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There is a tendency for this to happen in real life with influencers. Certain aspects resonate with an audience and so they overemphasize them. https://gurwind

There is a tendency for this to happen in real life with influencers. Certain aspects resonate with an audience and so they overemphasize them. https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capt...

kzrdude 4y ago
That seems very, very sad.
- nkozyra 4y ago
  Well, it's a sad part of culture in 2022 - an enormous abandonment of creativity or authenticity for clicks. Even sadder that it works.
  - Multicomp 4y ago
    It reminds me of the ancient concept of patronage. If you were a patron, you housed and fed your client, and in return, they were expected to act the part out. So if you had a garden hermit, they needed to act their part out, and act grateful and glad to you. If you treated them badly, say, giving them a crappy house to hermit about in, they were expected to still act grateful to your face, but damage your reputation behind your back. Somewhere today the concept of cultural patronage is still a thing. We the audience give you clicks and attention and see the ads that make you dollars, you the influencer play the role of an entertainer that gives us enjoyment for giving you our entertainment. We've identified what parts of you entertain us, so play your part, client. And thus the influencer is in some ways the influenced.
    - cma 4y ago
      Is there an estimate somewhere of how many garden hermits there were in history?
  - kashunstva 4y ago
    > Even sadder that it works. As B.F. Skinner might have predicted.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      As Plato predicted in fact.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    Authentic people exist and always will; you just have to work to find them and support them. If all you see are the click-optimized, by definition you are looking in the clicking arena where they will be the most present.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Interesting post, though two of the examples have always been oddities. Louise Mench was leading anti-bullying campaigns on Twitter and bullying people on Twitter for example. And Quilliam are the ex-extremist Muslims who did a 180 and parroted whatever the weird anti-islam movement after 9/11 wanted to hear. These were not sober thinkers led down a path by their audience.
themanmaran 4y ago
While we see this a lot with influencers (and I think Joe Rogan is another great example). The phenomenon isn't exactly new. News anchors, writers, country singers, etc. have all been doing the exact same thing for decades. Doubling down on simple characteristics that resonate with their target audience.
- DaedPsyker 4y ago
  I wonder how this differs though from refinement. Particularly for real people such as musicians, an element of it is also surely removing cruft that just wasn't interesting.
  - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
    I think the difference is that refinement is when the core aspect improves through effort and in Flanderization the core stagnates or degrades through lazyness.
- WilTimSon 4y ago
  Yeah, people seem to forget that a ton of their favorite celebs didn't start out the way they are today. Most people in the spotlight get distilled into a singular image - the weed-loving country singer, the "hated by many" frontman who most people don't even really care about, the horror writer whose adherence to Maine is a meme at this point. This type of stuff isn't necessarily bad as long as it doesn't completely overtake the character/person. Playing up a part of yourself to become more interesting is a viable marketing strat.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  Here’s something crazy. Rewatching early Simpsons episodes as someone who first saw Flanders post Flanderization: He’s a less compelling satire because it’s so nuanced, complex, and narrow. He’s not the obvious bad person that Marcy D’Arcy is, but he’s also not the aspirational zen master that Wilson from Home Improvement is either. He’s just kind of a normal-ish OK guy who’s not a compelling foil to Homer. Take his funniest characteristic (calling reverend Lovejoy at night) and make him a broad vehicle to satirize American Protestantism, and he’s actually a compelling character. On the other hand, Lisa’s evolution kind of sucks.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rockbruno 4y ago
I watch an youtuber that makes videos about life in Japan and he mentioned recently about how this drives the direction of his videos against his will. Despite producing extremely high-quality videos, every video is accompanied by clickbait titles and the classic "=O" idiotic face thumbnail. The quality contrast between the cover and the video is immediately clear once you start watching the content. He mentioned that he despises this with every inch of his being, but is forced to do so because YouTube's algorithm would dump the video otherwise.
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  I feel sorry for him, and I even think I know which channel you mean, but I've never clicked on one of his videos because I absolutely refuse to click on any video with a clickbait title or a clickbait thumbnail. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.
- corysama 4y ago
  Linus Tech Talks has a whole video explaining that they hate making YouTube Face thumbnails, but their numbers are dramatically worse when they don’t.
  - AndrewDucker 4y ago
    Lots of UK tech magazines used to use scantily clad women on the cover (holding up some piece of tech). When challenged on it they responded that when they didn't their sales went down by a significant percentage.
  - LAC-Tech 4y ago
    I've pretty much refused to watch any of his videos because he looks lone of those open mouthed clowns you throw balls into at the carnival.
- phist_mcgee 4y ago
  As another commenter on HN said yesterday, sell people what they want, but give them what they need. If it's abroad in Japan, I would say he's found a great way to hit mass appeal but still maintain his authentic and snarky takes on the country. If it's Paolo from Tokyo, I'd say he's defensively changed over the years and has become much more focused on clicks over real substance. If it's neither of them, then still give those two channels a watch, especially the stuff from several years ago.
hitekker 4y ago
The article starts out interesting but the author lacks courage. > I knew there were limits to my desired independence, because, whether we like it or not, we all become like the people we surround ourselves with. So I surrounded myself with the people I wanted to be like. On Twitter I cultivated a reasonable, open-minded audience by posting reasonable, open-minded tweets Every influencer sees their audience as reasonable & open-minded, every influencer thinks they only speak reasonable and open-minded thoughts. Meanwhile his pinned tweet is https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1545510413982474253 https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1545510413982474253, a smorgasbord of insight porn that's addressed to "his friends". The article focuses on an extreme & obvious failure in weak authors and audiences; it's telling that he did not use his insight to dissect the relationship between he and his own audience.
sircastor 4y ago
There’s a YouTuber I like whose early work included a lot of genuine excitement and enthusiasm when he’d get a project working. Recently it feels like the energy is a little manufactured, for the audience. I still like his stuff, but sometimes it feels a little off.
- djmips 4y ago
  That's pretty common to see. I immediately thought of several examples like Great Scott who I don't watch anymore.
dansl 4y ago
Almost sounds like a form of Stockholm syndrome… the audience is their captor.
Sateeshm 4y ago
This is great article. Thank you for sharing!

kzrdude 4y ago

That seems very, very sad.

nkozyra 4y ago
Well, it's a sad part of culture in 2022 - an enormous abandonment of creativity or authenticity for clicks. Even sadder that it works.
- Multicomp 4y ago
  It reminds me of the ancient concept of patronage. If you were a patron, you housed and fed your client, and in return, they were expected to act the part out. So if you had a garden hermit, they needed to act their part out, and act grateful and glad to you. If you treated them badly, say, giving them a crappy house to hermit about in, they were expected to still act grateful to your face, but damage your reputation behind your back. Somewhere today the concept of cultural patronage is still a thing. We the audience give you clicks and attention and see the ads that make you dollars, you the influencer play the role of an entertainer that gives us enjoyment for giving you our entertainment. We've identified what parts of you entertain us, so play your part, client. And thus the influencer is in some ways the influenced.
  - cma 4y ago
    Is there an estimate somewhere of how many garden hermits there were in history?
- kashunstva 4y ago
  > Even sadder that it works. As B.F. Skinner might have predicted.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    As Plato predicted in fact.
- Bakary 4y ago
  Authentic people exist and always will; you just have to work to find them and support them. If all you see are the click-optimized, by definition you are looking in the clicking arena where they will be the most present.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Interesting post, though two of the examples have always been oddities. Louise Mench was leading anti-bullying campaigns on Twitter and bullying people on Twitter for example. And Quilliam are the ex-extremist Muslims who did a 180 and parroted whatever the weird anti-islam movement after 9/11 wanted to hear. These were not sober thinkers led down a path by their audience.

themanmaran 4y ago

While we see this a lot with influencers (and I think Joe Rogan is another great example). The phenomenon isn't exactly new. News anchors, writers, country singers, etc. have all been doing the exact same thing for decades. Doubling down on simple characteristics that resonate with their target audience.

DaedPsyker 4y ago
I wonder how this differs though from refinement. Particularly for real people such as musicians, an element of it is also surely removing cruft that just wasn't interesting.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  I think the difference is that refinement is when the core aspect improves through effort and in Flanderization the core stagnates or degrades through lazyness.
WilTimSon 4y ago
Yeah, people seem to forget that a ton of their favorite celebs didn't start out the way they are today. Most people in the spotlight get distilled into a singular image - the weed-loving country singer, the "hated by many" frontman who most people don't even really care about, the horror writer whose adherence to Maine is a meme at this point. This type of stuff isn't necessarily bad as long as it doesn't completely overtake the character/person. Playing up a part of yourself to become more interesting is a viable marketing strat.
RC_ITR 4y ago
Here’s something crazy. Rewatching early Simpsons episodes as someone who first saw Flanders post Flanderization: He’s a less compelling satire because it’s so nuanced, complex, and narrow. He’s not the obvious bad person that Marcy D’Arcy is, but he’s also not the aspirational zen master that Wilson from Home Improvement is either. He’s just kind of a normal-ish OK guy who’s not a compelling foil to Homer. Take his funniest characteristic (calling reverend Lovejoy at night) and make him a broad vehicle to satirize American Protestantism, and he’s actually a compelling character. On the other hand, Lisa’s evolution kind of sucks.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rockbruno 4y ago

I watch an youtuber that makes videos about life in Japan and he mentioned recently about how this drives the direction of his videos against his will. Despite producing extremely high-quality videos, every video is accompanied by clickbait titles and the classic "=O" idiotic face thumbnail. The quality contrast between the cover and the video is immediately clear once you start watching the content. He mentioned that he despises this with every inch of his being, but is forced to do so because YouTube's algorithm would dump the video otherwise.

LeoPanthera 4y ago
I feel sorry for him, and I even think I know which channel you mean, but I've never clicked on one of his videos because I absolutely refuse to click on any video with a clickbait title or a clickbait thumbnail. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.
corysama 4y ago
Linus Tech Talks has a whole video explaining that they hate making YouTube Face thumbnails, but their numbers are dramatically worse when they don’t.
- AndrewDucker 4y ago
  Lots of UK tech magazines used to use scantily clad women on the cover (holding up some piece of tech). When challenged on it they responded that when they didn't their sales went down by a significant percentage.
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  I've pretty much refused to watch any of his videos because he looks lone of those open mouthed clowns you throw balls into at the carnival.
phist_mcgee 4y ago
As another commenter on HN said yesterday, sell people what they want, but give them what they need. If it's abroad in Japan, I would say he's found a great way to hit mass appeal but still maintain his authentic and snarky takes on the country. If it's Paolo from Tokyo, I'd say he's defensively changed over the years and has become much more focused on clicks over real substance. If it's neither of them, then still give those two channels a watch, especially the stuff from several years ago.

hitekker 4y ago

The article starts out interesting but the author lacks courage. > I knew there were limits to my desired independence, because, whether we like it or not, we all become like the people we surround ourselves with. So I surrounded myself with the people I wanted to be like. On Twitter I cultivated a reasonable, open-minded audience by posting reasonable, open-minded tweets Every influencer sees their audience as reasonable & open-minded, every influencer thinks they only speak reasonable and open-minded thoughts. Meanwhile his pinned tweet is https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1545510413982474253 https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal/status/1545510413982474253, a smorgasbord of insight porn that's addressed to "his friends". The article focuses on an extreme & obvious failure in weak authors and audiences; it's telling that he did not use his insight to dissect the relationship between he and his own audience.

sircastor 4y ago

There’s a YouTuber I like whose early work included a lot of genuine excitement and enthusiasm when he’d get a project working. Recently it feels like the energy is a little manufactured, for the audience. I still like his stuff, but sometimes it feels a little off.

djmips 4y ago
That's pretty common to see. I immediately thought of several examples like Great Scott who I don't watch anymore.

dansl 4y ago

Almost sounds like a form of Stockholm syndrome… the audience is their captor.

Sateeshm 4y ago

This is great article. Thank you for sharing!