
One man, eight years, nearly 20k cat videos, and not a single viral hit - pseudolus
https://theoutline.com/post/7709/meet-the-man-who-has-spent-the-past-years-making-over-19000-videos-of-himself-feeding-cats
======
danso
> _How an animal lover’s hobby of recording himself feeding stray cats
> exemplifies the glory of the anonymous web._

When I saw this subhed, I thought immediately of Robin Seplut, a Youtuber I
had never heard about until a month or so ago when Youtube put a 5-year-old
video of him into my recs for some reason [0] (I like cat videos, and have
clicked on them for years, but this was the first time I've seen one in my
recs).

In any case, Seplut has 900K subscribers and dozens of videos of him feeding
the 5,000 feral cats in his city. And the videos are a hoot – his most popular
video has 46 million views [1].

The guy at the subject of this article seems to have videos with the same kind
of appeal. I wonder how much of his obscurity has to do with his videos just
not being labeled well?

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTZUTvv_1Onm-f-533Hyurw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTZUTvv_1Onm-f-533Hyurw)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfIqLAyNLY8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfIqLAyNLY8)

~~~
CM30
Some of this guy's lack of popularity is down to his videos not being labelled
well, but I think most of it is really due to the fact no one's promoting his
work at all.

Because nowadays, that's pretty much the only way to succeed in any form of
content creation. * Getting people/companies/sites with thousands or millions
of viewers to share your work, and using their audience to bootstrap your own.

This guy obviously doesn't have that. So no one's finding his content, even if
they'd enjoy watching it.

Or at least he didn't. Since thisa rticle was posted, his channel's gone from
about 2000 subscribers to 12,000 subscribers, just like how it'd gone from 100
to 2000 once it was posted on those deep into YouTube style subreddits.

So he's finally getting a following, because people now know he exists and
makes videos.

* For 99% of creators anyway. There's always the 1% of people who strike it big from pure luck/timing alone, usually because they managed to catch an upcoming trend before it hit the mainstream.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
>> Some of this guy's lack of popularity is down to his videos not being
labelled well

I do not envy the life of a struggling content creator. Having to always come
up with titles like...

"Man feeds CATNIP to crazy fail dog"

...sounds like a special kind of hell to me.

~~~
yomly
If working life is about being paid for your time by providing valuable
skills, paying, or learning for yourself, to get useful clickbait seems like
every other skill to me. Ultimately it's a bit like all other interpersonal
communications so if you enjoy making headlines or captions or brand spiels
you can probably learn to love clickbait titles.

Though if all of that is wooly to you then yeah it's probably not your cup of
tea, but I can assure you for people who have invested in that skill they
probably quite enjoy the thrill of trying to craft the perfect clickbait title
and now in the age of data the success of it is measurable, creating a tighter
feedback loop...

~~~
munificent
_> they probably quite enjoy the thrill of trying to craft the perfect
clickbait title and now in the age of data the success of it is measurable,
creating a tighter feedback loop... _

They probably do, but they get that thrill at the emotional expense of the
consumers. It's a fundamentally selfish act.

"Clickbait" really means that the title sets an expectation in the viewer that
is more engaging than the content itself actually is. The viewer clicks and
then ends up disappointed because the actual content is less rewarding than
the title suggested. But at that point, the author's already claimed their
precious ounce of attention and got what they wanted.

The name stuck for a reason. Fish don't end up happy that they ate the bait.
Only the fisher does.

So I don't think we should be happy that people find this skill thrilling or
rewarding any more than we should laud the thrill of a skilled pick-pocket or
con artist.

~~~
ghaff
Headline writing has been a skill since long before there were clicks.

Sure, headlines can veer into the misleading and there are certain
particularly annoying online patters. But the whole purpose of a headline is
to entice you to read.

------
dwaltrip
> Cat Man is actually named Mr. Niiyama. He’s 52 years old, and he’s based in
> the Chiba Prefecture, about an hour east of Tokyo. Niiyama feeds the cats on
> the quay near his home, almost every day. “I will distribute breakfast at
> seven a.m. every morning,” he said. “We distribute over 360 days a year.” He
> started filming the videos because, as he explains, “I wanted to see the
> life of a cat.”

> Currently, he tends to seven cats, but he estimates over the years he has
> taken care of 50. Why does he do it? “Because taking care of cats leads to
> your own happiness.”

There is something very beautiful and serene about this. He found a way of
interacting positively with his environment, and has simply stuck with it.

------
chiph
I find these to be very Internet 1.0

Back when people posted things just because they wanted to share something
they thought other people would find interesting.

~~~
craftyguy
> Back when people posted things just because they wanted to share something
> they thought other people would find interesting.

That's pretty much the entire premise of twitter, instagram, facebook, reddit,
'hacker' 'news', etc today...

~~~
madaxe_again
No, now people post things for Internet Points - likes and follows, rather
than for the joy of sharing - and it shows in the kind of content that is
popular. Some folks have optimised the hell out of their Skinner box
solutions.

~~~
cameronbrown
There is a joy in sharing, but is it really sharing if we're shouting into the
void? People want to be part of a community, even if it's just a tiny one. We
need that part of the web back.

~~~
ryacko
I think that has changed to the off topic or memes channel of a Discord
server.

~~~
cameronbrown
When I mean the web, I really mean the open web. Not Discord. Maybe I'm just
nostalgic for how it used to be.

------
zuminator
According to the article, the translation of his twitter bio reads, "I live in
harmony with the cats who have arrived in the tetra pot of Kashiwahama, Chiba
Prefecture."

The cats didn’t arrive in a tetra pot, they live among the tetrapods, which
are artificial concrete objects that are ubiquitously placed along the
Japanese coastline, ostensibly to prevent coastal erosion, although some have
said they are basically government pork projects for the all-powerful
construction industry.

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2007/07/22/general/tetrapo...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2007/07/22/general/tetrapods/#.XT3oi8opCfA)

~~~
Havoc
>ostensibly to prevent coastal erosion

Nothing ostensible about it. They work well to protect harbours. e.g.

[https://i.imgur.com/Okxthdq.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Okxthdq.jpg)

Bigger question is why is anyone using the tetra design at all. The dolos one
isn't patented and interlocks way better.

[https://i.imgur.com/nO6srwI.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/nO6srwI.jpg)

------
aerialcombat
Maybe he's just using YouTube as a giant backup machine.

------
smnplk
Just look at the titles of his videos, this is #1 reason why he hasn't
received a viral hit. Then there is editing, no captions etc...

~~~
A2017U1
He certainly didn't even ask for people to like the video and subscribe.

~~~
stackola
How am I even supposed to know that's a feature on youtube then?

~~~
judge2020
[https://youtu.be/bre0moeCMFU](https://youtu.be/bre0moeCMFU)

------
sys_64738
What utility does the individual gain from his video going ‘viral’?

~~~
strict9
Getting noticed. Maybe being briefly remembered.

Most people don't use social media (or further back, blogs) to get paid or
gain utility, they want to be noticed for something.

~~~
madaxe_again
That _is_ the utility value. It’s the primary utility value desired in human
experience, even though most don’t grasp it directly, and instead think they
want money, or to be a pop star, or to be a footballer, or to own x, y, z -
but these are all manifestations of the fear of being forgotten. In fact,
many, many people are miserable because they’ve chosen a means that they
didn’t actually want, and the ends of fame are never quite what they expected.

Most of what humans do is to be noticed, to be remembered, for posterity.

I find the notion of being forgotten far more liberating.

~~~
tjoff
_It’s the primary utility value desired in human experience_

It is not. Also, most do not want to be a pop star or a footballer etc.

~~~
madaxe_again
So what is? Why do you do what you do?

Edit: this was meant as an honest query, so thanks for the downvote. I love
how just shooting my point down with no thought or counterpoint gets upvoted,
but asking a question in earnest gets downvoted.

As I’ve had nothing but “no you’re wrong”, I can only assume you don’t have a
counter argument, and are just being contrary.

~~~
tjoff
I didn't downvote you. FYI you are not even able to downvote a post that that
is a response to one that yourself wrote.

You didn't put forward any compelling arguments for your point of view so I
didn't bother to refute them.

It is a big question, but being remembered doesn't even register. Could not
care the slightest. Now there are things that I do care about and they sort of
implies that I will be remembered (by friends and family) if I get my way
(wouldn't be a good friend if that wasn't the case).

But that is not why I do anything, and most certainly is not what motivates
me.

------
rohanprabhu
Don't know if it is the HN effect or what, but the article says that the
channel has 100 subscribers whereas at the moment of writing this comment, the
number is around 12.2K.

~~~
sysashi
Not really, I've seen mentions of this channel during this week so it's all
been gathered over time.

------
oblib
This is really pretty interesting in a web centric sort of way.

I had to share it on FB. Half my "friends" there are cat ladies who'll all
appreciate it.

------
pkulak
I wonder if he's just using YouTube like Dropbox and just wants to have a
personal diary of something he enjoys.

------
Havoc
Going through old vids it seems some received spikes of attention.

...even spikes 4x the one created by this hn post.

12k subscribers...so clearly he's doing something right.

~~~
glouwbug
That's literally less than one subscriber per video

~~~
Havoc
I guess persistence can pay off :p

------
briandear
What is up with the website? I felt like a <blink> tag was just a JS scroll
away. Can we also drop the gosh-damned animations for text articles and just
make it load quickly? What a mess. Some designer out there actually thinks
they are clever when instead I didn’t even read the first paragraph.

------
vinay427
> How an animal lover’s hobby of recording himself feeding stray cats
> exemplifies the glory of the anonymous web.

There's nothing in this article to indicate being an animal lover. Cat lover,
maybe...

