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In January I tweeted [1] a small thread about how the newer daily uploaders, especially vloggers do have a problem that they are creating for themselves. Specta

by nstart 8y ago

In January I tweeted [1] a small thread about how the newer daily uploaders, especially vloggers do have a problem that they are creating for themselves. Spectacle over story. I've studied many of the top vloggers from YouTube rewind and without exception they play the similar part of exaggerated acts to sell the mundane. Contrast this to Casey Neistat or purge gamers who started their narratives to bring about what's unique about them. There's hardly a facade on any of it. I qualified what I meant by acting in my tweets. In the case of purge, it's Kevin being Kevin. He'll read patch notes for 7 hours and doesn't give a toot about what the watch count could be for that. He's active on twitch but without any mad acts and crazy tricks for the fans. His unique sauce is just being super analytical. So he does just that with no crazy voice or "YouTube face". Either one of Casey or purge could be on the verge of needing a break. But they've been doing this a lot longer than any of the new stars and still seem very comfortable being themselves. This is not to shit on the current Gen of daily content creators. I'm just worried a lot of them are not going to deeply understand why they are actually getting burnt out. They are doing excessive amounts of work where the primary requirement is to shed your self. There is very little difference between what they do and ye Joe average 28 year old working daily at a software engineering job that pays well but forces the worker to wake up with existential dread each morning. Realising this might mean that some of these content creators might have a reckoning where they realise that long term they have nothing innately unique to offer the world of YouTube. I'm worried none of them will come to that conclusion simply because their brains are going to be fighting back saying "but this is what I always wanted". We are all capable of getting what we think we want to do wrong. No shame in that. Just be willing to save yourself. 1: https://twitter.com/kiriappeee/status/953547948754862080?s=19 https://twitter.com/kiriappeee/status/953547948754862080?s=1...

Swizec 8y ago
Great comment! Loved it. One thing to note is that Casey Neistat did burn out, stopped daily vlogging for almost a year, and said that even before he stopped, he felt his vlogs were not up to par because he didn't have the energy/time to make them better. Now he's back to daily vlogging, but he's back with a whole production team helping him out. Similarly GaryVee doesn't seem to burn out on daily vlogging, but that's because he outsources all of it. He goes about his day saying stuff that's useful and someone else records it then puts it together into an episode.
annywhey 8y ago
I think the biggest issue is with the regularity of having to post things and be a "consistent product". In the era of broadcast TV this was done season by season, with the bulk of the stress coming from avoiding cancellation. You got your slot for weeknights, or once a week in prime time, and that was it. The process was self-limiting and distributed the stress around - not to the point where everyone was relaxing, but it allowed for some breaks. In the open-platforms era it's all self-imposed, so the standards are allowed to creep upwards to extremes. I started on a video essay project which will go on Youtube and can see this hitting me already. There are some incredibly productive folks out there who have a dedicated staff to add the magic of editing and audiovisual effects. I will be happy just to get my audio sounding OK and to have something resembling visual style. Regardless, I have confidence in what I'm doing because I have a clear direction and intent with the content with relatively modest goals(a portfolio building career move). Optimization for the short term popularity metric guarantees that you end up competing in a world of formulaic "man talks into camera", "man plays video game", "man reviews product", "man lives everyday life" type content. And while I could see myself doing some of those, for fun or experimentation, I wouldn't want to become someone reliant on it. It helps to have a few different things going on.
majani 8y ago
I agree, except where you say it's a new phenomenon. Ever since the dawn of YouTube, the maniacal style of exaggerated content has always risen to the top, only to crash down after a few years. First it was Fred, then Smosh, then RWJ, then Pewds who occupied the top spot of most subscribed channel. All of them having the maniacal, "living cartoon" style. This is because one of the hidden truths about YouTube is that it is a music site first, and a kids site second. Therefore appealing to kids by acting like a kid will always be a successful formula on the platform

by nstart 8y ago

Swizec 8y ago

Great comment! Loved it. One thing to note is that Casey Neistat did burn out, stopped daily vlogging for almost a year, and said that even before he stopped, he felt his vlogs were not up to par because he didn't have the energy/time to make them better. Now he's back to daily vlogging, but he's back with a whole production team helping him out. Similarly GaryVee doesn't seem to burn out on daily vlogging, but that's because he outsources all of it. He goes about his day saying stuff that's useful and someone else records it then puts it together into an episode.

annywhey 8y ago

I think the biggest issue is with the regularity of having to post things and be a "consistent product". In the era of broadcast TV this was done season by season, with the bulk of the stress coming from avoiding cancellation. You got your slot for weeknights, or once a week in prime time, and that was it. The process was self-limiting and distributed the stress around - not to the point where everyone was relaxing, but it allowed for some breaks. In the open-platforms era it's all self-imposed, so the standards are allowed to creep upwards to extremes. I started on a video essay project which will go on Youtube and can see this hitting me already. There are some incredibly productive folks out there who have a dedicated staff to add the magic of editing and audiovisual effects. I will be happy just to get my audio sounding OK and to have something resembling visual style. Regardless, I have confidence in what I'm doing because I have a clear direction and intent with the content with relatively modest goals(a portfolio building career move). Optimization for the short term popularity metric guarantees that you end up competing in a world of formulaic "man talks into camera", "man plays video game", "man reviews product", "man lives everyday life" type content. And while I could see myself doing some of those, for fun or experimentation, I wouldn't want to become someone reliant on it. It helps to have a few different things going on.

majani 8y ago

I agree, except where you say it's a new phenomenon. Ever since the dawn of YouTube, the maniacal style of exaggerated content has always risen to the top, only to crash down after a few years. First it was Fred, then Smosh, then RWJ, then Pewds who occupied the top spot of most subscribed channel. All of them having the maniacal, "living cartoon" style. This is because one of the hidden truths about YouTube is that it is a music site first, and a kids site second. Therefore appealing to kids by acting like a kid will always be a successful formula on the platform