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Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

polygon.com

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Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#51

Post by minimaxir »

and0 wrote: post #29

Went into the article expecting it to be silly, but there were actually a ton of interesting insights, especially about how no one knows how to manage these celebrities. Also, slowbeef is being humble; he literally invented the LP and curated the scene forever ago. His Metal Gear 2 annotated playthrough (from the mid-00s at the latest, I'm remembering HTML tables) was absolutely hysterical (at least to my teenage sel…

slowbeef is more recently known as a part of the Retsupurae duo (https://youtube.com/user/retsupurae), a channel that I've been following since 2011 and has maintained high quality videos the entire time. (they used to riff on Let's Plays, but now they mostly riff on Flash games/Kickstarters) My personal recommendation is the Negotiator series of riffs: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo4M1tlpv9ruM7k2Pr_0auqL8...

On his personal channel, slowbeef has been streaming ROM hacking as well: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-DNICST8Zbw9ytaMAl66Ghzx...

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#52

Post by raesene6 »

pm90 wrote: post #46
raesene6 wrote: post #39

I've been watching Youtube vids for a long time (well relatively, like 10+ years) and it's one of my primary forms of entertainment. It has been very interesting to see youtubers come and go, a lot of them seem to burn out on the schedule of trying to produce content regularly, which I can understand, anyone who's edited videos would realise the time it can take to produce something of good quality. Pewdiepie is an i…

> "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." I really don't think what he did was "honest" i.e. not meant to be provocative. As many sibling comments have pointed out, if you're making a living as a public personality, you kinda have to accept a higher level of scrutiny simply in order to avoid media hit jobs.

Oh I wasn't suggesting that what he said wasn't meant to be provocative, the main instance they picked up was ill considered and in bad taste, but then if you watch any of his other videos this really shouldn't be a surprise.

The hit job was some of the other items they'd cut together to make the "anti-semetic" charge stick. One item where he was comparing youtube policies to those of the Nazi's (i.e. casting both in a negative light) the WSJ used as "proof" he was pro-Nazi. that's what prompted my thought of the quote.

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#53

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Neliquat wrote: post #47
jrkatz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'outrage crowd'. Huh. right now, the big blowup is over some guy ('jontron') spouting racist BS. This is bad enough in front of an adult audience, but in fact he is performing this for children. Shouldn't we be mad? For PewDiePie recently, the same story: He is an adult (who should know better) performing antisemitic jokes for children, who might not follow the joke were it funny. When they don't follow it, when it's…

With all respect, it is the parents responsibility, not youtube or jontron, to make sure their little angel is not drinking in racist rants.

That's a laudable attitude, but its feasibility is rapidly eroding in this always-connected world. Can't watch over the little angel's shoulder to see what's on their phone 24x7.

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#54

Post by FLUX-YOU »

Does Google's YouTube group host a line of communication between its product managers and content producers? Is there a service agreement between Google and its content producers around features and site behavior that will impact viewers and paychecks?

If not, then content producers are simply in a bad long-term position and they need to start looking for leverage against it, whether it's taking their subscribers elsewhere or getting a seat at Google's table so website and mobile app updates don't start mucking with subscribers getting their content to users.

OTOH, as a user, I don't want to be inundated with notifications and especially begging notifications if I unsubscribe to someone.

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#55

Post by jcastro »

stonemetal wrote: post #25
Pxtl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it does highlight how YouTube sabotages the quality of its own platform by accidentally creating pressure to post at super-high frequency. As a YouTube viewer, I'm actually quite annoyed how confusing its user-interface is. Google is so proud of their AIs that they make it extremely difficult to just get a dumb feed of "what's the latest posts from the channels I follow"? The system really wants you to explore…

On the left there is a menu the fourth item of which is Subscriptions. Click on that, it gives you exactly what you asked for.

That only works for the first video, after that it doesn't play the next video in your subscription list, it plays the next algorithm-recommended video.

There's currently no way to "catch me up to everything I've subscribed to" without micromanaging after each video.

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#56

Post by Frondo »

raesene6 wrote: post #39

I've been watching Youtube vids for a long time (well relatively, like 10+ years) and it's one of my primary forms of entertainment. It has been very interesting to see youtubers come and go, a lot of them seem to burn out on the schedule of trying to produce content regularly, which I can understand, anyone who's edited videos would realise the time it can take to produce something of good quality. Pewdiepie is an i…

You could examine everything I have ever, ever written and you will never find me paying someone to hold up a sign reading "Death to Jews".

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#57

Post by Bartweiss »

pm90 wrote: post #46
raesene6 wrote: post #39

I've been watching Youtube vids for a long time (well relatively, like 10+ years) and it's one of my primary forms of entertainment. It has been very interesting to see youtubers come and go, a lot of them seem to burn out on the schedule of trying to produce content regularly, which I can understand, anyone who's edited videos would realise the time it can take to produce something of good quality. Pewdiepie is an i…

> "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." I really don't think what he did was "honest" i.e. not meant to be provocative. As many sibling comments have pointed out, if you're making a living as a public personality, you kinda have to accept a higher level of scrutiny simply in order to avoid media hit jobs.

And on the other side, if you're someone who gets raised to a public personality for your liveliness and lack of filter, you're likely to step over the line eventually.

One of the best points I've seen was that Youtubers have a lot in common with talk radio hosts. When Howard Stern said something offensive, it was a bit rich to act surprised. He was paid to be shocking, he did better the harder he pushed on the edge of acceptable, and so of course he eventually went too far. Everyone from PewDiePie to Penny Arcade have run into the same issue.

(Under this framework, JonTron is a fundamentally different issue - he doesn't seem to have been looking for views, just melting down.)

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#58

Post by vanderZwan »

raesene6 wrote: post #39

I've been watching Youtube vids for a long time (well relatively, like 10+ years) and it's one of my primary forms of entertainment. It has been very interesting to see youtubers come and go, a lot of them seem to burn out on the schedule of trying to produce content regularly, which I can understand, anyone who's edited videos would realise the time it can take to produce something of good quality. Pewdiepie is an i…

> It has been very interesting to see youtubers come and go, a lot of them seem to burn out on the schedule of trying to produce content regularly, which I can understand, anyone who's edited videos would realise the time it can take to produce something of good quality.

This is kind of related to the part of the story that informs you that you need weekly updates to stay visible to your subscribers because YouTube is weird. I'm not sure if that is true any more, especially with options like Patreon. I support 3blue1Brown and Primitive Technologies through it, and part of the reason I do is that they both take their time to produce quality videos.

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#59

Post by basisword »

Does anyone here spend much of their usual 'entertainment' time watching YouTube (specifically content creators not TED talks and such)? I started doing it recently just to see what all the fuss is about as it seems pretty common for younger people (and I'm 26 so it's not like I'm old but I didn't do it).

After subscribing to a few channels I started watching stuff regularly. Basically if I want to kill 10 mins I'll open up YouTube and there'll be something to watch. I'm committing so little time I don't need to really think about it before clicking (unlike say Netflix). On the other hand when I step back a minute I notice that the videos provide incredibly little value as opposed to usual entertainment sources. I could watch a crappy 20min sitcom and it may be deemed trash but it still has a story and characters it feels like it provides some value to me. I don't get that on YouTube. I've tried a variety of the most popular channels and some other stuff and it's largely memes and clickbait and something I forget about the moment I'm done watching.

It seems like a lot of the popular creators don't actually produce good content but instead have managed to built a personality cult around themselves that hooks very young people. I've noticed comments where people praise 'hustle' and 'content' and 'awesome product placement'.

Just interested on other people's thoughts on the platform and content.

Edit: Thanks for the replies everyone, very interesting.

Re: Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber

#60

Post by foxhop »

The youtube algorithm and setup is really messed up, but it reminds me of the google algorithm for search.

This video shows that crap uploads and clickbait rule youtube. I was actually fooled by these content creators and they used it as an example in their follow up video. It was really eye opening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXRWGbDfVlw

I wonder if youtube has or will have a "panda" event.

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