YouTube stars heading for burnout

I don't find this surprising. When I started podcasting in 2005, even doing a weekly 'cast with my friend and co-host was a lot of work. We also had day jobs. But the pressure to create content was still there. These full time youtubers must feel in 100x more, particularly if they have Patreon people to keep happy. We derived no income from our show, and in fact it cost us money to produce.

In some ways I wish some of these monetizing platforms existed when we were around. It would have been fun to see if we could have gone anywhere with it. But then we might have succumb to these issues, as well.

I guess it all comes back to "Be careful what you wish for..."

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 article: the need for views, the pressure to make content 'viral', sponsored content, rivalry between vloggers. It's all done with a lot of humour while highlighting these issues.

I thoroughly recommend it (and in case you are wondering, the vloggers are all actors, not real vloggers):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL64ScZt2I7wFF538Kn0TR...

> they have Patreon people to keep happy

Reminds me of when I briefly accepted donations from users of my forum. Suddenly it was like my life was beholden to people that had once given me $5. At least when they'd given me $0, it was pretty straightforward to dismiss their complaints and they'd looked silly when they'd demanded more of my free time. But once they gave >$0, the water got murky.

I ended up refunding everyone a few months later and I generally roll my eyes when I see posts like "um why not just take donations?" on HN.

It's just not no-strings-attached money like people seem to think it is. It's more akin to selling a service for peanuts, it rears the same issues.

In my experience the frustrating part about YouTube is when the crowd wants content that you're not interested in making.

For instance, I've made a few videos about building clusters from Raspberry Pi's, which I did just for kicks and to have something to play around with. They get more attention than my (imo more interesting) videos about programming or various other electronics topics, to the point that it dwarfs my other views.

So I have to choose between disappointing the majority of my subscribers or making content that I don't actually enjoy or stand by just for the views.

PS: I also learned very quickly that the YouTube comments section is chaotic and is not a recommended place for someone looking for thoughtful critique on their material.

The article wonders if YouTube has a deliberate trollbait policy for its comments because it "improves engagement."

So it's possible that civil comments are not just not a priority, but actively contraindicated.