
The Strange Online Aesthetic of the YouTube Shooting Suspect - rhema
https://newrepublic.com/article/147753/strange-online-aesthetic-youtube-shooting-suspect
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CryoLogic
My YouTube channel also used to net closer to $1k/mo (about 100 coding
tutorials) and as a result of frequent algorithm changes and algorithmic
demonetization now nets shy of $100 per month.

I am not fond of Google's censorship first philosophy, their willingness to
push their own viewpoints (many times not backed by logic, reasoning or data),
or the fact that they build platforms marketed for the users and than once
these platforms hit scale they kill off the teams that took care of the users
in favor of all-in monetization of any kind.

It is very sad what happened, but for a company with such a large monopoly in
search and in online user-generated video I have expected better. I can see
how this person would be furious if she lost nearly all of her income to a
change with no way of fixing it.

To clarify, I also lost my highest grossing video to a copyright troll and
YouTube ignored my support queries for 6 months before resolving it (about
$400/mo lost in that time). They did not make any efforts to replace my lost
income, and did not ban the copyright troll. I would have not been able to
reach them to resolve it either if I just went through support. I had to send
emails to support 3 times and than reach out on social media.

EDIT: And after a copyright troll steals your content, even if Google re-
instates it the video seems to be lower in the search results. Being #1 for a
search result is basically how you make money on YouTube if you aren't a
YouTube personality. After several months of your content being removed it
will lose several positions when it is visible in results again.

EDIT 2: [http://youtube.com/devfactor](http://youtube.com/devfactor)

EDIT 3: Does anyone fear this is how large corporations in the "gig" economy
will treat the people making them money in the future?

YouTube now treats creators as second rate citizens. It was definitely not
like that when the platform was younger and still growing.

Many people make their living on YouTube, operating as a 1099 contractor
similar to how many people are now making their living driving Lyft, Uber or
similar services.

Once Uber and Lyft hit market saturation can we expect massive QoL declines
for their drivers as well when the companies decide to pursue maximum profits
since they no longer need market share?

~~~
beagle3
Live by $PLATFORM, die by $PLATFORM.

The same story happened at YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and doubtlessly more
that I am unfamiliar with; likely also with older media like TV and newspaper.

The problem is mostly lack of competitors for a specific item. Vimeo might
work for you, but discoveribility on Vimeo is much lower - you’ll have to
actively promote yourself more.

~~~
reificator
Creative section on Twitch is much more likely, as there is a culture of
donation.

There's some demand for programming content there, especially if it can be
applied to game development.

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j-c-hewitt
Making shooters and other kinds of serial killers into celebrities does a lot
more to encourage future killers than it really 'educates' society on how to
prevent it. Promoting these kinds of stories for sheer titillation purposes
does more to undermine prevention of such crimes than anything else.

~~~
neuronexmachina
Yup. Here's the American Psychological Association statement about a study on
the topic:

[http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-
contagi...](http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-
contagion.aspx)

> “Unfortunately, we find that a cross-cutting trait among many profiles of
> mass shooters is desire for fame,” she said. This quest for fame among mass
> shooters skyrocketed since the mid-1990s “in correspondence to the emergence
> of widespread 24-hour news coverage on cable news programs, and the rise of
> the internet during the same period.”

> She cited several media contagion models, most notably one proposed by
> Towers et al. (2015), which found the rate of mass shootings has escalated
> to an average of one every 12.5 days, and one school shooting on average
> every 31.6 days, compared to a pre-2000 level of about three events per
> year. “A possibility is that news of shooting is spread through social media
> in addition to mass media,” she said.

> “If the mass media and social media enthusiasts make a pact to no longer
> share, reproduce or retweet the names, faces, detailed histories or long-
> winded statements of killers, we could see a dramatic reduction in mass
> shootings in one to two years,” she said. “Even conservatively, if the
> calculations of contagion modelers are correct, we should see at least a
> one-third reduction in shootings if the contagion is removed.”

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canadianwriter
Reading through her site and the like I see a lot of conspiracy - it's a theme
- that things are far bigger than can be controlled - there is a secret and I
am revealing it.

It's interesting how common that thread is in troubled people. Were there
signs that could have been seen? Not many people saw her videos or site and if
they did she was probably just skipped over as "the weirdo" and if someone
suggested she seek help she might have seen it as part of the bigger
conspiracy.

Not really going anywhere with this comment to be honest, it's just scary and
I don't see any real easy solutions to this kind of situation. There are
thousands of people with similar sites, similar youtube channels that will
continue. They probably wont do anything horrible but maybe they will. They
might seek help, they might not. It's kind of scary to me.

~~~
nickysielicki
Unless you're a complete bore, if you look at someone hard enough you can make
the case that they're a mental invalid. It's a useless thing to talk about,
because prior to her shooting anyone yesterday, the only thing that could have
warned us were just warning signs. Just as easily as she walked up to that
office and shot people, she could have changed her mind and gone about a
normal day and done nothing wrong. Does our society now support the idea of
precrime?

I sure as hell don't. It bothers me when every time something like this
happens, the question is always, "How could we have caught this?" or "how can
we make sure she didn't get a gun?" or "how could we have institutionalized
her?"

It's much more useful to talk about how to come to terms with the absolute
chaos in our world and structure your life around the principle that the world
is a fragile and dangerous place. Anyone can drive their car across the
centerline. Any two-bit dipshit can learn how to make aluminum powder bombs
and terrorize an entire city. Some crazy incel can walk up to your office and
fuck your whole life up as you're leaving for lunch.

This will always be the case. I don't understand why people think it's
reasonable to suggest that we can ever live in a world where your mortality
isn't seriously exposed, or that it would be a world that would be nice to
live in. Unless you're completely out of your fucking mind, most people are
incapable of truly coming to terms with it and going about their day, willing
to die at any time. Everyone else is afraid, and probably always will be.

I think some people cope with the fear by deluding themselves into thinking
security is just around the corner, if only we can just fix a few things like
gun access and mental invalids. We just need to do a few things just a little
bit better, and then it's all going to be great. These people live in a
fantasy world.

Others cope with the fear by isolating themselves and their families, avoiding
cities and anyone unlike themselves, maintaining a small circle of trust,
neanderthal style. This is antithetical to classical liberal values and thus
is unappealing for most young and open-minded people.

If you think you reject both of these approaches, I think you're probably just
in denial.

~~~
canadianwriter
My thinking wasn't to "stop" this fully - but seeings signs of mental health
and offering support can vastly lower the occurrences. Something we as a
society are terrible at. There's always a chance of course no matter how good
we get at lowering the harm but if we can lower the harm that's always
somethign to strive for.

~~~
DanBC
Mental illness doesn't predict violent behaviour.

Drug or alcohol addiction do; previous exposure to violence or previous
violent behaviour does; but mental illness by itself is a poor predictor for
violence.

Increasing the amount of mental health support available is a good thing to
do, but it probably wont do much to stop gun crime.

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gojomo
Looks to me like she was always a bit 'out there' – possibly even in
productively creative ways! – and wanted to be an avant-garde YouTube star.

But, because of her own limits in finding an audience (or tuning herself to an
audience), or simply never having a lucky lightning-strike of fame, she didn't
get the attention and wealth she wanted, and simmered with resentments.

Some background mental disorder(s) flared up – maybe due to some recent
personal relationship or financial crisis, or drug/medication issues – causing
a larger delusional/paranoid break from reality and civilized behavior.
(Though, it may come out that she'd had other less-violent breaks in the
past.)

Her known behavior before the violence doesn't strike me as that different
from lots of other histrionic online personalities, or righteous ranters
(either on mass media or in online niches), many with gigantic followings.

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ambivalents
> Critics and audiences have always been interested in the difference between
> an artist who seems to “mean” what they say, and one who is subverting that
> meaning. Does Cortright “mean” her videos, and if not, what makes them
> different from the “authentic” material created by Nasim Aghdam?

Jesus this article. It's grasping for some higher relevance beyond what we had
here: a troubled, mentally unstable woman with an online aesthetic that didn't
jive with what we in the West consider normal design standards.

It's not that we shouldn't be examining material like hers for patterns that
could potentially prevent future tragedies like this. But this is just feels
amateur and needlessly judgmental.

~~~
anigbrowl
That's too dismissive. You may not be familiar with this aesthetic but it's
actually got quite a following for the exact reasons the author mentions. So
she was mentally unstable; so was Van Gogh and so have many innovative artists
been through history (often due to their fraught economic circumstances). My
read of this tragedy is "starving artist attacks the corporation that
exploited her."

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tw1010
I wish there was more to this article. I think it's an interesting point,
almost of an @dril flavour. But all this article seemed to boil down to was
"hey, before anyone else covers this, look how weird the homepage of the
shooter is".

~~~
creep
I agree. The author did not even bother to make their point clear (something
something aesthetics something virtual illusions something personality), did
not even bother to speculate as much as they hinted they might. Shame.

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gscott
I posted some ground school videos years ago when YouTube only allowed 10
minutes of video and they were monetized making around $100 every 3 months.
YouTube is keeping that money now and even though it is a small amount I feel
it is unfair. I can see how this woman became really angry. There is no
alternative source to monetize videos other then YouTube and now the only way
you can earn an income from it is to have a huge following.

~~~
IamNotAtWork
Right, I think they said your content isn't monetized unless you have over 10k
subscribers and X number of uploaded videos. This makes it hard to make money
off of your cat, for example, as people click and share but don't subscribe.
It's also harder to have a stream of these viral videos.

It's kind of sad that it went this way but I think it can open opportunities
for alternatives to youtube.

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zylent
It almost seems like a scaling thing at this point. If .1% of people will at
some point commit a violent crime, at some scale you will have users that are
in that .1%. At 1,000 users, it's only one person. At 1m users, you've got a
sizeable population.

As an aside, I don't see much discussion surrounding the physical security (or
lack of) at Youtube HQ. Not saying this could have been prevented, but most of
my employers have had some form of card access system to limit the impact of
events such as this.

~~~
aoeusnth1
Google uses a card access system.

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IamNotAtWork
Her site is 503 at the moment.

