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YouTube stars heading for burnout

theguardian.com

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Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#161

Post by hwillis »

nine_k wrote: post #79
hwillis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this fits the stereotype of older generations, and indeed Americans in general, failing to read or do even superficial research. This guy streams his life to tens of thousands of people... yeah, he's gonna be a little self-obsessed. It's all but mandatory for streamers to fuel the performance. The guy streams 70 hours per week minimum[1]. That two day -more like one day- break cost him over $100,000, and cut his…

Making $500k a month would allow you to save enough in a few years to jump off the hamster wheel and live completely off passive income. Not luxuriously, but better than most, and have all his time for his own .

Well that's my bad then, because I read 500k per year. So that's 4 million per year. Yeah, no right to complain then. Two years of that is nothing compared to 80 years of comfortable living. Still, the rest of what I said applies- this guy is obviously as far from representative as you can get, and for anyone outside the top 30-whatever streamers is having a much, much shittier time.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#162

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

pjc50 wrote: post #150
mikekchar wrote: post #89

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…

I have something in common: I find it much easier to write comments, or stackoverflow answers, because I'm not writing into a blank page and I have something to engage with. I've genuinely considered trying to automatically extract my top N HN comments (I have 36k karma), roughly categorise them, and turn them into a book with extra commentary and thematic linking. I'd call it "Silicon Valley on ten upvotes a day". I…

I too write better on comments, reddit/hackernews/etc. Because you are actually talking with someone.

I use these writings as a starting point when I write a blogpost. I look at my hackernews posts when I get stuck, but its kind of messy to find all the comments I've made

Scraping yourself and doing big data on yourself is what I am ultimately moving towards as well. Hackernews has an open API

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#163

Post by elvinyung »

chii wrote: post #154
elvinyung wrote: post #94

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?

As a very very basic example: UBI.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#164

Post by mancerayder »

hwillis wrote: post #74
mancerayder wrote: post #50

The anxieties are tied up with the relentless nature of their work. Tyler Blevins, AKA Ninja, makes an estimated $500,000 (£384,000) every month via live broadcasts of him playing the video game Fortnite on Twitch, a service for livestreaming video games that is owned by Amazon. Most of Blevins’ revenue comes from Twitch subscribers or viewers who provide one-off donations (often in the hope that he will thank them b…

And this fits the stereotype of older generations, and indeed Americans in general, failing to read or do even superficial research. This guy streams his life to tens of thousands of people... yeah, he's gonna be a little self-obsessed. It's all but mandatory for streamers to fuel the performance. The guy streams 70 hours per week minimum[1]. That two day -more like one day- break cost him over $100,000, and cut his…

It's stressful and painful, and yet it's 500k a month of income. And we have sob story reference links as backup?

Then do the pain for one year and retire. How many people do you think would happily take that sacrifice? The degree of disconnect with average people by these millionaires is almost difficult to fathom.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#165

Post by elvinyung »

coldtea wrote: post #133
elvinyung wrote: post #94

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…

> This entrepreneurialization goes hand-in-hand with the condition of precarity, feeling like you have to work your ass off, have to stay at the top of your game, to keep making a living, because you have no other way to live. It's more of a precarization than an entrepreneurialization. An entrepreneur has bigger stakes but also a bigger payoff than being paid to ride their car as an Uber for example.

I would really say that they're different sides of the same coin. I also wouldn't say that an entrepreneur necessarily has noticeably bigger payoff. It might be true in tech, but not necessarily for the majority of small businesses.

I can't recall off the top of my head which one, but I remember seeing a study that showed that a significant amount of small business owners in the US did so just to get to do what they want for a living. (Again, why the "for a living"?)

Entrepreneurialism, in a lot of cases, is a new kind of wage slavery. The precarity is the most easily exploited (by rideshare services, freelance agencies, marketplace platforms, among others) to coax people into positions without security or benefits.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#166

Post by chillacy »

elvinyung wrote: post #163
chii wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... because you have no other way to live. what other way is there to live then?

As a very very basic example: UBI.

Most descriptions of UBI I’ve read so far seem to indicate that the problem would get even worse, as people are free to pursue their interests instead of their boring jobs, and their interests are competitive creative fields like writing, painting, being a YouTube star, etc. Even if survival isn’t tied to success, people will still want views and recognition.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#167

Post by JumpCrisscross »

TimothyBJacobs wrote: post #41
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's not a clear career path to anything else If you’re making $6 million / year, you have the resources with which to take time off and reconsider your choices.

It's a shame that that is the quote they decided to use in the article. But you can ask any Twitch streamer, if you take a vacation expect to lose large amounts of your subscribers. On YouTube, if you stop posting videos for a while, YouTube will severely punish you in the algorithm. It'll take weeks before your videos start showing back up in user's subscription boxes.

> if you take a vacation expect to lose large amounts of your subscribers

And if a freelancer takes a vacation, they can expect to lose contract volumes. This is why people form teams, so one person can take a break while other people pick up the slack. If you're making a lot of money, you should be able to take the hit and re-organise in a more sustainable way.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#168

Post by pixl97 »

pjc50 wrote: post #145
mikekchar wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good idea :-). It never even occurred to me...

Although when you get successful the amount of effort devoted to breaking your pseudonym increases. We lost several UK police bloggers to this and there was a nasty campaign by the press against Brooke Magnanti.

Yep, maintaining your secrecy is hard.

As an individual you have hundreds of different patters that define who you are. Even the market you post to can geographically limit the location you are in. Use an uncommon, but correct, spelling of a word?

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#169

Post by pixl97 »

elvinyung wrote: post #165
coldtea wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This entrepreneurialization goes hand-in-hand with the condition of precarity, feeling like you have to work your ass off, have to stay at the top of your game, to keep making a living, because you have no other way to live. It's more of a precarization than an entrepreneurialization. An entrepreneur has bigger stakes but also a bigger payoff than being paid to ride their car as an Uber for example.

I would really say that they're different sides of the same coin. I also wouldn't say that an entrepreneur necessarily has noticeably bigger payoff. It might be true in tech, but not necessarily for the majority of small businesses. I can't recall off the top of my head which one, but I remember seeing a study that showed that a significant amount of small business owners in the US did so just to get to do what they…

For a living probably means something else now than the past.

Past: For a living - so I don't starve to death.

Now: For a living - I want the perceived freedom in choice of work that fits my lifestyle.

Re: YouTube stars heading for burnout

#170

Post by tshannon »

wybiral wrote: post #19
sidstling wrote: post #11

I respect people who have the ability to entertain thousands of viewers, I really do. At the same time I’m really happy that wasn’t even an option when I was young. I’m sure I would have spent even more time playing video games if esports, twitch and YouTube had been a thing in the 90ies. I know, I know, not everyone is alike, but at age 35 I’m really happy that my job involves serious adult challenges, and that my s…

> my success in life isn’t depending on thousands of teenagers pushing a like button In a certain sense, though, most serious adult business still boils down to people seeing an ad, installing an app, buying a product, attracting investors, or teenagers clicking a like button. Edit: The YouTubers who go on to do it at a more serious capacity will also learn valuable first-hand lessons in dealing with partnerships, sp…

True, but we get to "outsource" those worries to a marketing department, who hopefully have a better handle on audiences than we do.
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