Hocus focus: how magicians made a fortune on Facebook
economist.com
economist.com
There's an entire genre of videos that feature a woman in a (expensive-looking) kitchen, saying she's gonna show you a super easy and convenient recipe, and as it goes on it turns out to be the dumbest thing you've ever seen. There will always be a man, assumedly her husband, behind the camera narrating along and agreeing that whatever she's making looks delicious. Then they eat the weird concoction at the end and pretend like it's amazing. Again, this is the same kind of content I described above, where it's designed to make the viewer think the people in the video are stupid, when really the viewer is the one being gamed when they share it around to their friends and give those "idiots" more ad revenue.
Similar phenomenon in any scaled-up industry. Take the example of academia. Plenty of people without substance “making it” by purely aping the style of French philosophers, Wittgenstein, Feynman, and so on…
There was a chance, if they kept their soul and at what they were doing to make it big as authentic artists and scientists, but they would have to starve for a long time.
As for me, that’s why I am commenting on Hacker News instead of struggling on in grad school :)
Also, makes me wonder how viral the feeling of condescension is.
The sorority girl, turned around, and bitchily responded to her elder, "That's none of your business."
The mom looked offended but remained quiet. I was a couple seats away and remarked to the mother that the slogan means she likes having sex with strangers.
The sorority girl immediately turned around to deny the claim, then explaining the actual meaning of the slogan.
I prefer EEVBlog as a result: No nonsense, no clickbaity titles (mostly). He's discussed the merits of "selling out" and had a frank discussion online with ElctroBOOM:
I think what the previous poster is talking about with this woodworker guy is he tries to make himself look incompetent so people will go to the comments and point out his "mistake." Electroboom would never expect people to go "hey, you shouldn't do that, it's dangerous." Whereas it's normal to bait people into engaging in that way on tiktok.
Few people can resist the pull of being a smart-ass and telling others they are doing things wrong. It’s kind of brilliant.
The key here is that the people will act like the failure is something they haven't noticed, so people will be baited into engaging -- either posting a comment, thinking they're the first person to point out the "mistake" or "failure," and/or share it with their friends. The entire thing is staged to fish for a very specific type of engagement.
Yes all of this exists because of advertising. uBlock Origin maybe isn't just a way to stay sane while browsing the web; it's the best tool we have to save the world.
All forms of advertising should simply become illegal. There goes Facebook, Twitter, all of "social media", and the worst behaviors of Google. I think most people would pay for a good search engine (I would); the "content" that people won't pay for out of their own pocket, should probably not be made in the first place.
If nobody's willing to pay for it, then they can either offer it for free, or not make it at all.
I think we would all be better off that way.
No, it was just a cherry-picked video. Don't overthink it.
p.s. I learned a new word "shittainment"
If you use someone's work, pay them for it.
Ship sailed on that one a while ago!
The early phase of - well, basically everything - tends to have authenticity. Then the opportunists step in.
This is true of any trend, be it cultural or technology.
They mention getting between $1 to $40 per thousand ad views. Let's say on average $10.
A video that gets 165000 views is only earning $1,650--not bad for a days work, but not millionaire potential.
Unless I am reading it wrong and '165m' means 165 million but that just doesn't seem possible that one in five English speakers on Earth would watch one video.
Either way, I am very happy for his success. It's clear he found a particular niche to fulfill.
165mil isn't as big as it sounds with those factors in mind.
> Did it cost them their souls?
No. At least no more than anything else in this modern society.
And they seem to be doing well enough they can probably take a break and focus on other creative things if they want to, and have a bunch of followers to direct to that content if they want.
Maybe. Some of them have burned bridges with the communities they once loved, all in the name of being more viral and making more money. Justin Flom, Julius Dein, Rick Lax, and Jibrizy are all now despised in the magic community because of their actions. That's touched on in the article, with Julius even stating that he'd give all the money back to go back in time and undo the damage to his reputation. While it is still possible to change their ways and be successful in their original passions without the surrounding community behind them, it does make things more difficult and ultimately less fulfilling.
This is counterproductive to society’s long term interests, and they are actively working against mine and my descendants and fellow citizens of the world’s interest.