YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#101

Post by joejerryronnie » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:17 AM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #86

budadre75 wrote: post #80

I feel sad about my life working so hard and will never able to even compete with this kid.

On the flip side there are probably peasants in rural East Asia who labor in extremely challenging conditions and make a fraction of what you do. If they understood that your job was to (probably) sit in an air conditioned room tapping keys and talking to people for a few hours a day for significant wealth they might feel what you feel.

Yeah, it’s all relative. No matter how bad your situation is or how successful you become, some people will always have it better than you and some people will always have it worse than you. So there’s no sense in beating yourself up over where you “should be” in life. Just do your best to improve and grow according to your values and priorities.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#102

Post by rorykoehler » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:18 AM UTC

rapnie wrote: post #99

It may not be all that much fun and games.. Half a year ago I saw a documentary (can't remember which), where a number of popular YouTube vloggers were followed to see what being an influencer entails. While each of them were enjoying the good stuff - the money earned, the free gadgets and trips, etc. - in general each of them also felt trapped. To me it seemed like hell to live a life like this. Huge social pressure…

With $22m in the bank he could give it all up at a drop of a hat, put it all into passive investments and live the life of a king off the proceeds.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#103

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:20 AM UTC

TravHatesMe wrote: post #16

What I find interesting is that many of these youtubers have created personas to appeal to their audience, like true entertainers. However loyal viewers are fooled into this false sense of reality, where they are friends with content creator and this is not a persona at all, he's my friend. Over time, the content creator and the audience share so many moments together, it becomes an emotional bond and a substitute fo…

This is just watching tv. I can make my wife laugh with our injokes based on our own life and stories but also based on Modern Family and Fresh Off the Boat episodes we’ve both watched.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#104

Post by rapnie » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:21 AM UTC

rapnie wrote: post #99

It may not be all that much fun and games.. Half a year ago I saw a documentary (can't remember which), where a number of popular YouTube vloggers were followed to see what being an influencer entails. While each of them were enjoying the good stuff - the money earned, the free gadgets and trips, etc. - in general each of them also felt trapped. To me it seemed like hell to live a life like this. Huge social pressure…

And for each influencer there are tens of thousands of wannabe's, who are quietly churning on for just a handful of followers, but with the same grand dreams of fame and glory. If they get their real joy from this, then that it is okay. Otherwise at least they learn to handle disappointment early in life.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#105

Post by rapnie » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:24 AM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #102

rapnie wrote: post #99

It may not be all that much fun and games.. Half a year ago I saw a documentary (can't remember which), where a number of popular YouTube vloggers were followed to see what being an influencer entails. While each of them were enjoying the good stuff - the money earned, the free gadgets and trips, etc. - in general each of them also felt trapped. To me it seemed like hell to live a life like this. Huge social pressure…

With $22m in the bank he could give it all up at a drop of a hat, put it all into passive investments and live the life of a king off the proceeds.

Sure. He can. He is already at the top. And his example will be the ultimate dream of many, with full support of (greedy?) parents. But your kid may not be all that lucky. It is a crowded market.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#106

Post by jow2 » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:27 AM UTC

kartan wrote: post #90

mikeortman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a good reason why the Kardashians are incredibly successful. They are able to convince their viewers they are part of the family with their shows. I think its because you feel included since most of the show is back-and-forth gossip on family issues where its common for the people in the scene to try and find a solution to a problem where the problem person is excluded from the conversation. As a result, I t…

> I think its because you feel included since most of the show is back-and-forth gossip on family issues where its common for the people in the scene to try and find a solution to a problem where the problem person is excluded from the conversation. Yes. I see this kind of shows as social pornography. But meanwhile pornography is seen as something that you see in private and you are kind of ashamed to recognize that…

You are underestimating their power.

These are just the initial iterations of how influence in a hyper connected society works. What happens next we are yet to see. Naturally most people don't think anything good.

Reality TV produced Trump. People forget it(what passes for news+social media news) also produced Obama. Remember he was hailed as the first social media President. After that every single politician, religious and social figure in every country was suddenly broadcasting their daily activities.

Just another avatar of what Reality TV hit upon.

So now the mechanics exist for an enterprising person to exert influence on a large numbers of people like never before. Across all kinds of geographic/social/cultural boundaries. Traditionally such influence has taken decades for famous people to acquire. So the textbook on how to use that influence has been very thin. The outcomes produced were much more based on pure luck than by design.

With big data and thousands of psychological experiments going on, how to use influence vast numbers if peoples lives, for good, is going to increase.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#107

Post by lucianoci » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:31 AM UTC

TravHatesMe wrote: post #16

What I find interesting is that many of these youtubers have created personas to appeal to their audience, like true entertainers. However loyal viewers are fooled into this false sense of reality, where they are friends with content creator and this is not a persona at all, he's my friend. Over time, the content creator and the audience share so many moments together, it becomes an emotional bond and a substitute fo…

More interestingly this mechanic functions in every kind of social relationship. Everybody who isn't a total shut-in has at least a few different audiences they cater to. Also very common to become too attached to a persona that, say, pleased one's parents but doesn't quite work out at work and suffer for it. And if anything given the prevalent expectation for consistency, such dissociation is rather freeing.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#108

Post by anonymous5133 » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:35 AM UTC

TravHatesMe wrote: post #16

What I find interesting is that many of these youtubers have created personas to appeal to their audience, like true entertainers. However loyal viewers are fooled into this false sense of reality, where they are friends with content creator and this is not a persona at all, he's my friend. Over time, the content creator and the audience share so many moments together, it becomes an emotional bond and a substitute fo…

My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says the amount of kids who are developing anti-social behaviors is increasing pretty rapidly. Kids these days have computers and are basically simply "escaping" to the internet to live in a fantasy world that is disconnected from reality. Some even display active addictions to computer games, like minecraft, while others say they only have friends online in the games or with these youtube personalities like you say. These kids literally do not know how to make friends or interact with other kids because they are so used to just sitting in front of a game or computer basically having a "friend" entertain them with only one-direction of interaction. They think this is normal relationship for a friend. They don't understand that in the real world in order to get friends you need to talk to other kids and interact with them. They literally do not know how to do this because they've learned it is not necessary...

Parents need to take it very seriously and limit the amount of time the child uses the computer...otherwise these behaviors continue into adulthood. If you are socially incompetent then it will hold you back in terms of jobs and so on. Very troublesome is that parents are basically using computers to babysit the kids or to keep them occupied...which only helps to reinforce the lack of social skills they get. How many times do you see a kid in a shopping cart holding a tablet watching some movie or whatever? Very common.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#109

Post by nindalf » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:38 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #81

wbillingsley wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, thinking about the kids' tv shows that only really existed to sell the toys (eg, Transformers) it's not that surprising.

Not surprising, but I find the practice disturbing. I imagine it's hard for busy parents to police the commercials the children sees, and much of the marketing to children likely occurs in this unwanted but hard to avoid space. The end result is corporations trying to train children that the best way to live and enjoy one's self is if they buy a steady stream plastic goods made overseas, eventually to be discarded in…

If your kid is hooked to youtube, you have a bit more control than than a parent in the 90s whose kid was hooked to cartoons. Today you could opt out of all advertisements by paying Youtube or installing an ad blocker. That said, I'm not sure you can block channels that are entirely ads, like unboxing channels.

Re: YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M

#110

Post by jzl » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 8:39 AM UTC

Bjorkbat wrote: post #15

I’m kind of surprised that Logan Paul is still doing so well. Living embodiment of YouTube gone wrong, still made $3 million more than he did last year according to this article.

Best summary I've ever read about Logan Paul is this (since-deleted) tweet: "Watching adults learn about Logan Paul is like seeing Mt. Everest base campers leave for the summit with a windbreaker and a granola bar."