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

Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

821–830 of 898 posts

Re: Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

#821

Post by gamblor956 »

tptacek wrote: post #790
gamblor956 wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in LA and met them through work and friends. I posted your link in one of our group chats. If any of them reach out to you it means they're interested. However, I wouldn't get my hopes up, critiques from the chat thread so far: -"so it's quibi for black people" -trying to be BET "for indies" but without backing it up with the funding, marketing, audience, mentorship opportunities, or industry connections -base…

Just for whatever this is worth to you, and I know you probably already know this, but networks rejected Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, South Park, Mad Men, and, I think most infamously, Stranger Things. There's nothing wrong with that --- perhaps the networks involved should have rejected those shows! You pick one, you gotta turn down another one. But having more venues specialized in a specific type of show means…

Except for Stranger Things, the shows you listed were only turned down by a few networks before being picked up, which is actually pretty typical in Hollywood (hence the term "shopping around").

And while I agree that it is possible for a low budget web series to become a bigger show on cable/streaming...Broad City succeeded because it was available for free on the biggest video streaming platform in the world (aka Youtube) and had the benefit of the recommendation algorithms and all the visibility that Youtube leads to. A niche website with a monthly fee will not give the world the next Broad City.

For comparison: Quibi also had a monthly fee, higher production values, dozens of Emmy nominations...and those shows still went nowhere until they were picked up and made available for free on Roku this year. Contrast to Dust, a similarly niche (sci-fi) distribution house that has seen multiple projects get picked up for feature-length development, and numerous talent get offered studio gigs, because it made all of its content available for free (even before it started using Youtube to host its videos).

Re: Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

#822

Post by illuminati1911 »

crooked-v wrote: post #725
Perstone wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that because they are black though? Without asking those people why they watched something else you are just making the assumption it was to do with their skin colour and not anything to do with the content itself. e.g. I don't watch a lot of content with women on Youtube. Not because I have anything against women. It because the subjects I am interested in, isn't covered typically by women.

> Is that because they are black though? Bluntly, yes. A lot of people in the U.S. are implicitly or explicitly racist. You can see this in statistics, such as 'black-sounding' resumes consistently getting less callbacks than 'white-sounding' resumes [1]. [1]: http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%...

This however has nothing to do with watching ”black content” on youtube etc. Can you prove that in this particular case that is the reason? Actually the fact that you assume this is racist itself.

I’m white non-american and most of the content I watch is created by white creators. This is though because of most of the quality content is created by white creators which is because most high income countries with opportunities are ”white”. This leads to majority of quality content being ”white”.

Re: Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

#824

Post by graderjs »

gunshai wrote: post #322
graderjs wrote: post #187

Great idea, man. This is awesome! This is exactly what people should be doing--using tech to make the world better. Hope you can look back 10 years from now and think so many interesting black stories might not have got told except for BlackOak! I definitely think segmenting away from the dominant studio model is the only way to break the crazily unrepresentative nature of most of the (still admittedly great) stories…

I am generally curious, when does under represented move to represented or appropriately represented?

It should be obvious but when the representation in media reflects the representation in society so your population demographics are reflected in the media, not the audience demographics reflected in the media. Then you have a mass media that accurately reflects the demographics of your society.

I really hope you are genuinely curious cuz whenever someone starts the thing with "to be honest but" or "honest question" or "I'm genuinely curious" I often feel kind of scared that they're just trying to troll and trap you in their own belief system where they've already decided the. As in like if someone really has a genuine question they shouldn't have to say they do to prove that it should be obvious when they say it kind of seems like compensating for some sort of deception. Not saying you're doing that just saying that's how I feel when I see that kind of stuff sometimes.

Re: Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

#825

Post by throwaway2037 »

sangnoir wrote: post #513
throwaway2037 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrote: >> Agree. I could imagine Netflix-for-Turks streaming in Europe for overseas Turks!

I suspect you were aiming for sarcasm, but such a service would succeed in Germany, for sure.

No, I was not being sarcastic. I was trying to think of a parallel example in Europe.

Re: Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

#826

Post by illuminati1911 »

zentiggr wrote: post #192
illuminati1911 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here. We in the US have a long history of subjugating and violently suppressing the rights of black slaves (and every black person after outlawing slavery). The last few years have shown that the number of people who still believe that should happen is much larger than we suspected. It's not a fetish - it's a straight up fight to end discrimination against a group of peop…

How is explicit discrimination and racial segregation ”a fight to end discrimination”?

All this ”we have long history is america black slavery blaablablah” is not any kind of a counter argument. By segregating people you are doing exactly the same thing what slave owners, south africans and those hillbilly right wing extremists do.

Re: Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

#827

Post by reilly3000 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #566

Maybe I just have enough black friends in Hollywood, but in the past few years, the following shows from black showrunners all made the cultural zeitgist on broadcast tv: Blackish, Empire, How to Get Away with Murder, and Bob and Abishola; and on on cable/streaming: Atlanta, Insecure, Power, Dear White People, Lovecraft Country, and I May Destroy You. (Note, I am friends with some of the writing staff and crew on sev…

FWIW I don't gather that a lot of black people consume or respect BET how people may assume they do.

Please read this reddit thread, it highlights so many opportunities:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/aag6aj/...

My summary of weak spots mentioned:

- Not black-owned

- Very heavy on commercials

- Missing lots of quality content

- Generally inauthentic

- Not creating opportunities for HBCU students

- Could have more focus on news and original reporting

All that is to say that the BET brand isn't super strong in the black community, and a rethought, streaming-native service could definitely have an opportunity to outshine a BET+ type offering.

Re: Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

#829

Post by jacquesm »

dang wrote: post #802
jacquesm wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many YC companies ended up going public out of the total? And how large is that total? What is the expected timeframe from launch to IPO? How many companies still outside of that window? Those would be interesting stats to have.

Sorry, I don't know the answers—but few so far (fewer than 10 I think). More in the last couple years though. It takes a long time. I'll see if I can convince someone who knows more than I do to comment here.

Thank you!

Re: Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people

#830

Post by distantaidenn »

Semaphor wrote: post #71

When I read "Black" on HN or Reddit, it usually refers to African-American blacks, do you also have (or are looking for) content outside that region, more specifically Africa? A suggestion: have some description of your content somewhere. At least logged out, I can barely see more than the episode title, I have no idea what any of the shows are about. In any way, I (white) think this sounds like a great idea, congrat…

Just a heads up, referring to a people as "blacks" can ne seen as a bit rude. Also, I don't even want to get started on the term "African American"...
Post reply on HN