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YouTube stars heading for burnout

theguardian.com

151–160 of 177 posts

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#151
post #147

> Divisive content is the king of online media today, and YouTube heavily boosts anything that riles people up [...] I look upon this idea skeptically. In my experience, the content delivered to me is as divisive as the videos I've already watched. If someone is getting divisive content, that's probably the content that they want to watch. Is it really up to YouTube to determine if a person has been watching content…

I have a saved screenshot of when I was watching gaming videos (XCOM2) and all the recommendations were also XCOM2 videos .. and a live stream of UK far-right rabble-rouser Tommy Robinson. I suspect (but of course can't prove without secret youtube data) that there's enough of a crossover between gaming and the far right that any gamer will eventually see far right videos, far more likely than they will be shown "far…

The YouTube far-right community is much bigger than one might expect. There's a lot of actual fascists on youtube who get a lot of algorithmic promotion, but leftist youtube tends to be smaller and much less extreme - no "far left" by most definitions.

The same tends to be true in most spaces in my experience. Whatever the "far left" is tends to be a poorly defined boogieman, not a cohesive group--almost as if it were the eternal enemy of standard far-right ur-fascist theory!

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#152

As stupid as this is going to sound, I think about this quite a bit in terms of writing a blog. I've wanted to do it for a long time and in the past people have been very kind and supportive of my writing. However, when I think about the reality of what it takes to make a successful blog, I get very nervous about it. I mean, it's dumb because the chances of writing a successful blog is next to nil. And the way to exi…

Annonimity

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#153

The BBC made a brilliant spoof series on becoming a YouTube vlogger called 'Pls Like'. The whole thing is available on YouTube to watch (not geo-blocked as far I know). It's 6 episodes of 15 mins each. No matter which country you're from, you'll recognise all the vlogger types in the series: the lifestyle vlogger, the fashion vlogger, the prankster etc. It actually touches on a lot of the issues in the Guardian artic…

pretty damn well made series!

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#154

The neoliberal condition is in part characterized by the entrepreneurialization of everything, the penetration of Michel Foucault's homo economicus (entrepreneur of the self) into more and more spheres of production, consumption, and everyday life. Increasingly, you're an "entrepreneur" no matter what, whether you're a food truck owner, a freelance designer, an Uber driver, an Airbnb host, a YouTube star. Entrepreneu…

> ... because you have no other way to live.

what other way is there to live then?

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#155
post #3

"most fun job"? There are many reasons why I don't work as a YouTuber. And I do not wanna be a "star"

I'm sure there are tons of people who would say the same thing about whatever it is you do. Different strokes for different folks.

Exactly but i don't say: "Software engineering is the most fun job".

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#156

Sometimes the most bitter poison is everything you’d ever asked for. Humans really are terrible at estimating what will make them happy.

Well it's all phases, is it not? Who says you will have a perfect idea at 16 about what will make you happy until you die? That's definitely not how humans work. All of us know people who did U-turns in their lives at 30+. Some even at 50 or 60.

There’s that, but some of the research I’ve read says that humans are really bad at predicting how future events will affect their emotional state, regardless of age.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#157

> Like all YouTubers, Morton also feels the financial pressure of the system, which typically pays between £1.50 and £3 for every 1,000 views. Based on this, creators have to be close to the 1 million views per month mark to be making over $24,000 per year. It's no secret that YouTube is wildly unprofitable, from every angle. In a way, it's a transfer of wealth from AdWords, so our society is paying for YouTube throu…

YouTube is unprofitable if you look at direct compensation alone, if you have even 1M views per year not to mention a month you can find partnerships and sponsorships. I don't understand why people think YouTube should pay more, the vast majority of YT content doesn't cost anything to create nor does it generate any revenue for YT. Besides the really large channels the best thing one can do is to run a channel is par…

> the vast majority of YT content doesn't cost anything to create

And does that painfully show. You basically have to build a small TV studio, or invest in computer graphics software and skills, to produce good content on a regular basis. And good writing also. None of these things are free.

And this devalues the time of these independent video producers, They could be producing high value for another business, with appropriate compensation.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he's at the very top. How much do you think the top software developer in the world makes? The problem with streaming is that once he gets off the hamster wheel for a bit there might be no wheel to climb back on later.

>The problem with streaming is that once he gets off the hamster wheel for a bit there might be no wheel to climb back on later. Is that really a problem? He makes more in one year than most people make in their entire lifetime . Unless he's out there blowing his money on mansions and yachts (which I'm pretty sure he isn't), then he could stop at any time and retire comfortably. He doesn't need to get back on the ham…

But he's at the very top. Think about the tens of thousands of others that will have to deal with many of the same problems, but make a thousandth of what he makes. Nobody starts out streaming knowing they will be successful. Most people that became successful through streaming have been streaming for years for little return. The risk they took is ENORMOUS.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#159
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who contribute around $5 each. Doesn't Twitch take roughly 50% of that?

That's the most they take. Higher level partners get a better cut. If he lost 40k subscribers, that's most likely 40k renewals that didn't happen -- and they're not going to happen until he broadcasts again. It's almost a certainty he didn't lose 40k, many will have renewed once he was on again. And if 40k subscriptions lapse over 2 days that would seem to imply that he has 600k subscribers. He doesn't. The 40k loss…

After a while, it all starts to sound like sports & business. Are you also a star on Youtube or Twitch? Or do you work in the industry?

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#160

As stupid as this is going to sound, I think about this quite a bit in terms of writing a blog. I've wanted to do it for a long time and in the past people have been very kind and supportive of my writing. However, when I think about the reality of what it takes to make a successful blog, I get very nervous about it. I mean, it's dumb because the chances of writing a successful blog is next to nil. And the way to exi…

My writing is terrible when it comes to my personal blog. I write much better content in hackernews, because I'm actually conversing with someone.

I think it really depends what you want out your blog. Mine is a personal blog. Its not going to be "successful" and I don't intend it to be. For the record I have 10,000 page views. Because I write it for myself, not anyone else. People mediate, I blog. That's how I reflect on things I learned. I want those experiences to live somewhere outside my mind, because its a lot of cognitive overhead to remember. It could be a blog. Or a vlog. Doesn't matter. But it needs to be public though attached with my real name. I've spent far too long writing under pseudonyms, some having 100k+ views on a page.

Normally I lock myself in a room for 3 hours once every 2 weeks. Then I force myself to write about one topic, of the 100 idea drafts I have. Most of these writing topics come from posting comments from hackernews.

> And suddenly, you are the moron in the eyes of millions.

I'd rather be known as a once previous moron than be an unknown no one knows about. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

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