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What’s the appeal of youtubers? [split topic]

Started by touchingcloth, August 31, 2019, 07:46:06 PM

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George Oscar Bluth II

Quote from: bgmnts on September 01, 2019, 06:30:20 PM
The 'friend substitute' aspect is the most terrifying as it makes it so much more insidious when they are racking up a shit ton of cash, condoning gambling, espousing/platforming right wing ideals, being racist/homophobic etc.

This is true of all "influencer" culture isn't it and it's why they're such a dream for marketers.

mothman

Quote from: pigamus on September 01, 2019, 06:31:41 PM
So is there a way you can have friends on there who will back you up, or is it totally dog eat dog?

Seems to be both. You can make friends, but there are also the snivelling little scrotes who compensate for being cowardly nonentities in real life by being utter cunts to others in the game, who may be very young and/or otherwise unable to deal with that kind of hostile behaviour.

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on September 01, 2019, 06:26:38 PM
You could always write it all down and then not post it.  Just for some kind of catharsis.  Hell, some of us kuntworks migjt even be able to offer useful advice.  Much stranger thongs have happened.

I will write some of it down eventually. Keep putting it off.

bgmnts

Quote from: mothman on September 01, 2019, 06:35:58 PM
You can make friends, but there are also the snivelling little scrotes who compensate for being cowardly nonentities in real life by being utter cunts to others in the game

That's just basically multiplayer gaming isn't it? If I were to have a kid I wouldn't let it get near anything online in games until they were like 16 or something, it's mostly fucking vile.

Zetetic

I don't think that's as true as you might think, particularly outside of competitive games focused on the depiction of violence.

But as with all internet stuff, I guess you need to keep an eye it. (This strikes me as exhausting and harder to navigate than real-world stuff, mind you.)

Quote from: pigamus on September 01, 2019, 06:31:41 PM
So is there a way you can have friends on there who will back you up, or is it totally dog eat dog?
Various CaB servers over the years have mostly been pretty friendly. But to some extent it's always up to the people running them - just like it is with forums.

There does seem to be an industry of 'family-friendly' servers for games like this. (I assume these risk attracting people trying specifically to be unpleasant to kids, of course.)

pigamus

Quote from: mothman on September 01, 2019, 06:35:58 PM
Seems to be both. You can make friends, but there are also the snivelling little scrotes who compensate for being cowardly nonentities in real life by being utter cunts to others in the game, who may be very young and/or otherwise unable to deal with that kind of hostile behaviour.

God, that sounds like a nightmare. I mean you can protect kids as best you can from weirdos and cunts in real life, but how are you supposed to do it with something like that? And presumably if you tried to ban her from it would be basically Apocalypse Now?

I don't know mate, I wish I had something useful or helpful to say. Seriously, it's stuff like this that reminds me I could never be a parent in a million years.

mothman

She has a certain naivety common to many on the spectrum, so in a sense I'd sooner she learn a few lessons virtually as similar incidents IRL would be more serious, harder to shake off etc. Some days it's a chore - the meltdowns we had on holiday when poor internet connectivity caused her problems watchng YouTube, you have no idea - others, it's amazing. Today we went shopping for new school shoes - she chose a pair of Doc Martens! Her big sister is well impressed.

kalowski

Quote from: mothman on September 01, 2019, 06:01:17 PM
Re: kalowski and Nose's points, yeah, I'm not happy she watches this stuff, but at least it's more age-appropriate when barely a year ago she was still watching CBeebies at an age when most have switched to CBBC. And she's on the autistic spectrum, altering her behaviours isn't easy. We have enough to deal with on her part without introducing more problems, so we're basically chickening out of doing anything right now!

A bigger problem for us is the bullying she receives - at school, but also in the games she plays. She can't handle it when cunts in Minecraft or Roblox attack her or steak her stuff, and we don't understand what's going on so can't help her.

I should probably start a thread about all we've been through with her over the past few years - she's the one who nearly died on the operating table a couple of years ago - but I can't face doing it, I'm right in the middle of it all and if I really had to sit down to try to deal with it all, I'd go mad.
My children are not on the spectrum )well, my son may edge onto it, but not in any overt way) so our complications are different. With me, my concern was that some of this was normalised, and I'd I ever let them have free rein they soon ended up on some awful "funny" stuff. The crunch came when my daughter was watching a "try not to laugh" thing and the "joke" was about a black man stealing a  car: "N*gga, I ain't no police!"

Twed

Quote from: kalowski on September 01, 2019, 07:26:24 PM
My children are not on the spectrum
Sorry, I really have to stop you here. Your kids are going to need something much more powerful than a Spectrum to access online content.

pigamus

And I suppose the other big problem is that this stuff always runs well behind the law, because by the time you've got somebody in authority to start regulating and wotnot all the kids have moved on to something else.

mothman

Quote from: kalowski on September 01, 2019, 07:26:24 PM
My children are not on the spectrum )well, my son may edge onto it, but not in any overt way) so our complications are different. With me, my concern was that some of this was normalised, and I'd I ever let them have free rein they soon ended up on some awful "funny" stuff. The crunch came when my daughter was watching a "try not to laugh" thing and the "joke" was about a black man stealing a  car: "N*gga, I ain't no police!"

There was an earlier phase of YT use where she was edging into some unpleasant areas and we were able to intervene. At that time she was just into watching "unboxing" videos and those godawful saccarine video blogs posted by those insufferable American families where they all do fun things (paid for by sponsors, not that it's ever made plain) and the father later turns out to be a paedophile or serial killer. Her behaviour was more manageable then so a few parental restrictions were easy to activate without repercussions.

earl_sleek

Quote from: Twed on September 01, 2019, 06:32:06 PM
TechMoan, EEVBlog, LGR, Technology Connections, bigclivedotcom, Souped Up Recipes, Ziang's Oriental Food Workshop, Chris Fleming, Kim Justice, Fran Blanche to name a few. The ones in bold are some of the few things that exist that make me feel lucky to be alive in 2019.

Clint from LGR just seems like a lovely happy dude, I actually would love to be friends with him irl. Fan of Techmoan, Technology Connections and Big Clive as well. I want to like EEVBlog, but I can't stand his voice. Akbuku is a good retro/tech channel, as is 8 Bit Guy and Retro Man Cave, which despite the awful name is a great channel, the presenter of has a lovely calm voice and manner as well.

Adam Neely and Nahre Sol are good music theory channels. The Royal Institution has a lot of good talks, and Numberphile and Computerphile are very good at explaining complex subjects in an accessible but not dumbed down way.

I got fucking proper obsessed with watching Defcon/Black Hat/CCC talks this year, to the point I now find it difficult to fall asleep if I haven't watched at least an hour of someone talking about UEFI or attack surfaces for an hour.

EDIT: Oh, and Contrapoints and HBomberguy are great, and good for reminding you that Youtube isn't just a rightwing cesspit.

In summary: Chris.

Twed

Quote from: earl_sleek on September 01, 2019, 07:42:51 PM
I got fucking proper obsessed with watching Defcon/Black Hat/CCC talks this year, to the point I now find it difficult to fall asleep if I haven't watched at least an hour of someone talking about UEFI or attack surfaces for an hour.
I was at Defcon this year! I gave a talk! It was a fucking disaster.

Inspector Norse

Quote from: Twed on September 01, 2019, 07:49:44 PM
I was at Defcon this year! I gave a talk! It was a fucking disaster.

It would have gone better had you had a sign language interpreter onstage with you.

marquis_de_sad

These threads are perennial on CaB at this point. Usually, well-meaning attempts to try to introduce the boomer contingent to decent youtubers falls on deaf ears, due to their inability to get beyond the existence of content aimed at children. Someone on here did introduce me to David Bull, so thanks to whoever that was.

mothman

Boomers? Dude, we're Gen X. And we're not discussing Who To Watch -maybe that's in whatever thread this split off from? - more, Why On Earth Watch?

grassbath

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on September 01, 2019, 06:33:39 PM
This is true of all "influencer" culture isn't it and it's why they're such a dream for marketers.

I went to a youth marketing conference earlier this year. The first panellist was an 'influencer' who had been voted top 'influencer' on a student forum or something and has worked with a lot of brands. 'Comedian' was in her list of self-appointed titles.

While she was unfunny, insincere and self-centred in the panel discussion itself, the video content they showed was very depressing and made me think 'if this is what the youth of today think is interesting or entertaining, we are doomed.' I don't think I was alone either - in an audience full of people probably between 21 and 40, there was a palpable mood of confusion about why it was important we heard from this person.

I'm 26 myself and really don't think I'm being a stick in the mud. Literally, in her videos she just talked incessantly about herself and her achievements, hiding behind an extremely thin veneer of aggravatingly flippant 'woke' rhetoric. There was one where she was about to open her exam results to find out whether she got into law school. A whole minute long video of her sitting there on the verge of tears fanning her face with her hand, breathing heavily and saying to camera things like 'oh my god i'm opening them now, it's loading, it's loading, i can't stand this - have I got in? Have I got in?' Predictably she had. Imagine thinking you're important enough to show that to the world. Imagine actually being interested in the outcome as an outsider.

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: mothman on September 01, 2019, 08:07:03 PM
Boomers? Dude, we're Gen X.

*sips*

Quote from: mothman on September 01, 2019, 08:07:03 PM
And we're not discussing Who To Watch -maybe that's in whatever thread this split off from? - more, Why On Earth Watch?

If there are good channels worth watching then this distinction is no longer particularly important.

Flatulent Fox

I like the Youtubes in general,but not the Youtubers as they're mostly cunts.
                                               It gives me a lot of pleasure to shitcan ones I dislike for whatever reason with a firefox app called video blocker so I never see them again in my searches.Report them for offensive acts or something if you can be bothered.If they get enough,they will be demonitized and have to make their shite for nothing.

Also use Adblock so there is no advertizing pop ups.Ever again.

chveik

Quote from: marquis_de_sad on September 01, 2019, 08:05:00 PM
These threads are perennial on CaB at this point. Usually, well-meaning attempts to try to introduce the boomer contingent to decent youtubers falls on deaf ears, due to their inability to get beyond the existence of content aimed at children. Someone on here did introduce me to David Bull, so thanks to whoever that was.

I was born in the mid 90s (dunno which generation I belong to: millenials? gen z?) but I can't really understand the appeal, apart for Francis Higgins (but I'm not sure he be considered as a youtuber). I find their videos incredibly boring, they can take bloody hours to make an incredibly simplistic point.
I do listen to a lot of (comedy) podcasts though, but I mostly care for the funniness, not the illusion that these people are my friends.

btw really sorry to hear about your difficulties with all this mothman

Twed

Quote from: earl_sleek on September 01, 2019, 07:42:51 PM
Clint from LGR just seems like a lovely happy dude, I actually would love to be friends with him irl.
I've also thought this, btw.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I suppose the common thread running through the Youtube channels I follow is the depth that they can delve into whatever subject they cover. Even with our multitude of telly channels, you're never going to get a programme dedicating an hour or so to talking about the Sony Mini Disc, why the Hobbit films were shit, or why Half-Life was so groundbreaking. And you're certainly not going to get someone broadcasting tutorials for Photoshop and such.

As for the likes of Pewdiepie, or Logan Paul, fucked if I know. Kids like them and kids are stupid.

Quote from: Twed on September 01, 2019, 08:59:13 PM
I've also thought this, btw.
Imagine if his normal speaking voice was just like his presenting one though: "Helloooo and welcome to my house. Can I get you a cup of teeeaaa?"

Twed

I do wish he wouldn't do the sort of half Duke Nukem half conspiratorial tone in all of his videos.

canadagoose

Has anyone else seen LGR's food videos, where he makes sandwiches, noodles and that? They're quite enjoyable. He seems to be quite the talented chef.

Twed

He puts nice looking sandwiches together but I think "chef" might be going to a bit far, TBH.

canadagoose

Quote from: Twed on September 01, 2019, 09:51:48 PM
He puts nice looking sandwiches together but I think "chef" might be going to a bit far, TBH.
I dunno, have you seen what he does with instant noodles? Maybe I'm too easily impressed.

touchingcloth

I was thinking the other day that people who make a lot of money online are a bit like the dot com bubble, except instead of a moderate number of investors pumping money into a relative handful of companies, it's a shitload of people pumping money via ads into a moderate number of producers, so it feel like a bubble which can't burst. When people get fed up of The You Tube, some content creators will stop making money, but they won't lose millions they've already made. Think of that. These cunts will be rich forever, and the rest of us don't even get the schadenfreude of laughing at a load of boo.com venture capitalists. They've won.

touchingcloth


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: touchingcloth on September 01, 2019, 10:05:36 PM
When people get fed up of The You Tube, some content creators will stop making money, but they won't lose millions they've already made. Think of that. These cunts will be rich forever, and the rest of us don't even get the schadenfreude of laughing at a load of boo.com venture capitalists. They've won.
Yes, but rich types often end up squandering their money once it stops rolling in. Look at Nicolas Cage

As far as I can tell, advert revenue isn't the primary source of income for most professional content creators* any more. The ones I watch seem to cite Patreon as their meal ticket and I seem to recall there being some big controversy about Youtube demonetizing people's videos and such a while back.

* Uuurgh

touchingcloth

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on September 01, 2019, 10:21:21 PM
* Uuurgh

Quite. My floor is awash with bile since writing that.

You Tube people were making a ton of money before patreon, so they must get some level of egregious riches from the platform* itself.

*Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave

Twed

A lot of them are suffering and showing symptoms of mental illness due to "The Algorithm", too. Sometimes a modest income can be destroyed on a tech-whim. Best not to think of them all as the same person.