The Thread of Internet Crash & Burns (Linus Tact Tips)

[huxley]

I used to enjoy some of his older stuff, crazy multi screen set ups, networking and sever builds.
Now all of his videos have repellent click bait screen shots or compo face.

[Hirst]

The days of rags-to-riches YouTubers are long gone, bar the odd one who has been doing it long enough to be from the original batch and somehow hasn’t become riddled with scandal. But I generally take it as read that anyone with millions of views and subscribers is almost certainly part of some corporation with backing, sponsors and whatever. I also assume (almost 100% rightly) that their videos will be vapid nonsense that isn’t worth watching. Slick-looking, low-quality rubbish knocked out on a daily basis to keep the revenue gravy train going. Clickbait, bandwagon-hopping junk that fills the recommended videos list up like a septic tank. If I see a video with millions of views, it has a reverse magnet effect for me as I’m used to the big ones being awful so I steer away.

On the other hand, I feel that systems like Patreon have really helped smaller YouTube producers to exist in their own bubble where they don’t necessarily need any ad revenue to exist. They can instead be paid directly to produce the kind of content that their viewers want to see. It may be more difficult to find these people, but they are out there. And I think that’s great, it’s like a modern version of those self-produced VHS tapes aimed at niche audiences (usually fishing or trains).

The point about YouTube creators who keep up a pretence of being a solo creator but have a team behind them is a valid one and I think it’s a slippery slope. I could perhaps understand having someone help out with something a bit laborious like video/sound editing so people aren’t waiting months between videos. And it makes sense that you might want to farm out things you can’t do to somebody who can – like if you wanted some nice branding doing, some 3D models to be used in a video, or an obvious one being paying somebody to produce your theme/background music.

But then we’ve got some of the more well-known UK retro game YouTubers (and I think on here we’ll mostly know which ones) going as far as getting other people to write their entire scripts for them, which begs the question – what on earth are they actually doing for the cash other than standing in front of a green screen talking into a microphone? Half of them don’t even record their own game footage, they just swipe it from other people! Complete laziness. If you really can’t be bothered, go get a job.

[MartyG]

I used to enjoy some of his older stuff, crazy multi screen set ups, networking and sever builds.
Now all of his videos have repellent click bait screen shots or compo face.

*99% of content creators do this, because of this (* figure not confirmed).

[charlesr]

Interesting video.
Love all his stuff.