American kids would much rather be YouTubers than astronauts | Hacker News Reader

American kids would much rather be YouTubers than astronauts

arstechnica.com

90 pointssanqui112 comments

Children will only say they want to be things they are exposed to and understand. Looking at the list for nowadays, it still includes teachers, athletes and musicians, which they see in the media and might be able to imagine themselves doing. It doesn't include things like lawyers and computer programmers, which aren't careers children are particularly aware of, and even if they were they wouldn't fully appreciate. So the story here is simply that astronauts aren't in the media as much as they were during the Space Race and Cold War. Don't think it is anything to worry about - they'll probably change their minds by the time they grow up anyway. And who knows, by the time they grow up there might be new careers that we can't even imagine these days (I can pretty much guarantee that almost no-one would have imagined jobs like "social media influencer" and "machine learning data cleanser" when I was young).

they'll probably change their minds by the time they grow up anyway

The poll was conducted on 8 - 12 year olds (https://theharrispoll.com/lego-group-kicks-off-global-progra...) so I agree that there's time. When I was on the younger end of that range, I wanted to be a garbage collector, probably because it seemed like it'd be great to ride on the back of that big truck. I might have gotten wiser with age.

At that age I was terrified of being an astronaut after watching Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks. I laid up at night scared until my father told me that the astronaut selection process wasn't a random national lottery and I had nothing to worry about.

And at 8, my sister said she wanted to be a rabbit when she grew up. We found the class assignment to prove it when going through our old stuff in the attic.

We had a Richard Scarry book that had animals dressed up as different professions. While reading the book my parents asked my sister what she wanted to be when she grew up. My sister immediately responded "a hippo", which was fine with my parents because the hippo was dressed as a doctor.

Now she is a data scientist, which probably didn't exist when that book was written.

> I wanted to be a garbage collector

I used to say that (from age six) to dissuade further questioning from dull adults. It usually worked.

I used to say "I want to be a junkie when I grow up" because there was this series of anti-drug commercials that would end with the line "Nobody ever says they want to be a junkie when they grow up" and I wanted to prove them wrong.

Did you achieve your dreams?

Not that one.

When I was 5 or 6 I wanted to drive one of those cute little dumper trucks on a building site.

> I wanted to be a garbage collector,

Did you have a poster of John McCarthy on your wall as a child?

A Shirley Manson poster at least?

With that same explanation - i think if China's internet were more "open" we'd see youtube/vlogger higher on their list, no?

"Internet celebrity" is very much a known option in China.

" It doesn't include things like lawyers and computer programmers"

When my daughter was in 4th or 5th grade they had a "career day" in which students could meet parents who were in jobs they found interesting. I offered to talk with kids about being a software developer. The organizer contacted me the day before to let me know that nobody signed up to talk with me. I was a bit crestfallen. ;-)

ooof :(

I had a similar experience. I came in for a "career day" thing to talk about Software Development. I did not get much love. Some of the kids perked up a little when I said I used to work next to Xbox testers and watched them play games all day long.

I'm sure if you would have said you could make video games, you'd have a huge line of kids!

This was exactly the segue my colleague would use when speaking to school children about computer science.

You'd likely have had an easier time if you called yourself a 'programmer', I feel like the term was more familiar to me as a kid compared to 'software developer'

I think this is just a function of younger children not understanding their career goals yet. If you look at children when they get to college, Computer Science as a major has seen absurd growth in the past 10 years. Google, Facebook, Uber and other tech giants are the hottest places to work. So I tend not to overindex on the preferences of 10 year olds.

Sounds like the teacher may have dropped the ball on a learning opportunity in this case. I've learned that I will regularly teach my kids things they don't care about.

Heh funny you should say that. I started playing music in the age range of the poll... I'm more than double that age now and spent years playing in groups and after a brief bit of time off am actively getting back into it. (in fact getting to see one of my lifelong folk heroes just tonight by chance)

At the same age I also became fascinated by computers... and I'm working as a computer programmer.

That said—I might just be further data in support of your exposure theory.

Social media influencer is a rebranded beggar, we already were able to imagine that.

Or they are just much more intelligent these days and are attuned to what they want.

Do you want to spend months at a time in a soda can that can explode at any moment surrounded by vacuum? Or be a modern day bard?

I'll second this

I liked the idea of science, but I didn't understand at all how people end up becoming one

It honestly wasn't until halfway through undergrad that I really got it and decided to actually pursue it

Supporting your position: My daughters’ preschool, in the area of Johnson Space Center in Houston, did a video of all the kids saying what they want to be when they grow up. A lot of them said astronaut.

Take this from a former airforce pilot: the more you learn about the reality of such jobs, the less you want to do them. Infighting, backstabbing, constant testing by people whose job is to fail you, zero room for creativity, and near-zero input into how and where you live your life... it's not worth it.

Then when you finally get up at the controls of that cool plane your time is broken down into 5-minute increments. More tests. More senerios. More chances to fail. And if you do fail, all that effort means absolutely nothing in any other job or trade. There is a joke in TopGun about them going from f14s to driving trucks. That isnt too far from reality. Look into what entry-level commercial/civilian pilots make.

That said ... i did have a big smile on my face while doing my first aerobatics in a proper plane. 5 minutes of smile after 4+ years of testing.

An airforce pilot must have some pull at the bar though...

Sure, but you don't have to be an airforce pilot to say you're one at a bar. Why go to all that effort?

I like the way you think :)

Not really. It means you arent earning proper money and have few prospects outside the military. Lawyer/doctor wins hands down.

So do you want to have a creative carrier where you are your own boss, and you'll touch the lives of other people directly.

Or do you want to train you whole life to sit in LEO half a summer to push buttons.

Makes sense to me.

I'm hoping you have the minority opinion here!

"Youtuber" doesn't mean being your own boss at all. It means being a pretense for advertising, and having your sole source of income depends on the whims of a gigantic monopoly.

A lot of demonetized or otherwise smaller channels use Patreon or similar for revenue, so that doesn't have to be the case. Of course, they still give Youtube ad revenue.

There are plenty of people using Patreon that are neither small nor demonetized, as it's more reliable than YouTube ad money and can get people more involved/loyal if you provide some perks for supporting on there.

I dunno. Being an astronaut doesn't sound much better when you put it reductively.

"Astronaut" doesn't mean "space adventurer" at all. Most of the time is spent in training and classes on the ground. Moreover, once you go out to space -- supposing you ever get to go, not likely -- you find that there's nothing there (that's what "space" means), most notably, no bars, movie theaters, or hot young people of your preferred gender. And the whole deal might be scrapped if the wrong political party gains power and slashes NASA's budget by 50%.

Yeah, if fame/status/respect is what you're looking for, astronaut is not a great deal right now. Way to much effort for what you get. But that's not the only reason to pursue the profession.

Please don't prescribe values to me I didn't present. I didn't say if I think it is a good thing or bad thing. My point is that I can easily understand why young people rather be youtubers.

You clearly framed one as better than the other.

You used positive examples and positive language when describing youtubers and negative examples and language when describing astronauts. You are the one that prescribed value to your statement based on the way you described both professions

As opposed to a NASA astronaut, who must spend his or her days laboring under the regulations of the US Government, and whose sole income depends on the whims of its gigantic monopoly.

So you're comparing the income stability of a "government type" job to the high-volatility of advertising dollars coming from the quickly moving trends of online platforms?

In theory, all government employees could be fired tomorrow, if it pleases Congress, the President, and the Courts.

In theory all YouTubers could be "fired" tomorrow if it pleases Google (to shut down, demonitize, or otherwise alter YouTube).

I'd put that as significantly more likely, not that either one is very likely at all.

If you are genuinely trying to imply that being an astronaut at NASA has a similar level of financial and professional stability as a social media influencer you are unequivocally incorrect

It's not quite a monopoly. Small-time online personalities can choose at least between YouTube and Twitch right now for video. I expect there are a few less popular platforms, too. Anyone care to comment on which ones?

IGTV, TikTok, Snap are other platforms for this

TikTok is blowing up, I wouldn't be surprised when they grow to become a serious yt competitor.

One big difference is you can make money directly from YouTube and Twitch if you have many followers through ad revenue sharing. On those other platforms, you have to get more creative in monetizing your popularity, e.g. striking a deal with advertisers directly to do sponsored posts.

Sounds like drug dealing to me. You get paid to push products at people and call it a career. 5 years from now there are millions of people earning nothing on Youtube influencing no one and having no real alternative. In the end only a few strike it rich and the rest get nothing vs learning something that might actually be a reasonable career.

> You get paid to push products at people and call it a career.

Just like a career in sales. And while nobody really likes salespeople it's a generally accepted and potentially very lucrative career choice.

It's like every other get rich quick scheme: as soon as you've heard of it chances are it's too late.

> You get paid to push products at people and call it a career.

While there are definitely a lot of channels whose main purpose is to push products, there are tons of YouTubers that only do so to earn money and the value of the videos is elsewhere.

Numberphile does have product placement but calling them a drug dealer would be quite misguided.

>where you are your own boss

You may not technically have a "boss" per se, but you are 100% beholden to Youtube as a company, their platform, and their advertisers. You absolutely cannot do anything you want, and you have little to no control of the primary means of accessing your content. The fact that people in this thread are trying to compare Youtube "influencers" to astronauts is absurd

Post-Apollo they've always preferred whatever the contemporary version of "rock star" is to Astronaut. Non-story.

And during Apollo, the Astronauts kind of were a contemporary version of "rock star": they were chosen from a pool of daring test pilots, they drove fancy custom Corvettes, etc. As the initial problems with space flight were worked out, space flight increasingly become a specialization for science and engineering than something for highly qualified dare devils with "the right stuff".

I'm more intrigued by the disparity in China - they seem to be in a similar phase to Apollo, where there's massive national support for the program and it's attached to a sense of national pride. I wonder if it's also that culturally they've tended to more aggressively exhaust natural resources so colonization elsewhere feels like a more natural next step.

It's still very much something for highly qualified 'dare devils.' Around 4% of all astronauts have ended up dying 'on the job.' It's getting safer, but it's still one of the most risky jobs there is. For instance the Soyuz is the safest and most well tested launch system ever invented having flown some 1700 times - far surpassing any other rocket. Yet even there as recently as about 9 months ago there was a near catastrophe. This [1] is a video of the incident. Everything's going perfectly fine and nominal until one of the infinite number of things that can go wrong did go wrong, and the crew nearly lost their lives. Anecdotes such as this mean alot when we're only launching a handful of people to space per year.

This [2] is the American astronaut on the trip - Nick Hague. MIT masters in aerospace engineering, decorated colonel in the air force who acted as a test pilot for a wide array of different fighter craft, deployed for five months to Iraq where he enaged in experimental recon and flew combat missions, and so on. And that's a pretty typical resume.

I think a problem we have is that NASA administration have for years been just abysmal at getting the public interested in space. And this is a core requirement for their continued successful operation. Public interest drives funding. Without it, you get what NASA has turned into today -- huge chunks of their funding going to go-nowhere pork barrel projects and the youth of society preferring to post videos on the internet than go to space.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0l5QBmqQoI

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hague

Astronauts were hugely famous with massive amounts of media coverage in 1969. Who's to say this isn't just about wanting to be someone famous, whether that's an astronaut in 1969 or a YouTuber in 2019?

Becoming a YouTuber is much more likely then being an astronaut ever was, so this may be a good thing.

Which is another problem entirely: when you shoot for the stars and miss you're likely to have out-achieved most people in the process. But when you would rather aspire to do what literally anyone can do the chance of you achieving something new, worthwhile, or novel are somewhat diminished.

You'd be surprised : there are more astronauts alive than YouTubers with >10M subscribers.

Wow, I think you are right. 422 youtubers with >10e6 subscribers [1], 536 people have been to space [2].

[1] https://socialblade.com/youtube/top/500/mostsubscribed [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nam...

Besides those numbers, you'll also notice that quite a few of those are companies or organisations, not individuals.

Are you still technically an astronaut if you make it into the space program but don't actualyl get to go to space?

I can't see why not. At the end of the day "Astronaut" is a set of skills and employment.

The number of active astronauts though is a lot lower than the number of active YouTubers with a lot of subscribers. Also, 10M subscribers is a lot. One of my favorite YouTube channels has about 1M subscribers.

https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCZdQjaSoLjIzFnWsDQO...

SocialBlade estimates their earnings as being at a minimum $4k per month. But the range is up to $56k per month. They also have a patreon where they have almost 4k people donating at least $1 per video, although when they last had their donation amounts public the average was substantially higher. IIRC that was was close to $10k per video. At four videos a month, that's $40k per month. They also were basically given a $1M boat by a luxury boating company, and many of their videos are sponsored by Audible or Squarespace.

So, at least for this channel, $500k/y in revenue is a pretty conservative estimate, although I'd bet even money they make more than $1M per year. I think setting the bar of "famous and successful" at 10M subs is too high.

> SocialBlade estimates their earnings as being at a minimum $4k per month. But the range is up to $56k per month.

By comparison, a "software engineer that works for YouTube" might have total gross compensation of about $35K/month, and there are > 1000 of them. Both your off-ramps and your reach goals are better too: if you don't get to be a software engineer that works for YouTube, you could get roughly equivalent compensation at any FAANG, a little bit less (but still six figures) at another software company, or if you're lucky and brave, found the next Twitch and sell it for a billion dollars. Your earnings on YouTube fall off much more dramatically if you don't get to the 1M subscriber mark.

You're almost always better off going into the unglamorous profession that enables (and controls the purse strings to) the glamorous profession than going into the glamorous profession itself.

There are ~12k YouTubers with >1M subs, though, so the math is a little more generous than those with 10M subs. Also, remember that this couple has more sources of income than just YouTube revenue. There are surely some YouTube engineers making >$1M/y, but not very many. And none of them have a job called "living on a boat and doing fun boat things," nor can most of them boast a basic cost of living south of $40k.

NOW, none of this should be taken as an endorsement of YouTuber as a viable career path for most people. You are, I think, correct that your expected value is much better if you pursue software engineering. Especially if you're not extremely attractive, multi-talented, adventurous, and highly risk-tolerant. It is also a lot of work to make these videos -- SLV had one video where they went over the actual process of making their videos, and it is a six day a week job. But I want to make sure we're being fair to the YouTuber lifestyle here. For the ones that make it, very decent or even insanely good money is possible -- more than most people realize.

Which really goes to show that to be the best at anything, you've gotta work hard to be better than everyone else that's doing that. It's the same in the software industry. There's millions of us developers. We're all pretty much in the same boat, give or take. If you want to get to the upper echelons where you can write your own pay cheque, you've gotta have the tenacity to work hard and get there by providing more value than anyone else.

It's no different than actors. Those who routinely get the biggest box office draw and make the most money are those that appeal to the widest audience that will part with their money to watch them. Being appealing to the widest audience doesn't just come from rolling out of bed and switching on your webcam. You're going to have to work for it just like actors do... harder in fact, because you've got far more competition on YouTube than actors have at the box office.

If you want >10M subscribers, you've gotta provide more value than the average YouTuber.

This says way more about the US, and NASA than the kids today.

The US doesn't have a shuttle fleet. We beg the Russians for a ride to space if we need one.

I grew up watching the shuttle flights, I'm 41, I watched every one I could when I was a kid, including Challenger and Columbia.

I was in the 2nd grade during the Challenger disaster, we watched the launch live in the classroom. It still upsets me to think about it. And after that disaster, we rebuilt ourselves, we did better, and we pressed on.

My children will never have an emotional attachment to space travel like that because the US does not have an effective space program.

So, of course, the kids don't want to be astronauts. They want to be whatever we the adults, model for them. And, collectively, we've been some shitty role models lately.

I mean if the space industry/tourism takes off in the next couple decades like it's poised to, kids in this generation will have a better chance of getting to space as a private citizen than by becoming an astronaut.

The title of astronaut will likely start to change in meaning as well. Perhaps in the future it will just be a catch-all term for those who work directly in outer space as opposed to tourists or onboard staff.

Or it'll just become like "pilot"

So they choose to play with videogames and makeup in their room, instead the super-dangerous activity that could freeze, burn, asphyxiate, mutilate or kill them with 99% of probability if something fails, and will temporarily destroy their muscles and health if all goes 100% ok?

Such smart kids. Their parents should be proud.

I am really proud to see teacher at #2 it looks like in all 3 countries, a great profession we just need to comp more.

I wouldn't get too excited... the list shows to me that the kids only know about professions they're directly exposed to or repeatedly hear a lot about.

Kinda dumb to ask kids what their ideal profession is when they really only understand about 10 jobs.

ya good point, it does show what they are hearing though :). But ya, doesn't seem like much to see here.

>they really only understand about 10 jobs.

This is a pretty poor assumption IMO. This crappy article didn't even bother to list the ages of these "children" (were they 6, or 16?).

Personally, I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was in 2nd grade, but by 6th grade I wanted to be an electrical engineer (which is what I ended up doing in college). I was never really exposed to either of those by anyone I knew, only from reading.

In the US teaching's in an interesting position, being one of the only salaried jobs with reasonable amounts of time off (once you take out the parts of Summer teachers are actually working—planning, late Summer meetings and such, plus the extra hours during the school year, it's still quite a bit better than most US jobs) that you don't have to fight or compromise to attain, and one of the only ones where taking lots of parental leave—even repeatedly—isn't likely to do serious harm to your career. The schedule also matches up pretty well with when one's kids are out of school, both during and outside the school year. It's probably the most family-friendly common job there is by a long shot, and there are teaching jobs anywhere there are people so it's relocation-friendly.

The reason that taking parental leave doesn't hurt your career is because if you stay a classroom teacher, you have no opportunity for advancement. And although salary ranges vary widely by district, there are many districts where your salary doesn't change by more than 20% over 30 years. So it isn't really treated as a career in the sense you've used it as much as it is employment.

"Career" as synonymous with "job with lots of promotion potential" is... a sad place we've arrived at.

Teacher -> Principal -> Superintendent -> County Executive

Obviously, not everyone wants to go up the management chain, but engineers don't always go to middle-management or C-level either.

Also: consulting, curriculum design, instructional coaching and a bunch of other options, if you care to aim for them. Granted a lot of them are more likely to be parasitical than actual teaching is (though each of them can be useful and good!), but status, pay, and autonomy failing to track actually effective and useful work is hardly limited to the teaching field. It's kinda the norm.

This is a really optimistic look on the system. Yes, teachers do get long breaks, but they often have to plan, grade, etc during those breaks. You also have extracurriculars (sports, band, clubs, etc) which require work during breaks and outside normal teaching hours. It really doesn't help that things like TA funding are quick to get axed when times are tough, increasing workloads for teachers.

Despite how neutered unions are in some states, without them, there would be routine labor law violations (the principal at my high school tried to force teachers to teach 4 classes a day despite state law requiring one class block be set aside for planning/grading). State legislatures also tend to pass bills for improvement programs without providing appropriate funding for training or materials, further straining resources and often inhibiting the ability for teachers to do anything but teach to the test.

>there are teaching jobs anywhere there are people so it's relocation-friendly.

This is true, but salaries vary widely. If you have a partner with a good-paying career, you can afford to relocate to wherever, but if you're single or otherwise not flush with cash, your relocation opportunities are limited. It really doesn't sink in how little they're paid until you come across your teachers stocking shelves. They put up with a lot - shitty legislatures, parents, administrations, students, poor facilities, underfunding, and pay that (in some states) is less than minimum wage when broken down hourly.

> This is a really optimistic look on the system. Yes, teachers do get long breaks, but they often have to plan, grade, etc during those breaks.

Yeah, I noted that. Even with the sometimes-long hours during the school year and their not actually having the whole Summer off, it's still better than the US norm of "after you've been here 6 months you can start accruing 10 paid vacation days per year—and once you've been here 5 years (LOL) you'll go up to 15! And no, you can't bank them."

> Despite how neutered unions are in some states,

Yeah, when I read about "out of control teachers' unions!" it always reinforces just how widely this varies. It be awesome if the ones around here would get a little more "out of control". Maybe all the pay freezes and abuses (of exactly the general sort you note) would stop. I'm pretty sure the folks here have totally forgotten that they even could strike.

Popular YouTubers will easily be able to afford a trip or two to space in their lifetime, so it kind of makes sense?

Kids in the 80s wanted to be rock stars, it’s just the trend

No we didn't.

We just wanted to party :)

90s wanted to be a rockstar

80s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk

90s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmeUuoxyt_E

Speak for yourself. I wanted to be an inventor. Mission accomplished.

Edit: I wonder if Back to the Future played a role in this...

Back in my day, American kids would much rather be rock stars than astronauts

They would rather be/have been rock stars than be astronauts.

They would rather have "walked on the moon" than played a sold out MSG.

Surely none of the youtube kids of today could resist the selfie opportunities of a moonwalk.

In my head this sounds pretty bad. this sounds like kids won't be aspiring to be in a career that naturally involves some degree of curiosity and wonder and general coolness (astronaut), but rather some rando on YouTube with a pop filter and fast editing that already thinks he knows everything. And calls out people, and talks trash, and shows off and constantly tells people to buy them stuff on Amazon and support his content on Patreon or whatever.

...Fuck, our kids are gonna be assholes.

The YouTube bubble has to pop at some point, right?

I came into a whole channel full of YouTube 'stars' showing off their million dollar homes in California with their sports cars etc, 9/10 of these guys I had never heard of - then again I'm not a teen.

Or kids want to be kids. They want to do things that they like such as playing games, hanging out (podcast), or reviewing tech/games/fashion/beauty. They want to do them with people they like. They want to share the experience with other people. That's one form of a YouTuber.

There are bad actors in this space. There are bad actors in every space. Should we label children who want to start a business assholes since companies like Nestle and Uber exist? Should we label children who want to be politicians assholes since some politicians vote for whoever pays the most? Should we label children who want to be scientific researchers assholes since we know some researchers fudge their findings to keep funding?

I think this is just down to the modern media technology/trends and kids lifestyles these days. When kid media staples such as Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Bill Nye the science guy, etc. is replaced by pop-style/hyper-paced youtube stars, what can you expect?

Would an average 8 year old be drawn towards 'Neil Armstrong or Chris Hadfield' or towards a popular youtube star close to their own age group?

Kids are smart, being an astronaut is a dangerous and pointless job, like doing motorcycle stunts or BASE jumping.

Is BASE jumping a job? I met a tower climber once. He loved his job, and I bet if he could he'd jump off some of the structures he works on.

"Tower climber" or "tower technician" seem to be the common terms according to Google. But the person I met used an unfamiliar, archaic term to describe himself, which I can't recall. Anyone know?

EDIT: Steeplejack! I think Jim Phelan was the guy I met: http://www.uphigh.com/

It makes sense. Kids not too long ago wanted to be tv stars because that was all they watched. I think tv has been on its way out for years and youtube has mostly filled the void. Now they just watch youtube. 'Celebrities' to them are primarily youtube celebs.

I'm 31 and would certainly rather be a Youtuber than an astronaut.

Kids used to want to be movie stars. Has anything changed?

Why should kids become astronauts! It is low paid and is one of the most riskiest job with long term health issues. Kids these days are practical.

Considering that some astronauts turned youtubers, or netflix documentary actors, the famous once at least. Can you blame them?

I'm starting to think that some people believe that the kids are not all right. Oh no.

You can be both a YouTuber and an astronaut. They are not mutually exclusive.

Not without getting everything signed off by ten layers of risk-adverse media-conscious management. Imagine the hysteria if Buzz Aldrin spoke his mind on youtube!

how much work you seeing Astronauts get in the last decade?

Yeah it's also not very fun to go into space. The food's alright but there's not much atmosphere

kids these days

Perhaps this is because all the astronauts they see are 40+ years old and are simply not cool/popular. Whereas, all the YouTubers they see are 20 something and are incredibly popular?

Short answer, it's cool to be a YouTuber.

This is why nobody under 30 should be allowed to vote because this poll wouldn't change much if it were conducted with 25 year olds..

Please post substantive comments instead. I would also assume that a majority of 50 year olds would rather work on their own time making good content than have a short lived, strenuous, and micromanaged career in lower earth orbit. Doesn't mean those 50 year olds have bad opinions or should be dismissed.

it's not intended to be dismissive of an individual's dream, but a 50 year old today is less likely to be a product of a failed education system than a 12 year old today.

We don't invest in Nasa like we did and it doesn't capture the heart of the nation like it once did. NASA cannot even gets its own astronauts to space. Little wonder children instead look the the rockstars of their generation.

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