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Now let's talk about the cancer that is killing Youtube. If you don't know what Youtube is, you are an idiot, and have 24 hours to get out of my country. This is why we're building the wall. To keep people like YOU out. Anyhow, for you enlightened intellectuals who know about Youtube, you may have noticed that the site has gone through a metamorphosis in the last few years. Now, 90% of you will inevitability say "I only watch the 5 channels I'm subscribed to that are all about woodworking." and that's great. You are missing out on a monsoon of shit.
I'm gonna go right to the cause of it so you can skim through the rest of the blog and then leave a comment that says "I don't watch anything on Youtube except for the very specific woodworking videos I go there for, and BroobWar VODs, of course!" Actually, nobody leaves comments on TL dot net anymore, but I think JimmyJRaynor will come here to explain THE CONSPIRACY. And in this case, I agree. There is a conspiracy going on. The guys at Alphabet, the company that owns Google and Youtube thought to themselves, "How can we make this website suck?" Now why would they do that!?!?!? Maybe something about them being cozy with other CEOs in traditional media, whose platform is suffering because of people watching Youtube, Netflix, Hulu instead of traditional TV. We cracked the code, JimmyJRaynor.
Youtube has basically demonetized all of their content, meaning that content creators, who once could make a career out of having a fucking Youtube channel, are forced to find regular jobs as Uber-drivers. Videos that involve any kind of provocative content, even mild stuff like taking a selfie in front of a dead body in the Japanese suicide forest (Joking aside, that video took like 10 hours to get demonetized) will get your video demonetized. Second, the Youtube algorithms will piss all over your video, then turn around and take a shit on your video, then turn back around and piss on it a little bit more.
Whatever, though, right?
If you love making videos, you'll keep making videos, am I right or what? I guess. For people who take a lot of time to produce content that is good, that can take awhile, and cost money. And all my homies gotta eat, nah meen? You can't do a full-time job, have a family, and make fantastic videos unless you stop sleeping. And there's a reason the Vietnamese used sleep-deprivation as a form of torture. In fact, such torture was so bad that it's probably the reason John McCain got brain cancer and died (RIP). So being a starving artist really takes on a very literal meaning in an era where, frankly, it shouldn't. More people are using the internet now more than ever, and there's a lot of money being tossed around.
A lot of the videos that I love probably wouldn't exist if their creators got started now. So what is taking the place of good content?
#1: Retarded shit that is designed to make use of Youtube's algorithms. This is the most vanilla, self-censoring, bland, and often cringey content you can think of. The videos get like 150,493,299 views, and are fucking stupid. They often have titles like "The TRUTH about", "12 Things You DIDN'T KNOW about", and "You won't believe what happens next!". There is yellow text on the video thumbnail, and usually a red circle around something that is completely innocuous to make you go "What is that?". It's the most lazy and stupid stuff imaginable. The "12 things you didn't realize were in hidden in Disney movies!!!1" types of videos are literally just 15 minutes of a voice narrating over images and video clips. "The TRUTH about feminism!" type videos are just someone looking into a camera and regurgitating some talking-points they heard on the news or saw on reddit. It's not the truth about anything. It's just some dummy's opinion.
It's really hard for me to explain just how fucking stupid it is in a single paragraph. All of the videos are turning into BuzzFeed-style clickbait that take minimal effort to make. Remember Freddy Wong making a video doing a shoot-out in a grocery store? SAY GOODBYE TO THAT. MOMMY AND DADDY ARE GETTING DIVORCED AND IT'S YOUR FAULT.
Let's see what's trending RIGHT FUCKING NOW AS I WRITE THIS. WHOA I WONDER WHAT WE'RE GONNA FIND? Actual video titles:
SODA VS WATER FILTER!! (WHAT WILL HAPPEN?) YouTube Challenge - I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy 2018 GLOOM TRIES CUPPING FOR THE FIRST TIME Musical Shopping | Rudy Mancuso Worst Halloween Candy Taste Test (Day 3) Inside The Mind of Jake Paul TIME TO SHOOT THE TEAM 10 MOVIE! Weird Toothpaste Flavors Taste Test BRUNCH at 7-ELEVEN in Seoul South Korea I turned my dad into a drag queen (then confronted him about politics) This Could End Our Relationship... DIY THRIFT STORE WEDDING DRESS MAKEOVER! Best Friends Challenge with Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel Trying on EVERYTHING in my closet! | closet purge pt. 2
I didn't add music videos, but it's a bunch of pop songs. I know CinemaSins is always looming in the darkness, but I blocked them from popping up because their videos aren't good. They're not creating something of value.
From this video list, I want to watch exactly zero of these videos, although I sampled some of them just to see the first few seconds, and almost all of them started with them plugging some sponsor. Except for Jimmy Kimmel, because he has a show on regular TV. I actually watched the first episode of Shane's "Inside The Mind of Jake Paul", but the whole first video was Shane Dawson going "A lot of people might hate me for doing this" while dark dramatic music plays in the background, and Shane going "I don't know if I should do this" and "I don't know if Jake Paul is a sociopath, but he might be a sociopath." and just saying this over and over and over and over and over and over for like 40 minutes or however long that shit was.
Also, as for that last item on the list: I've tried on every article of clothing I own. I don't have a closet. I bought a piece of furniture and assembled it myself (and I almost broke it in the process) to hold my clothes. The rest of these videos look like they're about food, clothes, or stupid shit in general. One of the food-tasters is by the creators of Rhett and Link, who used to make actual funny shit, but I guess they're making garbage videos now.
#2: Youtube has created a bunch of beggars. Everyone has a patreon now. Before, the meme was "Be sure to hit that subscribe button, give it a like, and leave a comment!!!" but now, there's two additions: "Be sure to ring that bell!" and "Visit my patreon". Nobody makes money from their videos, so they have to beg ordinary people like you and I, who barely have any money, for money. Well, some of you have money. But I bet you can think of 10 things you'd rather do with it than give it to a mediocre Youtuber.
The problem is, there are also a lot of good content creators, and I know you can't cover them all. Let me explain:
Suppose there are 1,000,000 content creators. Most of them are shit, want to be famous while simultaneously having no talent, and are bad at what they do, and are often times bad people. Out of that one million, let's say 1% are good. That's 10,000 people. No, wait, that's 10,000 channels. There may be multiple people working on each channel. But if those people aren't living in a country where you can live on a salary of 200 dollars a year, and live in the US, UK, Canada, Europe, Australia, etc. (I know Europe isn't a fucking country, and I know there are countries like Japan with high standards of living, but I'm not gonna list them all so fuck off) you need like 20,000 USD annually to pay for your house, car, fuel for car, electricity for house, internet, food, toilet paper, and cat food. Also, alcohol to drown the crippling depression. 20k isn't even living that good. Your food is gonna be like eating Campbell's soup, when really, you want to be eating Progresso soup. You live primarily on Maruchan Ramen Noodles, and turn off your heater in the winter to save electricity.
Anyhow, the amount of money is 200,000,000 (two hundred million) dollars to meagerly support all the good content creators.
Obviously, not all content creators are on Youtube, but everyone using patreon is competing for a very small pot of money. It's different than Google sending you a check for making an outstanding video.
#3: Podcasts (oh nooo). This is one of my pet peeves. People just going "Let's make a podcast!" and they get on the air and just talk for three hours. And it's like a "Wherever the conversation takes us" sort of thing where it's not really using any creativity. It's probably the laziest form of entertainment possible. Now, some podcasts are really good. They have interesting/funny hosts, and guests who are experts on subjects, or really important/famous people that you'd want to just sit down and have a conversation with. I mean, I'd love to sit down with The Pope and ask him if Jesus was black. That's what a good podcast does.
Also, doing a live podcast encourages audience participation, and on Youtube, people in the chat can do "super-chats" where their chat message is highlighted, but they have to donate. A lot of host read whatever the super-chats say, because they're whores. They're like a bum with no dignity who would let you kick them in the chest in exchange for 10 dollars. You could just walk up to a homeless man and go "Hey, I'll give you 20 bucks if you let me pour soy-sauce on your head and then poke you with chopsticks and go 'oooh yummy yummy!'", and they'd go "Okay." Or, you know, a literal whore, where you go to a hotel room and they're like "What do you want to do?" and you're like "I want to shit on your face, slap you in the face, I want you to dress up in this diaper and piss in it, and I want to shove this chocolate bunny up your anus while you sing the Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers theme song." and they're like "Okay, that's 300"
I had to go off on that tangent. It was necessary.
But anyhow, these people who aren't experts in anything, aren't entertaining, and aren't interesting get together and go "LeT's StArT a PoDcAsT", and it's usually a bunch of semi-famous youtubers who have like 100k subscribers each and rub their hands together merchant-style and think "I'll get their viewers to come over and watch my channel!!!". At some point, they get Sargon of Akkad to come onto the podcast as a guest, but he never comes back because he realizes they're a bunch of fucking idiots. And if you don't know who Sargon of Akkad is, he's basically a guy who makes minimal-effort videos where he rants about social/political topics while doing minimal research, and gained 600k subscribers, and now everyone in the subcommunity around him is either insanely jealous of him, or sucks his dick wildly whenever possible. When someone says "Have you heard what happened with Sargon?" I'm just like "Nah, what happened." and they link me to a video that's 3 hours of Sargon just talking with some random person, I'm like "Can you just summarize what he said? I'm not watching this."
If you don't know my life story, it's really boring, but I used to be hyper-religious until my 20s, and now I'm hyper-not-religious, so I went on youtube and looked up vids, and found some really cool channels by atheists and "skeptics". Now everyone big in that community has turned into a bunch of drama-whores who don't even talk about religion anymore. It's just "Let's start a podcast and talk about social issues, and talk about the latest drama with Sargon."
So now everyone has a "show", where they just talk and there's no plan, and there's no creativity. Think "The Pylon Show" but even lower-effort. And you know why they do this? Because goddamn Youtube demonetized all the videos that involve anything that includes: swearing, references to sex, blood, controversial subjects, anything critical of any religion that isn't Christianity, anything that Youtube doesn't like in general. The except to this rule is that you can do any of these things as long as Youtube likes you. So if your name is Logan Paul, you can set your house on fire and scream like a howler monkey out the windows for no reason, but still get that cool Youtube $$$. Also, you can't put a gun in your video. Sometimes, Youtube will delete your whole channel if they just don't like you. SORRY, You spent all that time getting 100k followers, but you have to start all over again because you said the word "faggots" or something! OOPS!
Boy oh boy, I'm sure I got that off my chest. It was really weighing me down. And hey, if you liked this blog, be sure to slam your face against that subscribe button, rate the blog, leave a comment in the comment box below, make sure to ring that bell, and if you're feeling generous, check out my patreon here!
I normally don't like TED talks, but here's a video on the topic. The first half is more on point, where he describes the magnitude of the trash content:
On November 03 2018 16:32 Jockmcplop wrote: I wouldn't know about this I only watch videos of hip hop fans reacting to 90's alt metal songs.
best guy to consult for monetizing youtube.com content is small business guru Nathan Fielder. he graduated from one of canada's best business schools with really good grades.
Those trending videos I see whenever I use a public PC make me sick. If it weren't for the all-knowing-hyperconcious AI, only giving me my woodworking and stoneworking videos and allowing me to remove/block content from bronzeworking and ironworking channels (fuck technology) I wouldn't be using it anymore. Because whenever my brother watches bronzeworking and ironworking videos on the same wifi, the almighty tracking AI will think I'm interested in them too.
But those woodworking videos are sooo good so I keep coming back.
Also, were you really hyperreligious until you were 20?
On November 03 2018 17:59 JimmyJRaynor wrote: best guy to consult for monetizing youtube.com content is small business guru Nathan Fielder. he graduated from one of canada's best business schools with really good grades.
I don't think he'd be the guy to consult for youtube. He's a business guy, not a web guy, so I don't know if he'd be able to come up with a way to optimize a video's search-engine searchability.
On November 03 2018 18:18 JieXian wrote: Those trending videos I see whenever I use a public PC make me sick. If it weren't for the all-knowing-hyperconcious AI, only giving me my woodworking and stoneworking videos and allowing me to remove/block content from bronzeworking and ironworking channels (fuck technology) I wouldn't be using it anymore. Because whenever my brother watches bronzeworking and ironworking videos on the same wifi, the almighty tracking AI will think I'm interested in them too.
But those woodworking videos are sooo good so I keep coming back.
Also, were you really hyperreligious until you were 20?
Yes, I was hyper-religious. Coming out of it took a long time, and I'm still half-hoping for a miracle to show me that it was all real, because, after all, who wouldn't want a beautiful loving peaceful place to live forever after you die? Who wouldn't want an all-powerful perfect loving God to personally guide you through life, teaching you lessons and making you a better person? However, I see almost nothing to convince me today that this is the case. It's kind of terrifying and liberating at the same time.
As for Youtube, actually, it does give you a lot of what you want after it gets to know you. Unfortunately, you still get a lot of suggestions that you don't want, and if you accidentally click something wrong, or share an account with someone, you can get a bunch of stuff that you wouldn't necessarily want. My bigger concern, though, is that the content that we enjoy will continue to shrink because it is no longer viable for content creators to make videos. Right now, there is still good content, but a lot of the creators who make it are really reliant on Patreon, and selling merchandise. It's a good outlet for people who are good at sales, but not always as good for people who are more creative-minded, and aren't that proficient at selling stuff.
Growing up as a pastor's kid the hyper religious-ness does do a number on you, even long after you leave. In my personal experience anytime you do something remotely good all you get is "god is working in your life", "Praise God", "God's really blessed you" "I want my son/daughter to grow up just like you". Then you start going down the youtube rabbit hole and subreddits and you tell your parents you don't believe anymore and you would think satan himself ascended from the underworld. Then you start thinking satan is real and you spend all your time meditating and balancing your chakra's so you can open up your third eye and claim enlightenment and you realize your purpose in life is to write a series of shitty bathroom blogs
On November 03 2018 23:55 MysteryMeat1 wrote: Growing up as a pastor's kid the hyper religious-ness does do a number on you, even long after you leave. In my personal experience anytime you do something remotely good all you get is "god is working in your life", "Praise God", "God's really blessed you" "I want my son/daughter to grow up just like you". Then you start going down the youtube rabbit hole and subreddits and you tell your parents you don't believe anymore and you would think satan himself ascended from the underworld. Then you start thinking satan is real and you spend all your time meditating and balancing your chakra's so you can open up your third eye and claim enlightenment and you realize your purpose in life is to write a series of shitty bathroom blogs
Well, it's one of the two primary reasons to use the toilet.
This stuff isn't shit. It's quality content. But it's for a different audience than you. They are the "Silent Majority." No, I'm not talking about republicans. I'm talking about the illiterate.
Most people are functionally illiterate. Probably like 60-70% of people, or more. Remember high school, where like 3/4 of your class could barely get through the most basic language assignments? There's some sort of unspoken assumption that once people become adults, they become proficient in these matters. But that's a falsehood. In reality, high school is where their language skills actually peaked. Without a steady curriculum and motivation, their language skills deteriorate.
Are they truly illiterate? Well, not really. They can easily and willingly read small amounts of simple text. With enough motivation they can write short, simple sentences. But beyond that, some combination of a lack of motivation and an incompetence bars them from any more complicated form of written (and sometimes verbal) communication.
Of course, you won't find any of these people online to hear them talk about the content they enjoy, or why they enjoy it. Because they are illiterate. For all practical purposes, they are incapable of voicing their preferences with words.
But this content isn't mindless drivel, or annoying clickbait, or retarded bullshit. At least not to them. With how intellectually stunted they are, this is genuine, deep, mentally fulfilling content to them.
Now, it's probably hard to believe that so many people are like this, because most of the people you know do not fit this mold. That is because in order for you to be able to know people, it requires at the very least the most basic of communication skills. This filters you out from ever meeting people from the silent majority. On rare occasion, you see someone well up the motivation to overcome their debilitating impediment, and show what a truly stunted mind they have. You assume that this type of individual is rare, but actually the only rare thing is for them to turn their malformed thoughts into concrete text.
But there is no language barrier to watching videos on youtube. So these people will gravitate towards the content they like, and that will be popular. It's not really a problem with youtube. Any platform that is not hidden away from the silent majority by some form of obscurity will be plagued with them and devolve into the same type of content.
Wow, great analysis jrkirby. It seems very fitting. The internet used to be for the nerds, and we see it being taken over by the masses. You say it so much better though.
Ninazerg, please make a youtube video out of this rant. Have some semi random background videos. The whole thing.
On November 05 2018 06:45 Navane wrote: Wow, great analysis jrkirby. It seems very fitting. The internet used to be for the nerds, and we see it being taken over by the masses. You say it so much better though.
Ninazerg, please make a youtube video out of this rant. Have some semi random background videos. The whole thing.
I don't want to make a video. It'd take a long time and would only get like 100 views.
On November 05 2018 06:45 Navane wrote: Wow, great analysis jrkirby. It seems very fitting. The internet used to be for the nerds, and we see it being taken over by the masses. You say it so much better though.
Ninazerg, please make a youtube video out of this rant. Have some semi random background videos. The whole thing.
I don't want to make a video. It'd take a long time and would only get like 100 views.
On November 03 2018 17:59 JimmyJRaynor wrote: best guy to consult for monetizing youtube.com content is small business guru Nathan Fielder. he graduated from one of canada's best business schools with really good grades.
I don't think he'd be the guy to consult for youtube. He's a business guy, not a web guy, so I don't know if he'd be able to come up with a way to optimize a video's search-engine searchability.
On November 03 2018 18:18 JieXian wrote: Those trending videos I see whenever I use a public PC make me sick. If it weren't for the all-knowing-hyperconcious AI, only giving me my woodworking and stoneworking videos and allowing me to remove/block content from bronzeworking and ironworking channels (fuck technology) I wouldn't be using it anymore. Because whenever my brother watches bronzeworking and ironworking videos on the same wifi, the almighty tracking AI will think I'm interested in them too.
But those woodworking videos are sooo good so I keep coming back.
Also, were you really hyperreligious until you were 20?
Yes, I was hyper-religious. Coming out of it took a long time, and I'm still half-hoping for a miracle to show me that it was all real, because, after all, who wouldn't want a beautiful loving peaceful place to live forever after you die? Who wouldn't want an all-powerful perfect loving God to personally guide you through life, teaching you lessons and making you a better person? However, I see almost nothing to convince me today that this is the case. It's kind of terrifying and liberating at the same time.
As for Youtube, actually, it does give you a lot of what you want after it gets to know you. Unfortunately, you still get a lot of suggestions that you don't want, and if you accidentally click something wrong, or share an account with someone, you can get a bunch of stuff that you wouldn't necessarily want. My bigger concern, though, is that the content that we enjoy will continue to shrink because it is no longer viable for content creators to make videos. Right now, there is still good content, but a lot of the creators who make it are really reliant on Patreon, and selling merchandise. It's a good outlet for people who are good at sales, but not always as good for people who are more creative-minded, and aren't that proficient at selling stuff.
Well I'm happy for you, and I share a similar stance, that of being open to possibilities but currently unconvinced religiously.
Not saying the Youtube content creators aren't making money, I am not aware of this problem. The channels I usually watch fall into several categories. Some are openly happy about the money they are making, some aren't complaining about not making money from YouTube, some of them use it to promote themselves (eg musicians) or their merchandise/ebooks/courses.
On November 05 2018 06:45 Navane wrote: Wow, great analysis jrkirby. It seems very fitting. The internet used to be for the nerds, and we see it being taken over by the masses. You say it so much better though.
Ninazerg, please make a youtube video out of this rant. Have some semi random background videos. The whole thing.
I don't want to make a video. It'd take a long time and would only get like 100 views.
On November 03 2018 17:59 JimmyJRaynor wrote: best guy to consult for monetizing youtube.com content is small business guru Nathan Fielder. he graduated from one of canada's best business schools with really good grades.
I don't think he'd be the guy to consult for youtube. He's a business guy, not a web guy, so I don't know if he'd be able to come up with a way to optimize a video's search-engine searchability.
On November 03 2018 18:18 JieXian wrote: Those trending videos I see whenever I use a public PC make me sick. If it weren't for the all-knowing-hyperconcious AI, only giving me my woodworking and stoneworking videos and allowing me to remove/block content from bronzeworking and ironworking channels (fuck technology) I wouldn't be using it anymore. Because whenever my brother watches bronzeworking and ironworking videos on the same wifi, the almighty tracking AI will think I'm interested in them too.
But those woodworking videos are sooo good so I keep coming back.
Also, were you really hyperreligious until you were 20?
Yes, I was hyper-religious. Coming out of it took a long time, and I'm still half-hoping for a miracle to show me that it was all real, because, after all, who wouldn't want a beautiful loving peaceful place to live forever after you die? Who wouldn't want an all-powerful perfect loving God to personally guide you through life, teaching you lessons and making you a better person? However, I see almost nothing to convince me today that this is the case. It's kind of terrifying and liberating at the same time.
As for Youtube, actually, it does give you a lot of what you want after it gets to know you. Unfortunately, you still get a lot of suggestions that you don't want, and if you accidentally click something wrong, or share an account with someone, you can get a bunch of stuff that you wouldn't necessarily want. My bigger concern, though, is that the content that we enjoy will continue to shrink because it is no longer viable for content creators to make videos. Right now, there is still good content, but a lot of the creators who make it are really reliant on Patreon, and selling merchandise. It's a good outlet for people who are good at sales, but not always as good for people who are more creative-minded, and aren't that proficient at selling stuff.
Well I'm happy for you, and I share a similar stance, that of being open to possibilities but currently unconvinced religiously.
Not saying the Youtube content creators aren't making money, I am not aware of this problem. The channels I usually watch fall into several categories. Some are openly happy about the money they are making, some aren't complaining about not making money from YouTube, some of them use it to promote themselves (eg musicians) or their merchandise/ebooks/courses.
Music might be one's best bet for making ad revenue, as long as the music isn't controversial. I don't see much reason for Youtube to demonetize music channels. The only hurdle for creators in the music realm is that it's so saturated with artists that you'd have to be really good at self-promotion to break through the barrier of obscurity.
On November 08 2018 09:07 Dangermousecatdog wrote: I don't watch anything on Youtube except for the very specific cats with babies videos I go there for, and BroodWar VODs, of course.
WCS![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/0LW9Mx8.png)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/DgVxeT7.png)
