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Comment by busterarm | Hacker News Reader

It's a fortunate position in life to not have to choose between getting your next fix and admitting to a pattern of criminality on camera.

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I haven't watch many of his videos, but I didn't get any sense of a predatory relationship. For what I saw, I was impressed with the content. He shows us a side of humanity normally left in the shadows. There is merit in that.

That's just your point of view. From mine, life is a long tumble down the stairs

If someone paid me $50 to admit on camera I've broken laws in the past, I think I'd probably be more than happy to. Are you under the impression the police are going to start arresting people on Soft White Underbelly because they admit to doing drugs? That's not really how the American justice system works, from what I understand.

Yea - I wouldn't.

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.

That makes sense. Honestly there are so many videos of me out there already which could hypothetically end my career, it's something I try not to stress about too much. I think if we're privileged enough to be having this conversation at all, it's probably tough for either of us to really put ourselves in the shoes of the folks asked to be subjects of these videos.

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.

> I think if we're privileged enough to be having this conversation at all, it's probably tough for either of us to really put ourselves in the shoes of the folks asked to be subjects of these videos

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 =/

From the videos on this channel that I've seen, I don't think there'll be many job interview panels that are subsequently shocked to find out their applicant has a history of drug use. You can pretty much tell from just the thumbnail that they've lived a very tough life.

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.

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