'm simply arguing against something that is fundamentally wrong. You may as well ask me why I argue the sky is blue when someone tells me it is green. "Well, if you have to argue the sky is blue, how sure are you that it really is blue? The green-sky people will come around". It's strange someone would ask me why I argue the sky is blue -- you'll have to forgive me for assuming they also think it's green but are too shy to admit it.
Engaging in good faith, then, does this answer your question or would you like to ask it again?
I haven't argued that it is evidence of such. I've argued that your particular chosen method of combating racism is irrational under a few specific conditions: A) your position is reasonable and B) the bulk of the people around you are reasonable and just.
It seems like you don't believe B is the case ("I've already made it quite clear that I think not all the minds in question are reasonable.... [L]eft unchecked racism could fester in us and cause great harm...") and don't especially care if A is the case ("outside all reasoning...no matter how you or I react to racism...it is still wrong.").
Given you believe your heritage is at stake ("I'm worried because my children will have the same Jewish heritage I have"), your method is quite rational under those conditions. I wonder if your co-religionists tend to be of a similar mind.
You may as well ask me why I argue the sky is blue when someone tells me it is green.
Except you're not arguing against racism, you're arguing for outrage against racism. Those are two very different things.
It's strange someone would ask me why I argue the sky is blue
I'm not asking you why the sky is blue, I'm asking why you think outrage and censorship is the appropriate way to keep minds from thinking the sky is green. From what you've said, the answer is that A) you feel the stakes are quite high for you personally, B) you didn't reason yourself into the position that the sky is blue, but in fact believe it's outside the bounds of reason to even weigh in on the subject (I suspect you don't actually think this, but it is what you said), and C) believe a great deal of the people around you are mentally deficient in such a way that they're biased toward belief in a green sky.
That's racist.
After all, nazi did won war of ideas and so did hutu and so did khmer rouge.
OK, but we're not discussing a scenario in which stormfront members have total control over what the children are exposed to. We're discussing a scenario where they have at most a few minutes of the child's attention. For the other fifteen and three quarters waking hours of the child's day, their attention belongs to their teachers or their parents. If you believe the 'racist bullshit' coming from stormfront has any chance of winning the war of ideas against those odds, that tells me something about what you think of either the quality of the other ideas or the ability of teachers and parents to impart them into the minds of children, and, let me tell you, it's not flattering.
After all, nazi did won war of ideas
Now we're no longer talking about children. We're talking about "racist bullshit" winning the war of ideas in the minds of full grown adults. If you're concerned that "racist bullshit" is going to win the war of ideas in the minds of full grown adults, that tells me very clearly what you think about the quality of your preferred ideas or what you think about the quality of the minds of those full grown adults. And again, it's not flattering.
Is there some defect in human minds which makes them extremely susceptible in childhood to "racist bullshit" in particular, above other ideas?
which assumes some kind of fair marketplace of ideas where the right thing always wins
Well, it certainly would always win in the minds of reasonable and just people, would it not? If you believe "the right thing" won't win in reality, is that not saying something about what you think of the people in question?
Also, stormfront ideas are appealing. They make people feel sense of community, common enemy (!), purpose and feeling of strength. I think that they are immoral and wrong, but that does not mean I am going to deny emotional appeal it has especially on young.
Speaking of nazi specifically, "hardship we are going through is partly our fault plus bad luck" is less appealing then "Jews caused us to loose the war" no matter how true. "We are superior and are entitled to take land of others" has a lot emotional appeal no matter how unethical.
2.) Sure Nazi win also adults, but they were super popular among university students and youth (and young veterans from WWI having trouble to adjust back). After all, it is easier to change young peoples minds then older minds.
Popular ideas come and go while their own quality stays the same. Nazi specifically had to loose the real war to actually loose.
OK, but we're still not talking about a remotely even amount of time. Not to mention that teachers are authority figures, have an extremely captive audience, can punish incorrect opinions, and have near total control over the material children are exposed to during the school day.
They make people feel sense of community, common enemy (!), purpose and feeling of strength. I think that they are immoral and wrong, but that does not mean I am going to deny emotional appeal it has especially on young.
So then you believe there is a defect in humans which results in them having a natural susceptibility to these ideas in particular, and as children humans need to be carefully insulated from these ideas or it will be very difficult for them to reason their way to other ideas as adults. Is that a universal human defect, or one that is found particularly in some class of human?
I'm sure most mainline corporate advertisers don't want to be associated with seemingly "sponsoring" neo-Nazi content / hate speech or other extremist content (eg radical Islaimc / IS videos), which if the articles I see are right (example: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/03/20/trouble-b...) they sometimes do.
Managing that is Google / Youtube's responsibility. It'll be interesting what they do. The "outrage crowd" probably matters less to Google than the hit to the pocketbook, I think.
Please don't do this. Personal attacks aren't allowed here and aren't necessary to make your point.
It is true that assimilation is a problem and that years ago some did talk about a Reconquista. Just because some people talk or think about it doesn't mean it's a legitimate concern but it's not exactly racist to bring it up?
My friend ran a Latino media company and he used to talk about it a lot. And obviously California used to be Mexico so it's a rather common idea that's easily agreed with.
JonTron: It would be great if they assimilated... but then... eventually they'd enter the gene pool.
--
JonTron: Wealthy blacks also commit more crime than poor whites, that's a fact. Yeah, look it up.
[He provided no source for this, and I can't find anything to back it up.]
--
JonTron: These are just slurs: white supremacist, racist.
--
JonTron: We've gotten rid of discrimination in our Western countries. If you don't think we've gotten rid of discrimination, you're living in a fantasy land... Get outta here with that. People like me are supposed to listen to people like you chatter on about this oppression in America, it doesn't exist, dude, it doesn't exist. What do you want to do, police people's thoughts?
--
He also endorsed Rep. Steve King's recent tweet that "culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies", writing: "Wow, how scandalous, Steve King doesn't want his country invaded by people who have contempt for his culture and people! NAZI!!!"
I write this as someone who's been a fan for years and is very disappointed by this turn of events.
"People don't like that I'm racist? No, that's the outrage community"
"I feel attacked on all sides. Could it be that the majority of people find my ideals abhorrent? No, that's the outrage community"
In short, it's a way to pretend you are part of a silent majority, attacked by a vocal minority in the absence of actual evidence.
have jontron or pewdiepie ever specified that they produce children's entertainment? i keep seeing this argument brought up but i don't see how it means a hell of a lot on an open* platform with effectively no ratings guidelines. plenty of 14 year-olds used to read big brother and watch baker videos and i can guarantee you they are interfacing with far more suggestive content on a regular basis, but none of these things would be considered to cater to children even if they were the largest demographic of consumers.