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Comment by war1025 | Hacker News Reader

> The majority of “influencers” are young women, and only a minority would want to follow a 50 year old uncle.

One interesting side effect of this is that some of the most popular male YouTube channels I follow never show the host's face. Everything is carefully staged to only show their hands / body.

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Its strange because random old people channels produce great content. Its just that, most of them don't try to be annoying influencers. I follow some old dude who repairs his motorcycle and writes music. He doesnt talk, and its great.

I follow some guy in France who restore random stuff, he doesn’t talk and there’s no music, it’s fantastic.

It's so refreshing to have content that is actually just good content and isn't some trainwreck of seeking attention from an increasingly more vapid audience.

Very true. I came across a channel run by a 60 something man where he sits in his music room, puts on a record and talks about what that piece of music means to him, when he first heard it.

I usually don't watch the whole video as it can get a bit dry, but otherwise it is nice to just see someone expressing themself without shilling their Patreon or using clickbait thumbnails and titles like the more commercial "personal" channels do.

I miss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Carrington 's show, which was basically that on BBC radio. Him, his cat, and a huge collection of old records.

(BBC radio is at the very opposite end from begging for likes; once someone establishes a show, if it's not in a highly contended timeslot it can basically run forever no matter how obscure or unfashionable it is, until the presenter dies)

Doesn't that sort of depend on the channel? eg Radio 1 has always been Obnoxiously! Trendy! Pop! Music!, Radio 2 a lightweight blend of news, musical standards, and entertainment, Radio 3 classical or music and Very Serious Discourse, and Radio 4 intellectual topics, politics, and and quality news, little or no music. I know there are a few other radio channels but I can't remember what their focus is. And of course all of these channels have variations of their own depending what time of the day/week people are listening.

RIP John Peel. Remarkable how many iconic punk/indie/weird bands he introduced to the mainstream.

Rick Beato? He's 58.

Sounds like my kind of thing. Got a link?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av3gmXBuBS0&t=557s

This Old Tony? (highly recommended btw!)

https://www.youtube.com/user/featony

Although there was one where you did get to see his face.

AvE (Arduino vs Evil) is similar https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChWv6Pn_zP0rI6lgGt3MyfA

This Old Tony? Just hands.

AvE? Just hands.

Marco Reps? Just hands... wearing gloves.

LockPickingLawyer? Just hands.

BosnianBill? Just hands.

The Signal Path? Largely just hands, although he has appeared occasionally.

Wendover Productions? Disembodied voice.

CGP Grey? Disembodied voice.

Real Engineering? Disembodied voice.

Not to mention innumerable video game streamers.

Of course, disembodied voices aren't in-and-of-themselves a new cultural phenomenon: Radio has existed for years, as have podcasts. And there are TV formats like nature and history documentaries where the narrator may rarely or never appear on screen.

And even on Youtube, there are a number of female voice-only celebrities - for example "vtubers", where a female voice actor plays games while pretending to be a cute anime girl. Of course, one could say that's an example for the theory people want to see beautiful women, not against

There's several more factors to vtubers than that. It's more interesting if you like lore, it fits with the aesthetic of the rest of the video better, you don't need to get dressed or do your makeup, etc.

As far as privacy it doesn't necessarily apply because the famous ones almost all have previous careers as face streamers, and their fans know who they are since they use their real voices. But if you are doing it to hide yourself then it works, and it means that everyone else can interact with you and seem to be in the same world.

There is one (!!!) video where he shows his face. He looks more like 35 to me. Unless of course he is a Japanese girl using whatsapp.

And the ones where I've seen men are related to DIY fixing things at home, where an old plumber is more trusted then a young one.

i've spent more time that I would care to admit trying to find a slip up reflection form Lock Picking Lawyer. So far no dice.

Its not that hard to find the guy, Google better.

Youtubers are mostly content creators, while most instagram "influencers" only try to look pretty.

Arent youtube channels generally male dominated? At least most of what I watch is by males and they are not ashamed to show their faces.

I watch art, some crafts occasionally tech and pop commentary. Some sport.

I dont see people being interested in 50 years old women either in general.

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