Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Latest Viral Craze: Ex-Staffers Bashing BuzzFeed on YouTube

variety.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–25 of 25 posts

Re: Latest Viral Craze: Ex-Staffers Bashing BuzzFeed on YouTube

#21

Post by smacktoward »

An angle this article is kind of vague on that could potentially be of interest to HN readers would be how many of these people's relationship to BuzzFeed was through a new-ish L.A.-based video unit of theirs, BuzzFeed Motion Pictures.

BuzzFeed Motion Pictures was launched in 2014 with a big splash and a $50 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/buzzfeed-raises-50-mil...). It's led by viral content pioneer Ze Frank (http://allthingsd.com/20120914/buzzfeed-hires-web-video-pion...).

Frank has characterized the unit's approach to content creation as "cheap and fast" (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-buzzfeed-studios-20150...), and they got in a fair bit of hot water last year after firing two on-camera personalities for appearing in a non-BuzzFeed video (http://www.politico.com/media/story/2016/06/non-compete-agre...), with Frank then warning remaining staff that "you cannot work on personal projects outside of BuzzFeed that impact your ability to work for us" (http://adage.com/article/media/ze-frank-buzzfeed-motion-pict..., https://www.buzzfeed.com/zefrank/being-a-part-of-buzzfeed-mo...).

All of which makes the place sound a bit like a video sweatshop that makes its money by grinding up talented young people and then spitting them out, so it would be interesting to know how many of the complaints in this article are from people who worked at BuzzFeed in general versus how many are from people who worked at BuzzFeed Motion Pictures.

Re: Latest Viral Craze: Ex-Staffers Bashing BuzzFeed on YouTube

#22

Post by slantyyz »

danso wrote: post #18
slantyyz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was considered career limiting for my generation. Don't know if it still is now, or if the younger generations simply don't care. Outside of the "Why I Left" posts, a lot of younger people put a lot of content on social media that my age peer group would consider "career limiting".

I think you have to see it in a technological context, as in, what does technology enable people to do that it didn't during your generation? Because it's very likely your generation would be doing the same thing had your younger years experienced the same kind of technological enabling. Napster and LimeWire were big in my younger years and it allowed kids to illicitly amass music collections beyond what most middle-…

>> Napster and LimeWire were big in my younger years and it allowed kids to illicitly amass music collections beyond what most middle-income kids could in a previous generation. Does that mean my generation were inherently more appreciative of music and/or more unethical, had Internet file-sharing never come to pass?

The only thing that Napster and Limewire did was to allow you to get more faster. You guys were no worse than my generation who shared vinyl and recorded "personal copies" onto cassette tapes.

When I was young, schools used your "permanent record" as a scare tactic. Having a black mark on your school record could prevent you from getting certain jobs (the one example cited by my high school principal was getting into the police academy). This stuff would get laughed at today.

On the other hand, today's version of your "permanent record" (i.e., anything you've said or done online) is broader in scope and for the most part, available to everyone. While it seems like everyone is aware of the potential consequences, it also seems like people are also less concerned about them as well. I'm just amazed at some of the stuff I see on sites that use Facebook comments where everyone is pretty much posting with their real name.

Re: Latest Viral Craze: Ex-Staffers Bashing BuzzFeed on YouTube

#23

Post by CM30 »

elefanten wrote: post #8
slantyyz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question - can someone please explain the purpose/appeal of these "Why I Left X" blog posts/videos? I'm from a generation where you didn't publicize this kind of stuff, and I'm not quite sure I understand the intent/social value of such posts/videos outside of the "whistleblowing" types of posts. Absent of any context, these posts/videos just strike me as self promotion.

Self-promotion is exactly what they're contextualized as in the article. These are aspiring entertainment media personalities. edit: Unless you meant solely gp's context of an engineer posting about a similar topic. I defer on that, I was talking about the BuzzFeed employees.

I think it's self promotion in both cases. A lot of people who put out these articles on how bad their working conditions were seem to be trying to turn their woes into a z-list internet celebrity lifestyle. They want to turn the controversy from these 'leaving' articles and videos into a larger social media presence and montly Patreon bucks.

Look at that woman who got fired after complaining about the conditions at Yelp for example. She tried to turn the situation into a personal brand.

It's the internet version of people that try and become Z-list celebrities through reality TV shows.

Re: Latest Viral Craze: Ex-Staffers Bashing BuzzFeed on YouTube

#25

Post by thesuitonym »

slantyyz wrote: post #17
danso wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why it is interesting: the fact that someone is putting their name to something that could seriously damage their future career potential. It is ironic that you dismiss this as self-promotion -- of course it is -- and then point out that it could be career-limiting.

It was considered career limiting for my generation. Don't know if it still is now, or if the younger generations simply don't care. Outside of the "Why I Left" posts, a lot of younger people put a lot of content on social media that my age peer group would consider "career limiting".

I guess it depends on the nature of why you left. For instance: I would not post such a thing (or at least I would do so anonymously) if I had a very negative experience with a company.

However, if the reason I left was simply one of cultural differences, or some other not-quite-a-fit scenario, I would certainly have no qualms attaching my name to it. Like I said, that's often something you're asked about in an interview anyway.

Post reply on HN