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Comment by nindalf | Hacker News Reader

This news breaks my heart because Every Frame is my favourite youtube channel bar none. I feel empty knowing that I won't get to watch another video from them.

I did enjoy reading this though, because learning more about their creative process helps me appreciate them that much more. It now makes sense why the Jackie Chan video was amazing - it was a 150 hour labour of love from knowledgeable professionals who spared no effort.

For me, watching this channel was more than just an enjoyable 10 minutes - it helped me understand and appreciate film for the first time ever. I could always say that I loved the opening sequence of Pixar's Up, that it brought tears to my eyes, but I could never express what made it so special. Tony and Taylor gave me the vocabulary and the ability to do so, and I'm forever indebted to them for that alone. Thanks guys.

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I hadn't seen this channel before, but the Jackie Chan video is fantastic -- it's a thesis that I'd never have come up with, but that immediately clicked and explains why the old Honk Kong kung fu films still hold so much charm and satisfaction compared to new action movies.

It’s kind of amazing... at 150 hours, even after 900 people have watched your video, you’ve still invested more time than all of your viewers combined.

At 9,000 views society is leveraging 10 units of consumption for every 1 unit of work.

So big YouTubers who get on the order of a million views per video and spend an order of magnitude less time on the content are producing entertainment at an approximately 10,000:1 ratio. Ten thousand hours of mindless consumption for each hour of work they put in.

> mindless consumption

I'm uncomfortable with this characterization of consumption. I'm not doubting that most consumption is passive, but I think its a bit unfair to most people. Even creators, including in this case, Tony and Taylor are consumers 99% of the their lives. Nor is consumption a bad thing - watching Every Frame changed the way I think - which is great.

I think the mindless type of YouTube viewer would quickly get bored and cut short their viewing of Every Frame videos (they're long for YouTube videos and require some attention to get entertainment value from them).

I thought twice about that word “mindless” but I stand by it.

I was explicitly not talking about Tony and Taylor I was talking about creators who put in “an order of magnitude less effort” and get a million views per video.

Much of that content is mindless. Not all. And I’m not judging mindless entertainment. Mindfulness is one thing, not everything. But I think it’s a fair characterization of the typical in the segment I described. It’s worth noting that to get to that level of viewership you typically need to be producing very consistent content daily.

Yeah, it's the same thing for me.

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