
Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber - minimaxir
http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/21/14683942/pewdiepie-controversy-youtube-drama
======
raesene6
I've been watching Youtube vids for a long time (well relatively, like 10+
years) and it's one of my primary forms of entertainment.

It has been very interesting to see youtubers come and go, a lot of them seem
to burn out on the schedule of trying to produce content regularly, which I
can understand, anyone who's edited videos would realise the time it can take
to produce something of good quality.

Pewdiepie is an interesting case as he's far and away the biggest "real"
channel on youtube (i.e. not VEVO or one of the generic youtube channels).

[https://vidstatsx.com/PewDiePie/youtube-
channel](https://vidstatsx.com/PewDiePie/youtube-channel) gives you an idea of
the size, he regularly gets 5-10 million views a day!

The controversy seems very click-baity to me, I read the articles and watched
his response videos. It seemed to me that he made some pretty bad taste
comments (if you've seen much of his content that shouldn't be a surprise) and
the WSJ deliberately sliced it up to take it out of context and produce the
most sensationalised headline possible.

All reminded me of the quote generally attribued to cardinal Richelieu.

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I
will find something in them which will hang him."

~~~
CommanderData
The pewdiepie controversy seems manufactured to me.

I get pewdiepies humor. I watch his videos anticipating his originality and I
guess 54 million subs do for varying reasons.

His ability to express himself and generate content that makes me laugh
repeatedly. He's not insensitive despite what some news articles say. The
anti-semitism thing is so overused today its a little meaningless. The only
way to push its worth is to generate headlines and articles to emphasis its
importance.

He jokes broadly about every culture and only seems to have issues with one
culture in particular, unsurprisingly.

It's reached a point it feels he's holding back something funny to please WSJ
- a huge, huge tragedy and loss to his freedom and originality.

~~~
fixermark
Ultimately, his freedom and originality haven't been impinged; if he wants to
say whatever he wants, he can make and host his own videos.

His freedom of speech doesn't override Disney's freedom of association or
YouTube's freedom of the press; they're under no obligation to publish or
promote anyone's content, and the counterweight to that is that people who
don't like their policies can boycott them.

But you're unlikely to find a successful boycott organized around the notion
that there should be no ramifications for paying strangers to hold up signs
that say "Death To All Jews."

~~~
adrianratnapala
This is all correct -- but it underlines the awkward moral spot that Google
(my employer) is in.

Our incentive is to pay lip service to freedom of speech while taking the path
of least resistance and censor to keep angry 3rd parties happy. You might
think this shuts down only speech beyond the pale. But we are still rewarding
those who act most offended, and our wisest course is to kowtow more and more.

That stuff is no danger to a society when the soap boxes are distributed about
land. But YouTube is a single platform in the position where it can one of the
most effective censors of film on earth.

It is more more powerful in this field than any government, -- except those
which can force our hand. Yet Google has the rights, and indeed duties of a
private company. And that is a long-term danger to society and to the company.

~~~
chiefalchemist
If we stopped saying things that might "offend" someone somewhere there would
be silence. What's interesting is, the more we try to silence certain voices,
the louder their message gets. Does demonization (?) work? Does it back fire ?
Take IS for instance. The stronger and more extreme the resistance (?) the
stronger it gets.

I'm certainly not defending hate, etc. Just wondering - out loud - if the old
countermeasure rules still apply.

~~~
fixermark
There are things that are pretty unlikely to offend, things that are very
likely to offend a lot of people, and things that are very likely to offend a
few people (this kind of humor is often called "punching down" when the few
are a low-power group and "punching up" when it's a high-power group).

Nobody is calling for zero offense; that's a slippery-slope argument that
doesn't really apply to the situation. And nobody has silenced PewDiePie; he's
completely free to continue to publish his content on YouTube (with proper
community flagging, within the guidelines of the YouTube community, and even
if he were no longer free to do so, he wouldn't be "silenced;" he'd just have
to move his content to .mp4s hosted out of his own pocket).

What has happened is YouTube and Disney have both exercised their option to no
longer pay the guy for being offensive, which they are perfectly within their
rights to do.

In terms of the more general "Just wondering aloud" question: The old
Streisand Effect is still in play, but the Internet is now a mature enough
platform that it has "these sites" and "those sites." You can find all manner
of things completely unacceptable to YouTube's community standards linked off
of 4chan. Keeping them off of YouTube does probably make them a little harder
for most web users to find (since YouTube's search, indexing, and relational
systems are so convenient). That's likely working as intended.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Agreed. They are free to hire and fire whoever they want. But that's not my
point. The question is this: Does marginalizing and demonizing - in the
internet era - make fringe ideas weaker or stronger? Or is "there's no such
thing as bad press" finally not true?

------
k-mcgrady
Does anyone here spend much of their usual 'entertainment' time watching
YouTube (specifically content creators not TED talks and such)? I started
doing it recently just to see what all the fuss is about as it seems pretty
common for younger people (and I'm 26 so it's not like I'm old but I didn't do
it).

After subscribing to a few channels I started watching stuff regularly.
Basically if I want to kill 10 mins I'll open up YouTube and there'll be
something to watch. I'm committing so little time I don't need to really think
about it before clicking (unlike say Netflix). On the other hand when I step
back a minute I notice that the videos provide incredibly little value as
opposed to usual entertainment sources. I could watch a crappy 20min sitcom
and it may be deemed trash but it still has a story and characters it feels
like it provides some value to me. I don't get that on YouTube. I've tried a
variety of the most popular channels and some other stuff and it's largely
memes and clickbait and something I forget about the moment I'm done watching.

It seems like a lot of the popular creators don't actually produce good
content but instead have managed to built a personality cult around themselves
that hooks very young people. I've noticed comments where people praise
'hustle' and 'content' and 'awesome product placement'.

Just interested on other people's thoughts on the platform and content.

Edit: Thanks for the replies everyone, very interesting.

~~~
jzymbaluk
I definitely spend a lot of my entertainment time watching youtube. I really
agree what you're saying as far as big content creators not offering much
substance to their videos, but it's wrong to think that the "big youtubers"
are the only ones making things on Youtube. I have my subscriptions filled
with some pretty amazing smaller youtubers who are making great, cerebral
content all the time. I'm more interested in non-fiction, while it sounds like
you're looking for fiction and story-telling, but I'll share some of my
favorite channels anyway

PBS idea channel -
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3LqW4ijMoENQ2Wv17ZrFJA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3LqW4ijMoENQ2Wv17ZrFJA)

Historia Civilis -
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv_vLHiWVBh_FR9vbeuiY-A](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv_vLHiWVBh_FR9vbeuiY-A)

Langfocus -
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNhX3WQEkraW3VHPyup8jkQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNhX3WQEkraW3VHPyup8jkQ)

Crash Course -
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6b17PVsYBQ0ip5gyeme-Q](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6b17PVsYBQ0ip5gyeme-Q)

Baz Battles - [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx-
dJoP9hFCBloY9qodykvw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx-
dJoP9hFCBloY9qodykvw)

Wendover Productions - [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9RM-
iSvTu1uPJb8X5yp3EQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9RM-iSvTu1uPJb8X5yp3EQ)

Practical Engineering -
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMOqf8ab-42UUQIdVoKwjlQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMOqf8ab-42UUQIdVoKwjlQ)

~~~
rhcom2
Primitive Technology -
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA)

has been my favorite recently. Hits the engineering and problem solving part
of my brain but is also weirdly very meditative without any talking.

~~~
bryanh
Be sure to turn on the subtitles - he narrates through CC what he is doing
which is often very interesting.

~~~
scaryspooky
Subtitles are different than Closed Captioning.

~~~
sangnoir
Not on YouTube - the menu entry is literally "Subtitles/CC"

------
and0
Went into the article expecting it to be silly, but there were actually a ton
of interesting insights, especially about how no one knows how to manage these
celebrities.

Also, slowbeef is being humble; he literally invented the LP and curated the
scene forever ago. His Metal Gear 2 annotated playthrough (from the mid-00s at
the latest, I'm remembering HTML tables) was absolutely hysterical (at least
to my teenage self), and was the only way I could read the earlier plot to
that series at the time. He's also been able to figure out how to hack ROMs
for translation that nobody else could and ran translation projects, like with
Policenauts. He's a hero in the gaming community and totally underrated, so
I'm always upset to not hear his name come up more often when people discuss
Let's Plays.

~~~
blhack
To anyone who was initially confused here, "LP" means "Let's play" (watch
somebody play videogames), not "Long Play" (record).

I didn't think I was _that_ old...

~~~
Mithaldu
There is ALSO a Long Play category for games, which is videos that do a full
play through of a game with zero commentary, and in as few segments as
possible. (Many longplays are just one video.)

------
minimaxir
It's worth nothing that this article was posted a month ago: since then, there
was another incident along the same lines where popular YouTuber JonTron
imploded for the same reasons as described in the article.

Jim Sterling has the most objective take on the sequence of events:
[http://www.thejimquisition.com/youtubers-say-the-darndest-
th...](http://www.thejimquisition.com/youtubers-say-the-darndest-things/)

~~~
Raknarg
JonTron isn't going to lose his subscriberbase from this though... I doubt
most of them care.

Personally I don't really, mostly because his personal views never come into
play on his actual show. This kind of thing always happens when you get
someone involved in comedy to participate in a serious discussion, you start
realizing they have opinions and views that you may not like.

~~~
Bartweiss
> JonTron isn't going to lose his subscriberbase from this though... I doubt
> most of them care.

I'm sure many of his casual viewers won't care (or even know), but spaces like
his subreddit have a lot of people condemning him and saying they're done with
his channel. That's the sort of thing that can eventually eat away at content
quality by breaking your relationship with bigger fans - think of how Many A
True Nerd depends on subreddit feedback to fix mistakes and guide
playthroughs.

~~~
undersuit
>subreddit have a lot of people condemning him and saying they're done with
his channel

Yet he broke 50k subscribers on March 16 and he's at 51,798 as I write this
comment. It's almost like you can say anything you want on Reddit.

~~~
Bartweiss
Again, "many of his casual viewers won't care". Several people elsewhere in
this thread have observed that his subscriber count _did_ dip, but normal
growth has brought him back above that level already.

My point was a very specific one, which is that a lot of longtime viewers who
heavily engaged with his content (e.g. posted at length on the subreddit) seem
to have walked away from engaging or perhaps subscribing at all. I think
that's damaging even if his viewer count doesn't tank, which is why I gave a
specific example of how it could hurt a channel.

~~~
Nadya
_> My point was a very specific one, which is that a lot of longtime viewers
who heavily engaged with his content (e.g. posted at length on the subreddit)
seem to have walked away from engaging or perhaps subscribing at all._

On the contrary - a large number of them had little or no history on the
subreddit and it reeked of a bizarre form of astroturfing with plenty of new
accounts repeating very similar messages. To what end? No idea. He's popular
enough that it is totally possible he had a number of subscribers that felt
the need to join Reddit and speak out. But any long term fan would know Jon's
opinions on such things. So if anything, they weren't the most engaging of
fans and "no harm done".

Mostly smelled of rotten fish to me.

------
KirinDave
Okay, so... occasionally it comes up that I experimented with being a gaming
youtuber as a way to escape some of the difficulties I was having with the SV
ecosystem. I worked hard, I connected with other famous Youtubers, and bam, I
was profitable (sorta) and producing content.

Everything in this article about a capricious Youtube is true. Everything in
this article about the underappreciated difficulty of producing this content
is true. I produced a lot of media, but I easily put 5x hours into it (it
doesn't help I play simulation and builder games). Everything about how
expensive and difficult that job is is _true_.

And it's also true that the communities of Youtube and their related
satellites (a lot of fandom on Tumblr, SA's leftovers, 4chan, Twitter, even
obscure stuff like GaiaOnline) are... They're hateful. People will find a
reason to hate you. Your fans will pick fights in your name. You'll frequently
get criticism from both sides of an issue, and they're not always as cut-and-
dry as the PewDiePie Nazi joke cards were. I was threatened doxing by a 15
year old, I called in to the SF police to warn them that I was expecting my
workplace to be SWATed because people were mad I was "an ally of the feminazi
gay community".

 _But..._ Folks, at the end of the day none of this really excuses humor about
rape, violence, racism, etc. And if you do cross that line because you're
desperate or exhausted you _do_ get an out. You can say Mea Culpa, apologize
profusely, donate some revenue to charity and _people move on_. The PDP's
particular crisis keeps hovering (besides his degree of exposure) is that he's
decided to ally with the unrepentant, openly racist parts of Youtube like
Sargon.

There is an implication from this article, as I read it, that it's inevitable
that people will break down or make mistakes. I agree with this part, but it
also implies that we should forgive unrepentant bad actors who effectively
say, "It's about the money. I thought I'd make more if I had people put up
cards making light of antisemitism."

That's not a new thought, and these consequences are not new consequences.

~~~
6stringmerc
You're so right that the modern price of fame / celebrity attention is such a
minefield. There used to be misguided or mentally unstable folks who would
stalk or take things too far, but I think the amount of power modern tech /
networks can be deployed for purposes of, well, being mean online has more
real world affects than at first.

What I'm saying is that far too frequently by the time a young person who
craves fame gets it, they're naive on how the system might chew them up and
spit them out, and just as they're getting some valuable experience, their
time has passed and they're forgotten to the sands of other failed acts.

~~~
KirinDave
It'd be an outright lie for me to say that some folks don't try and prove
themselves by coming into conflict with a specific person more famous than
them.

But I also think it's a somewhat inevitable outcome that as you become a focal
point for attention you'd better be ready for said scrutiny and for you to be
interpreted within the dialogues other people are having. Asking people to do
otherwise is absurd, they cannot.

------
pdkl95
The internet has changed the nature of "fame". In the past, you needed to
generally _buy into_ fame. To be famous, you needed managers, publicists, etc.
Media access was a limited resource that was handed out only to those that met
approval.

This created in the audience certain expectations about what it means to be
famous. Don't treat the audience wrong or do anything too far outside those
expectations or face the audience's wrath.

The internet changed what it means to be "famous" because the internet _is
media access_. Unfortunately, the sociology of the audience hasn't caught up
and often still apply the old expectations.

In the past, it was possible to walk away from fame because it _wasn 't your
normal life_. Being famous was a job you could (usually) leave. However, a lot
of people that have become famous through the internet cannot leave. It was
their _normal life_ that became famous. Tight coupling between fame and
personal life causes or amplifies a lot of these problems.

For a much better explanation, I _highly_ recommend watching Innuendo Studios'
video essay "This is Phil Fish"[1]. In spite of the name, it isn't really
about Phil Fish. It's about everybody who _isn 't_ Phil Fish and how they
(miss-)handle internet celebrity.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTUW-
owa2w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTUW-owa2w)

------
nommm-nommm
Eh....this may be an unpopular opinion but this article is supposed to make me
feel really bad for the self imposed "workload" of Pewdiepie. Boo hoo, he's so
disadvantaged... he made, from my quick research, something like $15 million
_last year alone_. If $15 MILLION salary isn't enough for you that you have to
keep "pushing the envelope" being "edgier" for more and more attention then I
think you're probably being greedy and shouldn't really be surprised when you
finally push it too far.

Maybe I'm the asshole, but I just can't muster up sympathy to empathize with
the plight of someone who makes millions of dollars playing video games and
making off color remarks.

~~~
empath75
He makes enough money to hire writers.

~~~
kmonsen
And a PR person to let him know what is too far and how to handle issues.

------
kriro
So errrrm...am I completely out of touch with the world for not knowing who
PewDiePie is (or what the incident referenced was)? Why not explain that in
the beginning? There's a link later but I kind of went through most of the
article blindly.

~~~
Raknarg
He is the largest youtuber, he has like 50M subscribers. Did a bit pretending
to be a nazi that people took out of context alongside some other things,
became a huge stupid controversy.

~~~
evilDagmar
It wasn't taken out of context. It was an awful thing to do.

------
greenhatman
Probably a lot of PewDiePie's appeal is his uncensoredness. It's just
unfiltered non-sense for the most part.

Some people can't deal with it. But a lot of people want it.

Personally, I think that's why I love Dave Chappelle so much. He seems to be
able to get away with a lot as well.

Few things relaxes me like someone making jokes with no filters.

~~~
djrogers
Don't mistake uncensored for unfiltered - Dave Chappelle probably writes and
tells a joke a hundred times before you ever hear it, and it gets filtered
through a LOT during that time.

~~~
johnnydoe9
Nice example since his recent stand up routine is getting a lot of flack for
supposed anti-LGBT statements (I haven't seen it yet so I can't say if they
have any value). With regards to the Pewdiepie case I am on his side here the
quality of jokes doesn't matter it was pretty clear that they weren't meant to
be taken seriously and that should be it.

------
ryanmarsh
What's wrong with just "owning it"?

Why do entertainers whose viewers come for edgy jokes apologize for
occasionally delivering a joke in excess of poor taste? It seems like most of
the outrage comes from non-core audience members. It's a long-tail kind of
thing. I'm willing to bet a big portion of any given entertainers' audience is
willing to excuse the occasional bad joke for all the funny ones.

Some groups have louder voices than others when you make bad jokes at their
expense. Why not say, "that's what this channel is about"? There are plenty of
twitter personalities I follow that occasionally go on shit posting tirades
but I ignore it because everything else they post is gold.

Seriously, why not say "fuck you this is what my channel is like if you don't
like it don't watch"?

You think the people who walked out of Amy Schumer's show in Florida were her
core audience? Why'd she apologize? She jokes about how bad her pussy smells.
I mean, there's a certain group of folks who love her stuff and they probably
aren't easily offended by her brand of vulgarity, but would light their
clothes on fire at someone else's. To each his own. Find a niche and
unabashedly own it. I mean... it got Trump elected.

~~~
cloakandswagger
Doubling down on or simply ignoring controversy seems to be the best course of
action in today's outrage culture.

Look at Trump: He never apologizes for anything, and controversies and
scandals slide off of him like they were nothing.

It seems so obvious to me that I've been tempted to try my hand at the crisis
management business, but I fear a strategy of "do nothing" isn't very
protectable.

------
oliwarner
Take fairly normal people doing fairly normal things and then expose them to
millions of people who think they're great and who can directly comment to let
them know they're great. Or that they suck. Or both.

Even the traditional distance-Holywood celebrity model makes people go crazy,
but when you're letting people right into your life and they're encouraging
you to do crazier and crazier stuff, you're either going to burn out or blow
up.

------
kh_hk
Are we going to pretend none of this is done, including the article, just for
the sake of creating drama and gossip?

Maybe I am trying to look too much into it, but it's pretty clear there's a
network of content producers behind the scenes of all the famous Youtubers,
doing all the editing, selecting 'crappy' thumbnails, and playing the
videogames on which the stars will later put their own voice over.

Doesn't this make a lot more sense than assuming some youtubers are
supernatural and can churn out content by the hour?

------
jccalhoun
I don't really watch any of the youtube or twitch personalities but I am aware
of them. So from my perspective it seems like these are people in their 20s so
it shouldn't be surprising that they make bad choices. That being said, they
are bad choices and they should be criticized for them.

I think the article makes a good point that it is kind of amazing that Disney
bought Maker Studios but doesn't seem to be putting in the work to make sure
their employees don't do something stupid.

------
notatoad
>Now, imagine your business hinges on all these random changes.

I have a hard time finding much sympathy for this argument. When you build
your business on top of somebody else's business, you get to be subjected to
their whims. that's how it works. If you wanted complete control over your
platform, you're welcome to host your videos on your own website. And then you
can see how many people view them, and the value that youtube is providing.

I see Youtube acting as a buffer between the wishes of the content creators
and the wishes of the viewers as a big part of their value. I subscribe to a
few channels, but i absolutely don't want a push notification every time any
channel i subscribe to uploads a new video. that would be annoying as hell,
and i'd stop subscribing to channels if that was the default behaviour. But
that seems to be what the author of this article wants. For me, the fact that
youtube is exerting some control to make sure their channels don't abuse
notifications is a great thing.

------
FLUX-YOU
Does Google's YouTube group host a line of communication between its product
managers and content producers? Is there a service agreement between Google
and its content producers around features and site behavior that will impact
viewers and paychecks?

If not, then content producers are simply in a bad long-term position and they
need to start looking for leverage against it, whether it's taking their
subscribers elsewhere or getting a seat at Google's table so website and
mobile app updates don't start mucking with subscribers getting their content
to users.

OTOH, as a user, I don't want to be inundated with notifications and
_especially_ begging notifications if I unsubscribe to someone.

~~~
fgandiya
YouTube has a lot of flack for not communicating well with creators. Things
only get done if lots of pans are run when the creator makes a video on how
limited the channels of communication are with YouTube.

I remember Eli the Computer guy talking about how he got two community strikes
on some really old videos and couldn't really appeal (I don't think they
supported it at the time) it. It wasn't until he made enough noise that he was
finally able to get a rep from YouTube.

YouTube is a good platform and I can't think of any competitors as good as YT,
but they really need to improve communication with the creators.

------
Animats
Talking head on Youtube complains that being a talking head on Youtube is a
lousy business. Whatever.

I've watched a few videos of people talking while playing video games. I
usually wish they'd just STFU and play the game.

~~~
smnscu
There are plenty of those as well and much more enjoyable, especially if you
don't want to put $60 + 20h into a game and just experience the story in the
background.

------
almostarockstar
>On a platform that changes its rules on the fly, all the time.

Is there, or has there ever been, a platform that doesn't change the rules on
the fly, all the time? I'm not talking about video alone. Tastes in comedy,
music, film, and books change yearly. The requirements to become successful on
any platform are always in flux and never totally clear. Survivorship bias
abounds.

Also, I have very little sympathy for anybody making videos about gaming.
Mindless drivel. If you can't keep up, it's because the market is saturated
and your product or execution is not as good as your competitors.

------
mcguire
" _You need ad revenue if you want to make a living talking over video games,
which means views and that means uploads._ "

For some reason, that reminds me of the Four Noble Truths...

1\. Life's a bitch...

2\. ...Because you are an idiot.

3\. So stop being an idiot.

4\. No, really, just stop.

------
CaliforniaKarl
I'm just gonna quote something from the article:

> If there is someone who’s making the stuff you enjoy ..., find ways to
> contribute. If they have alternate payment systems like merchandise or
> Patreon, consider it so they don’t have to play the “ad revenue works in
> volume” game.

Do this.

I support a number of creators via Patreon, including Daily Tech News Show and
Drunk Kids Gaming.

If you get value out of the content you consume, please consider giving some
value back, using a mechanism (like Patreon or PayPal) where you know that
most of the returned value is reaching the creator who's content you consume.

------
foxhop
The youtube algorithm and setup is really messed up, but it reminds me of the
google algorithm for search.

This video shows that crap uploads and clickbait rule youtube. I was actually
fooled by these content creators and they used it as an example in their
follow up video. It was really eye opening.

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

I wonder if youtube has or will have a "panda" event.

------
fixermark
It feels like Slowbeef's take on this is pretty solid, but the takeaway from
him seems, interestingly, to be "Hey, this is harder than people think," and
not "It's no surprise people burn out or get hit with a huge scandal doing
this; this entertainment channel is now oversaturated with amateur content and
it's a sucker's game to play without a lot of investment."

------
jonstewart
This is so far outside my realm of experience I do not know how to read it. I
have not been hearing a lot lately about the Pew Die Guy, nor do I know who
the Fine Brothers are. There are lots and lots of algorithms and data
structures to learn about.

~~~
542458
Let's Plays are videos where people play video games and commentate over them.

Fivrr is a site where people can offer small services for about five bucks.

Pewdiepie is a famous youtuber who produces lets plays. He got in trouble for
playing some indian men on Fivrr to wave around signs with racist messages on
them on camera as part of a joke. It understandably didn't go over well and
lots of people wrote angry articles about it.

The Fine Brothers produce videos where people "react" to things. So you might
show a bunch of kids the twist from some movie, and show their reaction to it.

------
briholt
YouTubers aren't imploding, rather they're growing so large that mainstream
journalists think they can get clicks writing smear pieces about them.

------
drzaiusapelord
Unrelated, but am I the only one who can't believe how bad both the app and
the website are from an experience perspective:

Website:

1\. If my google home is playing music in my kitchen, I can't watch videos. It
just cuts them off and gives me a licensing error. Instead it should just
downgrade me to ad-driven youtube.

2\. Most videos have huge 'annotations' that I can click off, but
automatically get clicked back on for the next videos. Its usually people
begging for you to subscribe to their channel. Its almost never to annotate
anything and even if it was, the UX is terrible. It should be something I call
up, not something that blocks the video content.

3\. In-video ads. On top of the ad to watch the video I now need to be
pestered with this little pop-up adds their ruin immersion. Oh I have youtube
red, but I get these anyway sometimes. I imagine this is just a bug but even
then they're a terrible experience for non-youtube red subscribers.

4\. Audio quality is often terrible. Not sure if its the video itself but even
the official music video channels usually have audio that sounds, at best,
like 56k MP3 streams circa 2002.

App on Android

1\. Holy hell is is slow to startup. Worse, if you accidentally hit a youtube
link and try to press back, you need to press the back arrow about 3 times
before it responds. Its probably my slowest app. Meanwhile an mp4 served from
imgur is near instant. Heck, even a big ugly gif starts up much faster. There
should be no scenario where a 100mb gif starts up faster than a 3mb youtube
video.

2\. Autoplay of next video means that if I'm reading the comments and if the
video ends then it wipes the comments I'm reading and replaces it with the
description of the new video.

3\. Quality seems variable even though I'm pegged to the same 50mbps wifi
connection at home with full bars.

Not to mention, the comments ranking system encourages 'hilarious' jokey
comments over the more serious content. Youtube comments are usually terrible
but for less popular videos they can be insightful, the problem is that the
top 5 or so comments are either jokes or fairly obvious trolling attempts.

I wish someone wold disrupt this space but I imagine the deep pockets you
would need to host all these videos on top of the legalities of it all means
that only the top 5 tech companies would be able to compete and they're just
not interested. I imagine the margins are fairly low here.

~~~
Pxtl
omg this. The YouTube android app is a disaster. Incoherent, poor propagation
of what I've watched between devices, no obvious UI for how to stop watching a
video (back button just thumbnails it so you can navigate - you have to swipe-
sideways the video to actually _close_ it), and it locks up for a _long_ time
starting up a video.

Also, the fact that vertically-filmed cellphone videos don't fill the screen
when you try to watch them in portrait mode is so bone-headed it's actually
funny.

------
thieving_magpie
That was a long article that could be summed up by: "Sometimes people say
stupid things. Most don't record and publish it for the world".

~~~
FilterSweep
I was disappointed to find out the laser-focus was on scandals related to
youtube celebrities, and not on the infrastructure youtube has that _creates_
youtube celebrities.

The author mentions Game Theory (another youtube channel) which has some
videos that delves into these mechanics instead.

My fear with Youtube as a casual viewer is that content creators (such as the
author) are too focused on scandal with other channels they themselves are
friends with and not focused enough on keeping engaging content and/or keeping
engaged with the fans who made them money in the first place.

~~~
otalp
One factor that is rarely mentioned in this conversation is that Drama helps
Youtubers - a lot. Videos about 'Youtube in crisis' gets a whole lot of views,
much more than the usual standard-fare videos. This doesn't only apply to the
YouTuber being targeted.

For example, assume there is some controversy over some gamer on YouTube.
YouTube Channels dedicated to talking about Internet culture, like
h3h3productions or PhillipDeFranco, take the opportunity to make a video
titled "YouTube is Dying" with a lot of question marks in the thumbnail. They
do this because videos about meta-controversies get more views than specific
things. So the video gets more views, and other YouTube channels talk about
the 'controversy' in order to get views themselves. Then the gamer may make a
video titled "Response to YouTube controversy" which gets way more views than
his average video, because it's a meta topic that everyone's talking about.
And the cycle continues.

TL;DR: Controversies help content creators get more views.

------
kppiskingpp
Reasons Youtubers don't realize their Youtubing actually became a business and
don't hire a crew (that includes a PR team).

Zoella does a good job, she had a breakdown thas was very not problematic, but
is mostly very professional.

Pewdiepew pewdiepie whatever. he's stupid. fuck that shit. fuck hacker news.
fuck you all.

------
krige
It's not implosion, it's just the outrage crowd setting their sights on a new
target and gaming sites trying to settle score with the new media.

~~~
jrkatz
'outrage crowd'. Huh. right now, the big blowup is over some guy ('jontron')
spouting racist BS. This is bad enough in front of an adult audience, but in
fact he is performing this for children. Shouldn't we be mad? For PewDiePie
recently, the same story: He is an adult (who should know better) performing
antisemitic jokes for children, who might not follow the joke were it funny.
When they don't follow it, when it's not funny -- it wasn't -- it boils down
to a respected figure repeating anti-semitic talking points to an adoring
audience of 14 year olds. Did he mean poorly? Maybe, maybe not. If he didn't
mean poorly and it was all environmental factors, "He's just trying to make a
living and YouTube culture doesn't give him time to test jokes", are we
supposed to apologize for him and move on? I say he took on a responsibility
and failed it, so we should be angry.

If he wants to perform for children he needs to respect the fact that his
words have exaggerated consequences because he's dumping them into
impressionable, insecure minds. Don't reduce me to some 'outrage crowd' and
write me off when I'm concerned that a children's performer is feeding them
rape & jew 'jokes'.

~~~
Neliquat
With all respect, it is the parents responsibility, not youtube or jontron, to
make sure their little angel is not drinking in racist rants.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That's a laudable attitude, but its feasibility is rapidly eroding in this
always-connected world. Can't watch over the little angel's shoulder to see
what's on their phone 24x7.

~~~
sqeaky
I think it is less about filtering what a kid sees and more about preparing
children for the crazy shit the world can throw at kids without meaning too.

For any adult looking at PewDiePie's shenanigans it is clear that he isn't
actually supporting organized racism, or if he is he is astoundingly bad at it
(perhaps as bad at being funny. But to a an unprepared kid (or dumb adult)
this stuff can seem shocking and the jokes might be missed on them. PewDiePie
simply didn't care some kids might see and wasn't concerned about it.

Parents can prepare their kids and create open environments where the kids can
ask questions. If done right the parent can create situations where they can
simply explain that PewDiePie lacks good taste when the kid asks what its
going on.

This is a bunch of idealist rubbish, but at least a few parents have done it.

------
tonymke
The reason this guy went on multiple racist and antisemitic tirades -
including a debate where he goes off on the terrible consequences of a world
where whites aren't the minority - is ~it's hard to get in the YouTube
sidebar~?

~~~
and0
This article was about PewDiePie's nazi joke, the JonTron thing happened more
recently (article is over a month old).

~~~
KirinDave
Sure, but Jontron thinks it'll raise his revenue to ally with Sargon and have
that tirade. He even said so. He's under the impression that the viewers who
give him revenue are all white nationalists.

