

The Jenna Marbles Paradox: Why Are YouTube Videos So Terrible? - _halcyon_
http://betabeat.com/2013/05/the-jenna-marbles-paradox-why-are-youtube-videos-so-terrible/

======
ender7
The author assumes that there is a linear relationship between the amount of
money that a creator has at their disposal and the resulting "production
quality". So, once Jenna Marbles starts making some real bank, out come the
camera crews and director and post-production effects and...

No. There is no path from Jenna Marbles to the traditional kind of television
that the author is used to. They're just...different. Jenna has a specific way
that she likes to create things and more money doesn't necessarily change
that.

To make the kind of TV that the author imagines, you need to drop some money
up front. Let's be charitable and say $300,000 for a pilot. Needless to say
this is out of reach for almost 100% of the content creators on Youtube, so
it's unsurprising that the content that has risen to popularity within Youtube
has its roots in methods that cost essentially nothing.

Now, there are some interesting exceptions. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries [1] was
nowhere near a "real" TV show in terms of budget but it had writers,
production staff, and hired actors. Vice produces a lot of content that seems
like it could fit into a normal TV program [2] -- almost. There are some other
interesting shows that are sort of half-way there (well, more like 1/10th of
the way there) in that they actually have production crews and do things like
post-production (see: Wil Wheaton's Tabletop series [3]). I'm sure there are a
ton of other examples.

So, the community is sidling up to high-quality content, but it's still
unclear exactly how they're going to get there. By my estimation, to create a
"TV-ready" drama, you'd need at the very least 100k subscribers paying $3/mo.
Obviously no one is going to sign up for something if they're never heard of
you, so you've got to make some free content that people love, then maybe make
the jump via a Kickstarter? Or will true "channels" appear that bring the
money and the subscribers and that then fund the shows of their choice? This
is a really fascinating time for video content -- I'm excited to see how the
economics end up playing out.

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KisuGP2lcPs&feature=c4-ov...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KisuGP2lcPs&feature=c4-overview-
vl&list=PL6690D980D8A65D08)

[2] (Warning: NSFW) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsUH8llvTZo>

[3] <http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C>

~~~
Periodic
I think what you're really saying here is that these current YouTube stars
will not make the jump from their current content to TV-ready content. But
they do play an important role in creating the ecosystem, bringing the
viewers, and showing that there is a market for content through this
distribution medium. Hopefully that will make people more willing to drop the
money on a good pilot, but it won't be the current generation of creators that
will be doing it.

~~~
apendleton
It's not that they won't make the jump, but that they're not trying to. Videos
of the kind "YouTubers" make have evolved into a distinct media genre separate
from episodic television. Your statement is analogous to saying "comic book
authors won't jump to writing novel-ready content" -- of course not, or at
least, not in a way that implies the latter is a progression from the former.

And a corollary: genre is distinct from delivery mechanism. "House of Cards"
is a TV show and Jenna Marbles videos are (for lack of a better term) YouTube-
style videos, even though both are delivered via the Internet.

------
IvyMike
I have the feeling the author is elevating presentation over content. His
definition of terrible is different than mine.

I mean, I think "Transformers 3: Pixels Making Grinding Noises" has insanely
great production value, and made a bajillion dollars, but honestly I'd rather
watch two hours of Jenna Marbles videos, and I don't even like Jenna Marbles
all that much.

~~~
VLM
I think she's kinda cute. If I uploaded kittens playing with string people
would feel safe admitting they're watching solely because they're cute, but we
must pretend that young men watching a cute young woman must solely be
watching for her amazing pair of literary values and production quality.

There is an obvious blind spot relating to narrowcasting in both your
examples. Both hollywood action sequels and youtube videos have the hidden
assumption that they're the dominant form of media, they are our culture,
everyone participates, they're what makes us, us. The national pastime, or
whatever. Insinuating that they're not would get a extremely harsh reaction
from those socialized to respond that they are. Kinda like religion but I'm
tryin to keep on topic.

In both examples, 99% of the population won't watch either for free. You can
be rejected by 99.75% of the US population yet get a youtube gold plaque for 1
million views. Given those real world facts, its no great surprise that the
Venn diagram of a microscopic fraction of the US population who are Jenna fans
does not have much coincidental overlap with the small and shrinking fraction
of the US population who watch hollywood movies.

If your advertising message is you're the best individual example of the self
described dominant form of modern media, admitting the truth that no one in
the general population watches, even for free or near free, would really screw
up the message.

Its a fun self awareness hack to evaluate someones worldview by asking them
what percentage of the US population watches "Survivor" for example. Strongly
bimodal, with the wrong answer being "almost everyone because it defines
modern pop culture" and the right answer being "almost no one".

Another peculiar observation is I can walk down the street and notice that
plenty of young men admire the young ladies with no hollywood production
values at all

~~~
philh
> In both examples, 99% of the population won't watch either for free.

FWIW, Transformers 3 took about $350m in north America, which at $10/ticket
(is that reasonable?) is 35 million viewers. Not all of those are in the US
(but I think "north America" in context might just mean "US and canada", which
is like 90% US), and some of them would be repeat viewers, but probably 5-15%
of the US population paid to see that film.

~~~
VLM
That's what I mean. "fifth-highest-grossing film of all time" means ignored by
over 90% of the population.

What we are told defines our culture, does not. Whatever the heck over 90% of
the population did instead of watching Transformers 3 for two hours, defines
our culture.

------
bediger4000
I don't know that this author has his ducks in a row.

For example, in the USA, The Bell System provided an amazing quality of phone
service. Uptime of the system was just astonishing, voice quality beats cell
phones hollow. But clearly, the voice quality and reliability of the system
wasn't all that necessary. Cell phone systems don't provide anywhere near the
reliability or voice quality that The Bell System used to, and we're all
overjoyed with it. It's just that a regulated monopoly could use some of it's
wealth to provide geographic diversity, lots of human support and other things
now considered crazy redundant.

Why not believe that the Media Monopoly (ABC, NBC, CBS) used their monopoly
rents to make programming with lots of flourishes and quality? Just like The
Bell System, radio and tee vee networks used to try to provide some reason for
their continued existence.

Now that we can vote with our mice, we can pick the funny/weird/interesting
content. We can choose the stuff that really matters to us, instead of just
watching The Brady Bunch because the Thursday evening 7pm timeslot had 1 show
that was bad, and 2 that were even worse.

~~~
derleth
> voice quality beats cell phones hollow

Really? Not in my experience.

> Why not believe that the Media Monopoly (ABC, NBC, CBS) used their monopoly
> rents to make programming with lots of flourishes and quality?

It did for a certain definition of 'quality'. For a while, it raised the
sitcom to a level of perfection few art forms ever reach, but if you don't
like the traditional sitcom that means nothing to you.

Certain kinds of stories were told as well as they could be told, but the
limitations of the funding model (mass media, so you can't piss off too high
of a percentage of the general public; ad-funded, so you can't piss off too
many potential advertisers; FCC regulated, so you can't piss off the vocal
minority who whines to the FCC) prevented any other kinds of stories from
being told well, or told at all.

~~~
bediger4000
_prevented any other kinds of stories from being told well, or told at all._

Exactly my point. Jenna Marbles and Ryan Higa and all the others with millions
of hits and zero production sort of prove that point. Youtube viewers watch
the stories they like, rather than choosing from the least bad ABC/NBC/CBS
show that's on right now.

------
changdizzle
I think the article overlooks a large segment - that is, very popular YouTube
producers who genuinely make cool videos with (what I think are) professional
graphics and production quality like freddiew, wongfuproductions, ryan higa,
kevjumba, mysteryguitarman and kurthugoschneider

The article also misses what traditional TV lacks that YouTube producers do -
audience interaction. They will make videos based on their fans' comments,
hold meetups in their location and actually respond on twitter/instagram.

------
Trapick
There's no paradox: people don't care all that much about production values.

People watch Jenna Marbles because she's funny and attractive. Whether or not
she frames her shots well is much less important.

~~~
olympus
Agree with you, but it saddens me that people will listen to her just because
she's "attractive." She's not _that_ good looking, she just wears a lot of
makeup. I'd have a conversation with her in a bar, but since she's hundreds of
miles away from me I don't have to pretend that she's interesting because I
don't get anything out of it.

~~~
Trapick
I put funny first for a reason - I think that's the primary reason for her
popularity.

------
jarrett
Blaming the rules of the game is sometimes appropriate, but not in the case.
This is a free market for entertainment if there ever was one. Much freer than
TV or movies.

The high-volume clicks that the author reviles? These consist of millions of
individual consumer choices. The viewers decide what they want to watch.
Apparently, this is what people like. Maybe old media didn't realize that and
was wasting their money all along, or maybe tastes have just changed. But
either way, if you don't like what's popular on YouTube (which I don't), you
probably just have different tastes. Fortunately, there is plenty of diversity
of YouTube, so you're not stuck with what's popular.

Which raises a question about this article: What exactly is the author
criticizing? Surely it's not the _lack_ of good content, because there is more
of that than ever. It seems to be the mere popularity of bad content. But if
bad content is popular, what of it? I don't mind. If it is truly bothersome,
one can always take comfort in snobbery, which can be a lot of fun.

If Google were somehow distorting the market by deliberately promoting low-
quality stuff, I'd blame the system. But based on the facts as stated by the
author, I don't see any reason to believe that.

------
jpdoctor
> _The same can pretty much be said about the rest of YouTube’s top “talent.”
> From Shane Dawson to Smosh, it’s almost universally bad content, bad jokes,
> bad premises, bad production value._

Oh, you mean just like regular TV.

~~~
kunai
TV wasn't that bad 10-15 years ago. Formulaic as they were, 90s sitcoms used
to always entertain, even if they didn't have much new to bring to the table.

Now, of course, we have mindless nonsense on TV, but I'm afraid YouTube is
even worse. I have no subscribers on YouTube, and I never watch any of the
producers listed in the article.

I generally use it for music (I listen to a lot of jazz, and Spotify has very
little jazz music), and watching arbitrary YouTube videos that end up in links
from Hacker News.

And the occasional technology video.

EDIT:

What's interesting about the article is the trail of comments left by top
YouTubers, such as Ryan Higa, Tay Zonday, and Lamarr Wilson. Really
entertaining to read their responses.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _90s sitcoms used to always entertain_

They lost me in the 80s (I watched a ton in the 70s).

Never could manage to go back.

Edit: I came up with two exceptions

1\. Jon Stewart 2\. Pinky and the Brain.

For different reasons, both of those could get me to turn on a TV.

------
olympus
In addition to the author's points about how the videos are constructed
(thumbnail tricks, headline bait) to gain views, you also have to consider the
basic mechanism involved in getting views: accessibility to a large population
of people. If your videos are created at such a high level that only people
with an IQ>130 can understand, you won't get that many views, and even fewer
subscribers. If you target the crowd with average to below average
intelligence then you have a much larger market. What do people with
average/below average intelligence care about? They want to see people doing
stupid stuff. They don't care about production value that much. They want to
see someone looking like an idiot because it makes them feel better about
themselves. This is the singular reason for low quality crap on YouTube and
TV. The audience that can truly appreciate high quality shows is very small
and can't sustain that much programming.

I'd also like to point out that not all YouTube channels suck. There is a
solid community of educational YouTubers which make good stuff [1]. Also,
SourceFed is where I go to get caught up on news that other people want to
talk about and I only have 5 minutes to spare. Phil DeFranco's empire is an
example of a business built on YouTube.

[1]Maybe that should be "who make good stuff" or "whom make good stuff." Maybe
I should watch more YouTube videos on grammar and less about NASA.

~~~
VLM
"If your videos are created at such a high level that only people with an
IQ>130 can understand, you won't get that many views"

That's a terrible specific example because you only need 0.25% of the American
population to watch to get a gold plaque, but by the old standard of 95% of
the population scores within 2 SD of the mean aka 70-130 IQ, that means your
videos would appeal to about 2.5% of the population, or ten times as many
people as you'd need to achieve the coveted youtube gold plaque.

I get what you're trying to say even if the example was not so good. The
problem is no one watches youtube, so the small fraction of popular videos is
pretty small if you compare it to the fraction of the population who are
smart.

"They don't care about production value that much." Production quality is a
DSW for professional producers and no one else cares. Attractive young woman I
saw in the lunchroom today got plenty of attention from the guys despite not
having rehearsed her lines and screwing up the joke punchline. And lighting
and costumes weren't any good and none of us had much of a decent camera
angle. Nothing in life that's memorable ever seems to be hollywood perfect,
and no one minds but the professional production crews.

------
t1mg
This article completely misses the point. It is not glossy fine hd quality
that attracts, it is the soul and heart that youtubers put into videos. Be it
Jenna Marbles showing an example of a strong woman, Shane Dawson who gives
hope and inspiration to bullied kids across the country - you can't do the
same if you will be just pouring dollars. And no, they have someone to be
'good' for - Jenna has 8,785,657 highly engaged subscribers on youtube only,
who value her sincerity above video quality.

~~~
Zimahl
Agreed.

I watch only a couple YouTube channels actively and there's a common thread in
almost all of them: the 'host' has an interesting personality. Sometimes that
personality is completely fabricated and sometimes it's real - it doesn't
really matter since viewers don't care. It's a lot like how the Stephen
Colbert on 'The Colbert Report' isn't really the real-life Stephen Colbert.
The videos also are typically more throwaway than TV - and that's why
production is so low and the comparisons don't hold up.

It's the allure of a la carte TV, where if you want some girl talk, gun
videos, a let's play, or funny cat compilation video, it's all there and
easily digestible at any point in the day.

------
lmm
One thing we saw from that $100 million was that higher production values
don't translate into more views. But really, why should they? What matters is
content; I'm very happy for people to continue producing videos in their
living room on their laptop, if the content is good.

------
btilly
I suspect that this article makes more sense if you've read his book, which
hits on the same themes with a lot more context, and a lot more history.

Youtube optimizes for grabbing attention in well-defined bite sized chunks
that people think they can spare. A little dopamine hit, followed by another,
followed by another, followed by..why didn't I get anything done today? The
interaction isn't meaningful. It isn't rich. It doesn't improve our lives. But
it is addictive.

If you don't see what is wrong with this, I recommend reading
<http://www.highexistence.com/why-you-should-avoid-the-news/> until you think
you understand it. Then re-read the article above with that in mind.

------
dredmorbius
Much of the blame for vapid content propogation on YouTube must also be
assigned to YouTube's own content recommendations engine. This:

 _Won't accept no for an answer._ You can't select and item and say "never,
ever, under any circumstances, show this to me again." You can't even delete
it from the recommendations list.

 _Once you fall down a YouTube rathole, you stay there._ YouTube never forgets
(or requires a severe amount of ass-kicking and browser/history deletion to be
told to forget). Random crap content I've viewed long ago seems (and of
course, I can't know for sure) to result in promoting the same sort of crap
content. You've all ended up in _that_ corner of YouTube, and there's no way
out.

 _YouTube promotes its own recommendations over what you've searched for._
When I look for content, rather than have the search results represented in
the recommendations list, it's YouTube's own selections. Which are often ...
not what I want. But don't be tempted to click (see "rathole" above).

 _Mass markets favor common denominators._ There's _amazingly_ good stuff on
YouTube, for whatever your definition of amazing is. But often, that's going
to be ver specific to who _you_ are and what _your_ interests are. The only
thing I can guarantee is that the intersection of your interests with the rest
of the world is likely to be at a pretty base level.

 _Eyeball economies favor vapidity._ We're seeing this in many areas (news,
Web content, videos). Until user-selection tools become better at countering
this, we'll continue to see the problem.

 _There is really good content with relatively poor production values._ Having
an interest in fitness, Boris "johnny mnemonic" Bachmann's "Squat Rx" video
series is _great_. It's a one-man production filmed at low (320p) resolution
with spotty audio levels. But the depth of knowledge is excellent. Thankfully,
it's filmed with a tripod and well edited.
<http://www.youtube.com/user/johnnymnemonic2>

_Production quality doesn't translate to high-value content._ "Vsauce" is a
highly-produced video series. The information content is virtually nil (and
the energy level is beyond annoying). The "origional series" "Blue" is ...
beyond stupid.

 _Production quality CAN further boost high-value content._ The TED Talk video
series, and RSA Animate videos are excellent. If viewed from a production
perspective, there's a lot of work that goes into them, and poor imitations
are poor, though some other parties have used similar techniques well, see the
Post Carbon Institute: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ-J91SwP8w>

_YouTube handles spam / MVP poorly._ A popular video will be grabbed and
repurposed by spammers and mindless video propogators / mindless viral
propogators _endlessly_. It results in a huge duplication of content (often at
increasing levels of video/audio quality degredation). See especially "fail"
video compilations. No, it's a trap! (See: "rathole", above).

Chalk it up to my own boring interests, but finding micro-channel content
relevant to specific areas is one of the huge wins of YouTube. Interviews,
seminars, conference sessions recorded, and other informational content. Along
with a bit of entertainment. The problem of course is that such content has
very little visibility at scale -- it's part of the "long tail". And despite
what some Cluetrainists would want you to believe, the real money is still at
the head.

------
ejsaz
Throughout modern history (certainly long before the internet) creative works
that become the most popular are not necessarily that of the best quality.
They're usually those that cater to the interests of the most people.

It happens to be that most people wish for regularly-updated pieces of
entertainment that give them a particular emotional stimulus, regardless of
their "quality". Aspects of human nature like these affect markets involving a
macrocosm like the community of those that watch YouTube. Changing the pay
model won't fix that. In the end, the number of people who want to view one's
creative work determines how much the creator earns.

So really, rather than being a complaint about YouTube, this article is a
general complaint about how things of "bad quality" are more popular than
things of "good quality", which is a half-handed complaint about an aspect of
human nature in the public macrocosm. This can't really be fixed unless one
limits the audience in some way, and often it's a much more logical decision
not to do that.

------
tomjen3
All I get from that is that betabeat is pissed that the audience doesn't
understand that they must care about production value and how much money is
being spent to make those videos.

Don't get me wrong I find the Young Turks to be so badly produced that I can't
stand to watch them -- but that doesn't mean that I get to tell others what
they should value.

------
Sven7
What is being run, unintentionally by YouTube and its army of content
generators, is a massively parallel search algorithm that evolves and
optimizes itself to find every facet of human weakness. Networks effects on
the internet allow it to run at an unprecedented speed and scale.

There is a certain ironic beauty to how destructive the system as a whole
becomes. Everyone gains. The content producer, YouTube and the advertisers are
locked in an addictive feedback loop. Even the users gain through the quantity
and diversity of content.

Exactly like the housing bubble, everyone including the rating agencies did
well right up till the end.

~~~
Zimahl
Unlike the housing bubble no one loses in the end. Sure, the Youtube revenue
stream will dry up but that's the nature of the business. Either the content
providers will move on to The Next Big Thing(TM) or will just be replaced by
someone else. I don't think any of them believe that they can continue doing
this for 30 years.

~~~
Sven7
When human weakness is targeted(unintentionally & uncontrollably) at such an
unprecedented scale, users loose. people loose.

And like the housing bubble, "at the end", everyone is going to be looking at
one another and saying don't blame us everyone else was doing it too.

------
bennesvig
No mention of Devin Graham's channel? High quality consistent videos:
<http://www.youtube.com/user/devinsupertramp>

Comparing the quality of TV to YouTube is like comparing the design of a
website vs the design of a newsletter. The expectations are much higher with
TV shows and websites. With email and YouTube, as long as it's
readable/watchable and the content is good, people will come back.

------
bakztfuture
I couldn't help but agree with a lot in this article. Youtube's video page
tends to be too busy and distracting. It's more of an entertainment/pop
culture platform, if anything. It's really hard for tutorial/educational
content to rise, and since they don't reach that many page views many channels
don't collect much revenue from youtube.

which is why, recently I launched a site called Starseed - it's a youtube-like
platform just for tutorial/educational videos. Starseed.io was created so that
tutorial authors can upload tutorials on any topic they care about – no matter
how advanced – for free and start collecting donations on their video’s page
from day one. It's sort of like each channel on starseed is like the PBS
network - getting funded by its viewers.

you can check it out at <http://www.starseed.io/>.

I hope, one day, educational channels can sit on a platform meant for their
growth and not competing against epic meal time lol.

------
nextw33k
I watched Idiocracy [1] last night for the first time. The story is very
clever in parts. Certainly the description of a film that was considered the
best because it was just a picture of someone farting. Is taking the style of
Youtube to the extreme.

The original article is pointing to that future, where Generation C's
attention is on the low brow entertainment and traditional production cannot
sustain itself.

Like journalism today is fighting for survival (who's going to pay for a full
time reporter when you can get information off twitter?), television
production will also be fighting in 10-15 years time as the next generation of
adult switch off the satellite/cable TV in favour of Youtube style content.

[1] <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/>

------
wmil
Video production is a team sport. It's only going to look professional if you
hire a crew of experts.

And buy / rent a lot of expensive gear.

Someone like Jenna Marbles needs to focus on her content. Writing, recording,
and editing a weekly show is more work than you think.

------
CodeCube
There's a few well known youtubers in the comments to that article ... kind of
interesting to see their responses :) But yeah, I kind of agree. Youtube is a
new thing, it doesn't have to adhere to conventional notions of "quality".

This is oddly inverted, but I remember a few years ago I was working at EA
Tiburon when EA did the whole exclusive NFL deal. There was much wailing and
gnashing of teeth over that, and people complaining about year after year
releases of Madden, with few improvements ... but you know what? consumers buy
it, and so the party continues. Same goes with youtube ... the content
obviously provides value or entertainment for a large number of people. Don't
fight it, just accept that it is what it is.

------
ereckers
HeadOn apply directly to the forehead.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is3icfcbmbs>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeadOn>

It works for some. Actually it works for a lot, and that doesn't mean it's a
bad thing. Most people go through the day without the intuitive eye for wit,
great taste, and appreciation for production value that a media manipulator
and PR strategist would have, but I wouldn't say that makes the world a worse
place. What's good and what's effective can be 2 separate things entirely.

------
corbett3000
The content is terrible because the audience is terrible.

We are stupid.

The content is therefore stupid.

It has to play to us. It plays to what we want.

This isn't hard.

------
the_cat_kittles
Its really arrogant to think you know what "good" is, universally. No matter
how much you argue for why something (media, art, music-ish stuff) is bad or
good, it really doesn't change people's minds- when was the last time you were
personally convinced that you didn't like something after enjoying it?

------
caycep
I'm just surprised that there's that much revenue in youtube videos

~~~
JoeKM
I wonder how much revenue these channels would produce if comments were
universally disabled.

Nearly every popular YouTube video is its own discussion board. There are
people discussing the video, other comments, and completely unrelated topics.
You see comments like "Hey, I'm back. How are you guys doing?" -- which
implies this is a person who treats the video as its own self-contained forum.

Then of course there's the trolls who perpetuate conversation by inciting
others. It's ironic to think trolls earn video channels ad revenue.

------
taeric
Alternatively, why are our standards so damned high?

Is there not a decent chance that many people watch what seems like "lower
quality" stuff because it is more relatable.

