Care to explain why? I don't know that channel.
No guarantees that you don't feed your addictions with this money though...but your addiction is good content anyway.
So, on the one hand, we decry the fact that they seem to lack power and agency, while willingly with the other hand we strip them of what agency and power they do have by saying, "shut up, don't spend your money on that, this is for your own good."
Sounds fucked up and abusive to me. The people should talk if they want to. We shouldn't pretend that we know how to mediate that for them. If they want to expand the way they engage economically, and narratively, in society, then I'm not going to step in their way. I think it's good for them, if they want to do it. I think it's good to have their story told.
Maybe we're just unhappy their voices reveal our hypocrisy? Maybe should you think it through before you find a way to condemn-label something that perhaps you're just a little uncomfortable with. Examine yourself first, rather than projecting onto them, trying to further limit their access, is my unsolicited advice. Thanks
But then again even giving voice to class itself may be an incorrect stereotype that's disempowering. Uuhh...It's difficult to find the right language but I think we should just see people as people.
And that's what I'm really speaking to here even if I'm not replying to the intention of the parent comment, it doesn't matter: what I'm saying is still valuable and important.
Unless you see the full picture, how it's all made, all the connections between the people: as an audience member, consuming the content, I mean, you can't tell, no way.
Maybe even being an audience member is exploitative...anyway. So I think you got to err on the side of caution as an outsider who has no idea, and just like not try to impose, and not call for any sort of curtailing of such content under the moral panic that "it's exploitative", which may just a NIMBY sort of way of silencing them "for their own good."
I get a feeling a lot of the people criticizing him haven't watched the channel. I've seen about 50 videos, and honestly cried with a lot of them. They've made me reevaluate my own life and reconsider how hard life is for others. It has also nudged me to donate time and money to particular communities that struck a chord with me.
I think it's great content.
Sounds like the kind of thing someone would be transparent about. As far as I know, there is no evidence that any of his claims are true. They could be, but he has a huge monetary incentive to lie.
Also, his vague language is a bit of a red flag. I put money back into my community when I spend it. But I call that shopping, not altruism.
I have seen him let the Whittaker family buy trolleys full of stuff from Walmart for their house. I have seen that prostitute (Angel maybe?) interviewed a second time after he paid for her rent and gave her money multiple times after the first video and it turned out she was just giving it to her pimp (and she doesn't refute any of this on camera).
So does he deserve total faith based trust, no, but it's easy to see enough of his videos where they are clearly benefiting from the funds and that's probably enough for many of us to say it's net positive.
Perhaps you should spend 5 minutes researching what you know nothing about before you opine about it. In particular, there is a poor, inbred family in Appalachia that he has visited (and befriended) several times over the years and that the funds he raised have helped them move from their dilapidated trailer into an actual house, among other things.
I'd rather not have such direct representation of myself out there - invariably people would recognize you, and invariably they would pass the video around social groups. Just the way things work in the social media era.
Also, this could really hurt you if a video with this sorta subject matter/content would be passed around your place of work. This is about to get bitter so please take with a grain of salt: I've learned that most people are gossipy and will often not give people the benefit of the doubt. People judge others to bolster their ego and elevate their own social standing. Even if it was something out of your control like childhood trauma, people will still extrapolate their own opinions.
Then there's the "nothing's ever deleted from the internet" trope - even if I needed it taken down and the original uploader agreed, the content could easily exist elsewhere. I guarantee there's people doing reaction content to this.
All-in-all I functionally can't see the benefit of doing one of these outside of $... and I agree with other posters that it's problematic. It reminds me of photography class in college where all of these kids would photograph the homeless. Everyone thought they were brilliant by shining a light on poverty or something.... Really, they were just privileged asshole kids with savior complexes waving money in front of people who didn't have the option to turn it down; only to put these people on display in school galleries where the subject of the photo would never be allowed.
I do totally agree from a moral standpoint though, if I were to do a project like this, $50 is a tiny fraction of what I'd offer people. It's a tiny fraction of what I'd hope to offer _anyone_ working for my artistic vision, let alone the main talent. But I also know not everyone out there thinks like me, and sometimes artists are people I would otherwise call exploitive, immoral, or selfish, but there still remain cases where I believe the world was better off because of their art, even if they themselves were a total jerk.
I think almost any kind of media or art which makes many people more aware of what life is like for the 'underbelly' of society is probably still a good thing overall. Most of all, the last people I'd like making that decision for us are people who only have business incentives anyway, i.e. Google.
Eh, my parents hated each other, and subsequently took a great deal of it out on their kids - both emotionally and physically. Then my father died when I was 14. Within months my mom ended up dating, then married to a felon who had stole from his own pharmacy losing his license... Mom blamed me for her cancer... blah blah blah. I'm enough of a shit-show that I could potentially be content for that channel for trauma.
> I think almost any kind of media or art which makes many people more aware of what life is like for the 'underbelly' of society is probably still a good thing overall.
I share that anecdote because it backs up what you're saying about the value of the content... I've listened to stuff on there that's more the general mental health/generational trauma related stuff and have found it valuable. It helps me feel less isolated hearing people share stories that I can relate to.
I just feel like there's a weird line with addiction and poverty where there's potential conflict of interest - many of the folks who share their story on that channel aren't desperate by any means... I'm just conflicted over those who are =/
Your comment smells a lot like claiming to know what's better for other adults than the choices they make.
Lots of people just want to have a voice, so their story can be heard.
- facts are regularly presented,
- multiple viewpoints are solicited and presented
SWB strips all that away. I'd go as far as to call it docxploitation, but I suppose "My 600 lb Life" has gotten away with parading the vulnerable around.
This likely isn't really targeted, or about content at its core, and is instead for the express purpose of boosting YouTube's revenue.
YouTube ads are currently more vulgar than this content.
Vice knowingly smeared RMS, inexcusably. THey refused to acknowledge this or apologise for their role. They burned McAfee with an iPhone picture with location metadata. They're anti-journalism.
I don't know SWU, but people have pointed out that 100% of the profits go to ending poverty. Doesn't sound like something a docxploiter would do.
As far as I know, there is no evidence of that beyond the creator's claims. What happened to skepticism? The creator has enormous economic incentives to lie.
If he is truly putting all of his channel's revenue "back into the communities that I shoot in" (whatever that means), why wouldn't he be proudly transparent about what that means.
How much money? Where has it gone? Can anyone verify it?
I would love to be wrong about this, but as far as I know the answers are:
Nobody knows. Nobody knows. No.
Not really. People don't watch his channel to fund communities.
> Nobody knows. Nobody knows. No.
Have you asked him?
> why wouldn't he be proudly transparent about what that means.
Why do people need to provide receipts on the internet for their good deeds? It's not like he's using the donated profits line as his main marketing device.
Turning it into a tax writeoff doesn't make it less exploitative.
BTW, YouTube still makes money off demonetized videos, since they increase overall viewer engagement; which nullifies your core point.
Demonitized content has _zero_ reach on YouTube. It's them telling you that they do not want you. There's no point to uploading new content when you're demonitized.
How often? How many people will see it? How many views vs monetized?
Were they forced to do the interviews? Do you have evidence that shows they felted being exploited?
Keep in mind we're in a society that doesn't consider you able to consent if you're even a little bit drunk and we're talking about heavy drug users for the most part here.
Interview them for free, you're making money without compensating them. Interview them and give them part, you're exploiting them by underpaying them. Interview them and give them all profits, you're enabling their addiction. Give away the non-ad revenue, you're just abusing a tax writeoff. Don't give it away, you're enriching yourself.
Your economic ideology seems quite fluid, and seems to lack internal consistency.
There’s three options for remuneration.
1. Pay nothing
2. Pay them for their time
3. Give them a large cut
If the contention is that they may be junkies then 3 is probably not a great idea, better to give the money to charity.
If the contention is that it’s exploitation then surely 2 is less exploitative than 1.
In the end, giving people a voice who don’t have one currently is the complete opposite of exploitation.
Is that person having troubled relationship with percentage ? ( real question , I think I heard about that channel once before )