
American kids would much rather be YouTubers than astronauts - sanqui
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/american-kids-would-much-rather-be-youtubers-than-astronauts/
======
m-i-l
Children will only say they want to be things they are exposed to and
understand. Looking at the list for nowadays, it still includes teachers,
athletes and musicians, which they see in the media and might be able to
imagine themselves doing. It doesn't include things like lawyers and computer
programmers, which aren't careers children are particularly aware of, and even
if they were they wouldn't fully appreciate. So the story here is simply that
astronauts aren't in the media as much as they were during the Space Race and
Cold War. Don't think it is anything to worry about - they'll probably change
their minds by the time they grow up anyway. And who knows, by the time they
grow up there might be new careers that we can't even imagine these days (I
can pretty much guarantee that almost no-one would have imagined jobs like
"social media influencer" and "machine learning data cleanser" when I was
young).

~~~
bpyne
" It doesn't include things like lawyers and computer programmers"

When my daughter was in 4th or 5th grade they had a "career day" in which
students could meet parents who were in jobs they found interesting. I offered
to talk with kids about being a software developer. The organizer contacted me
the day before to let me know that nobody signed up to talk with me. I was a
bit crestfallen. ;-)

~~~
xeromal
I'm sure if you would have said you could make video games, you'd have a huge
line of kids!

~~~
mywittyname
This was exactly the segue my colleague would use when speaking to school
children about computer science.

------
sandworm101
Take this from a former airforce pilot: the more you learn about the reality
of such jobs, the less you want to do them. Infighting, backstabbing, constant
testing by people whose _job_ is to fail you, zero room for creativity, and
near-zero input into how and where you live your life... it's not worth it.

Then when you finally get up at the controls of that cool plane your time is
broken down into 5-minute increments. More tests. More senerios. More chances
to fail. And if you do fail, all that effort means absolutely nothing in any
other job or trade. There is a joke in TopGun about them going from f14s to
driving trucks. That isnt too far from reality. Look into what entry-level
commercial/civilian pilots make.

That said ... i did have a big smile on my face while doing my first
aerobatics in a proper plane. 5 minutes of smile after 4+ years of testing.

~~~
flycaliguy
An airforce pilot must have some pull at the bar though...

~~~
liberte82
Sure, but you don't have to be an airforce pilot to say you're one at a bar.
Why go to all that effort?

~~~
odshoifsdhfs
I like the way you think :)

------
tokai
So do you want to have a creative carrier where you are your own boss, and
you'll touch the lives of other people directly.

Or do you want to train you whole life to sit in LEO half a summer to push
buttons.

Makes sense to me.

~~~
mochomocha
I'm hoping you have the minority opinion here!

"Youtuber" doesn't mean being your own boss at all. It means being a pretense
for advertising, and having your sole source of income depends on the whims of
a gigantic monopoly.

~~~
someguydave
As opposed to a NASA astronaut, who must spend his or her days laboring under
the regulations of the US Government, and whose sole income depends on the
whims of its gigantic monopoly.

~~~
mochomocha
So you're comparing the income stability of a "government type" job to the
high-volatility of advertising dollars coming from the quickly moving trends
of online platforms?

~~~
someguydave
In theory, all government employees could be fired tomorrow, if it pleases
Congress, the President, and the Courts.

~~~
imgabe
In theory all YouTubers could be "fired" tomorrow if it pleases Google (to
shut down, demonitize, or otherwise alter YouTube).

I'd put that as significantly more likely, not that either one is very likely
at all.

------
nencrystation
Post-Apollo they've always preferred whatever the contemporary version of
"rock star" is to Astronaut. Non-story.

~~~
TallGuyShort
And during Apollo, the Astronauts kind of were a contemporary version of "rock
star": they were chosen from a pool of daring test pilots, they drove fancy
custom Corvettes, etc. As the initial problems with space flight were worked
out, space flight increasingly become a specialization for science and
engineering than something for highly qualified dare devils with "the right
stuff".

I'm more intrigued by the disparity in China - they seem to be in a similar
phase to Apollo, where there's massive national support for the program and
it's attached to a sense of national pride. I wonder if it's also that
culturally they've tended to more aggressively exhaust natural resources so
colonization elsewhere feels like a more natural next step.

~~~
rjf72
It's still very much something for highly qualified 'dare devils.' Around 4%
of all astronauts have ended up dying 'on the job.' It's getting safer, but
it's still one of the most risky jobs there is. For instance the Soyuz is the
safest and most well tested launch system ever invented having flown some 1700
times - far surpassing any other rocket. Yet even there as recently as about 9
months ago there was a near catastrophe. This [1] is a video of the incident.
Everything's going perfectly fine and nominal until one of the infinite number
of things that can go wrong did go wrong, and the crew nearly lost their
lives. Anecdotes such as this mean alot when we're only launching a handful of
people to space per year.

This [2] is the American astronaut on the trip - Nick Hague. MIT masters in
aerospace engineering, decorated colonel in the air force who acted as a test
pilot for a wide array of different fighter craft, deployed for five months to
Iraq where he enaged in experimental recon and flew combat missions, and so
on. And that's a pretty typical resume.

I think a problem we have is that NASA administration have for years been just
abysmal at getting the public interested in space. And this is a core
requirement for their continued successful operation. Public interest drives
funding. Without it, you get what NASA has turned into today -- huge chunks of
their funding going to go-nowhere pork barrel projects and the youth of
society preferring to post videos on the internet than go to space.

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0l5QBmqQoI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0l5QBmqQoI)

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hague](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hague)

------
frereubu
Astronauts were hugely famous with massive amounts of media coverage in 1969.
Who's to say this isn't just about wanting to be someone famous, whether
that's an astronaut in 1969 or a YouTuber in 2019?

------
celeritascelery
Becoming a YouTuber is much more likely then being an astronaut ever was, so
this may be a good thing.

~~~
arnaudsm
You'd be surprised : there are more astronauts alive than YouTubers with >10M
subscribers.

~~~
donquichotte
Wow, I think you are right. 422 youtubers with >10e6 subscribers [1], 536
people have been to space [2].

[1]
[https://socialblade.com/youtube/top/500/mostsubscribed](https://socialblade.com/youtube/top/500/mostsubscribed)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nam...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_name)

~~~
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
The number of _active_ astronauts though is a lot lower than the number of
_active_ YouTubers with a lot of subscribers. Also, 10M subscribers is a lot.
One of my favorite YouTube channels has about 1M subscribers.

[https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCZdQjaSoLjIzFnWsDQO...](https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCZdQjaSoLjIzFnWsDQOv4ww)

SocialBlade estimates their earnings as being _at a minimum_ $4k per month.
But the range is up to $56k per month. They also have a patreon where they
have almost 4k people donating at least $1 per video, although when they last
had their donation amounts public the average was substantially higher. IIRC
that was was close to $10k per video. At four videos a month, that's $40k per
month. They also were basically given a $1M boat by a luxury boating company,
and many of their videos are sponsored by Audible or Squarespace.

So, at least for this channel, $500k/y in revenue is a pretty conservative
estimate, although I'd bet even money they make more than $1M per year. I
think setting the bar of "famous and successful" at 10M subs is too high.

~~~
nostrademons
> SocialBlade estimates their earnings as being at a minimum $4k per month.
> But the range is up to $56k per month.

By comparison, a "software engineer that works for YouTube" might have total
gross compensation of about $35K/month, and there are > 1000 of them. Both
your off-ramps and your reach goals are better too: if you don't get to be a
software engineer that works for YouTube, you could get roughly equivalent
compensation at any FAANG, a little bit less (but still six figures) at
another software company, or if you're lucky and brave, found the next Twitch
and sell it for a billion dollars. Your earnings on YouTube fall off much more
dramatically if you don't get to the 1M subscriber mark.

You're almost always better off going into the unglamorous profession that
enables (and controls the purse strings to) the glamorous profession than
going into the glamorous profession itself.

~~~
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
There are ~12k YouTubers with >1M subs, though, so the math is a little more
generous than those with 10M subs. Also, remember that this couple has more
sources of income than just YouTube revenue. There are surely some YouTube
engineers making >$1M/y, but not very many. And none of them have a job called
"living on a boat and doing fun boat things," nor can most of them boast a
basic cost of living south of $40k.

NOW, none of this should be taken as an endorsement of YouTuber as a viable
career path for most people. You are, I think, correct that your expected
value is much better if you pursue software engineering. Especially if you're
not extremely attractive, multi-talented, adventurous, and highly risk-
tolerant. It is also a lot of work to make these videos -- SLV had one video
where they went over the actual process of making their videos, and it is a
six day a week job. But I want to make sure we're being fair to the YouTuber
lifestyle here. For the ones that make it, very decent or even insanely good
money is possible -- more than most people realize.

------
oceanghost
This says way more about the US, and NASA than the kids today.

The US doesn't have a shuttle fleet. We beg the Russians for a ride to space
if we need one.

I grew up watching the shuttle flights, I'm 41, I watched every one I could
when I was a kid, including Challenger and Columbia.

I was in the 2nd grade during the Challenger disaster, we watched the launch
live in the classroom. It still upsets me to think about it. And after that
disaster, we rebuilt ourselves, we did better, and we pressed on.

My children will never have an emotional attachment to space travel like that
because the US does not have an effective space program.

So, of course, the kids don't want to be astronauts. They want to be whatever
we the adults, model for them. And, collectively, we've been some shitty role
models lately.

------
gph
I mean if the space industry/tourism takes off in the next couple decades like
it's poised to, kids in this generation will have a better chance of getting
to space as a private citizen than by becoming an astronaut.

The title of astronaut will likely start to change in meaning as well. Perhaps
in the future it will just be a catch-all term for those who work directly in
outer space as opposed to tourists or onboard staff.

~~~
balabaster
Or it'll just become like "pilot"

------
pvaldes
So they choose to play with videogames and makeup in their room, instead the
super-dangerous activity that could freeze, burn, asphyxiate, mutilate or kill
them with 99% of probability if something fails, and will temporarily destroy
their muscles and health if all goes 100% ok?

Such smart kids. Their parents should be proud.

------
bwb
I am really proud to see teacher at #2 it looks like in all 3 countries, a
great profession we just need to comp more.

~~~
asark
In the US teaching's in an interesting position, being one of the only
salaried jobs with reasonable amounts of time off (once you take out the parts
of Summer teachers are actually working—planning, late Summer meetings and
such, plus the extra hours during the school year, it's still quite a bit
better than most US jobs) that you don't have to fight or compromise to
attain, and one of the only ones where taking lots of parental leave—even
repeatedly—isn't likely to do serious harm to your career. The schedule also
matches up pretty well with when one's kids are out of school, both during and
outside the school year. It's probably the most family-friendly common job
there is by a long shot, _and_ there are teaching jobs anywhere there are
people so it's relocation-friendly.

~~~
dwater
The reason that taking parental leave doesn't hurt your career is because if
you stay a classroom teacher, you have no opportunity for advancement. And
although salary ranges vary widely by district, there are many districts where
your salary doesn't change by more than 20% over 30 years. So it isn't really
treated as a career in the sense you've used it as much as it is employment.

~~~
dragontamer
Teacher -> Principal -> Superintendent -> County Executive

Obviously, not everyone wants to go up the management chain, but engineers
don't always go to middle-management or C-level either.

~~~
asark
Also: consulting, curriculum design, instructional coaching and a bunch of
other options, if you care to aim for them. Granted a lot of them are more
likely to be parasitical than actual teaching is (though each of them _can_ be
useful and good!), but status, pay, and autonomy failing to track _actually
effective and useful work_ is hardly limited to the teaching field. It's kinda
the norm.

------
li_am
Popular YouTubers will easily be able to afford a trip or two to space in
their lifetime, so it kind of makes sense?

------
ydnaclementine
Kids in the 80s wanted to be rock stars, it’s just the trend

~~~
geggam
No we didn't.

We just wanted to party :)

90s wanted to be a rockstar

80s
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk)

90s
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmeUuoxyt_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmeUuoxyt_E)

~~~
klyrs
Speak for yourself. I wanted to be an inventor. Mission accomplished.

Edit: I wonder if Back to the Future played a role in this...

------
labrador
Back in my day, American kids would much rather be rock stars than astronauts

~~~
LanceH
They would rather be/have been rock stars than be astronauts.

They would rather have "walked on the moon" than played a sold out MSG.

Surely none of the youtube kids of today could resist the selfie opportunities
of a moonwalk.

------
oneepic
In my head this sounds pretty bad. this sounds like kids won't be aspiring to
be in a career that naturally involves some degree of curiosity and wonder and
general coolness (astronaut), but rather some rando on YouTube with a pop
filter and fast editing that already thinks he knows everything. And calls out
people, and talks trash, and shows off and constantly tells people to buy them
stuff on Amazon and support his content on Patreon or whatever.

...Fuck, our kids are gonna be assholes.

~~~
noxToken
Or kids want to be kids. They want to do things that they like such as playing
games, hanging out (podcast), or reviewing tech/games/fashion/beauty. They
want to do them with people they like. They want to share the experience with
other people. That's one form of a YouTuber.

There are bad actors in this space. There are bad actors in every space.
Should we label children who want to start a business assholes since companies
like Nestle and Uber exist? Should we label children who want to be
politicians assholes since some politicians vote for whoever pays the most?
Should we label children who want to be scientific researchers assholes since
we know some researchers fudge their findings to keep funding?

------
m23khan
I think this is just down to the modern media technology/trends and kids
lifestyles these days. When kid media staples such as Sesame Street, Mr.
Rogers, Bill Nye the science guy, etc. is replaced by pop-style/hyper-paced
youtube stars, what can you expect?

Would an average 8 year old be drawn towards 'Neil Armstrong or Chris
Hadfield' or towards a popular youtube star close to their own age group?

------
viburnum
Kids are smart, being an astronaut is a dangerous and pointless job, like
doing motorcycle stunts or BASE jumping.

~~~
wahern
Is BASE jumping a job? I met a tower climber once. He loved his job, and I bet
if he could he'd jump off some of the structures he works on.

"Tower climber" or "tower technician" seem to be the common terms according to
Google. But the person I met used an unfamiliar, archaic term to describe
himself, which I can't recall. Anyone know?

EDIT: Steeplejack! I think Jim Phelan was the guy I met:
[http://www.uphigh.com/](http://www.uphigh.com/)

------
RenRav
It makes sense. Kids not too long ago wanted to be tv stars because that was
all they watched. I think tv has been on its way out for years and youtube has
mostly filled the void. Now they just watch youtube. 'Celebrities' to them are
primarily youtube celebs.

------
pzone
I'm 31 and would certainly rather be a Youtuber than an astronaut.

------
JoeAltmaier
Kids used to want to be movie stars. Has anything changed?

------
kappi
Why should kids become astronauts! It is low paid and is one of the most
riskiest job with long term health issues. Kids these days are practical.

------
throwaway66666
Considering that some astronauts turned youtubers, or netflix documentary
actors, the famous once at least. Can you blame them?

------
youdontknowtho
I'm starting to think that some people believe that the kids are not all
right. Oh no.

------
asaph
You can be both a YouTuber _and_ an astronaut. They are not mutually
exclusive.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Not without getting everything signed off by ten layers of risk-adverse media-
conscious management. Imagine the hysteria if Buzz Aldrin spoke his mind on
youtube!

------
bryanrasmussen
how much work you seeing Astronauts get in the last decade?

~~~
brighter2morrow
Yeah it's also not very fun to go into space. The food's alright but there's
not much atmosphere

------
lol_jono
kids these days

------
Circuits
Perhaps this is because all the astronauts they see are 40+ years old and are
simply not cool/popular. Whereas, all the YouTubers they see are 20 something
and are incredibly popular?

Short answer, it's cool to be a YouTuber.

------
aSithLord
This is why nobody under 30 should be allowed to vote because this poll
wouldn't change much if it were conducted with 25 year olds..

~~~
Geimfari
Please post substantive comments instead. I would also assume that a majority
of 50 year olds would rather work on their own time making good content than
have a short lived, strenuous, and micromanaged career in lower earth orbit.
Doesn't mean those 50 year olds have bad opinions or should be dismissed.

~~~
aSithLord
it's not intended to be dismissive of an individual's dream, but a 50 year old
today is less likely to be a product of a failed education system than a 12
year old today.

------
northerdome
We don't invest in Nasa like we did and it doesn't capture the heart of the
nation like it once did. NASA cannot even gets its own astronauts to space.
Little wonder children instead look the the rockstars of their generation.

