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Care to explain why? I don't know that channel.
by iforgotpassword 4y ago
Care to explain why? I don't know that channel.
- busterarm 4y agoHere's $50 to tell me your life story that I'm going to make $3-5/1k views on. If I make enough money I might come back for another video and give you more money. No guarantees that you don't feed your addictions with this money though...but your addiction is good content anyway.
- bitcharmer 4y agoHow do you know how much the interviewees were paid? Were they forced to do the interviews? Do you have evidence that shows they felted being exploited?
- busterarm 4y agoWhat do you think the mental state is of his interviewees? How many of them do you think are in a reasonable state of mind to understand AND consent to any kind of contract? What about Amanda who literally got put into a conservatorship? Keep in mind we're in a society that doesn't consider you able to consent if you're even a little bit drunk and we're talking about heavy drug users for the most part here.
- ConSeannery 4y agoHe has stated in several interviews and previous videos that he gives away the money he makes on the channel. Watch the video linked, he says it again on it.
- busterarm 4y agoHe has a $10/mo subscription site with a forum. Turning it into a tax writeoff doesn't make it less exploitative.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- SpelingBeeChamp 4y agoDo you believe him, just because he says so?
- junon 4y agoThis isn't at all how that channel works. Flagrant dismissal of a body of work is explicitly against the Hacker News guidelines. I suggest you review them at the bottom of this page.
- busterarm 4y ago
- junon 4y agoYou've not done a lot of research on this channel, have you?
- busterarm 4y agoI'm not the first nor the last person to levy the exact same criticism. Most of them from his own fucking subreddit.
- _bohm 4y agoOn the contrary, I find most of his videos to be deeply humanizing of their subjects, who would probably be ignored or brushed aside in a normal day-to-day interaction by the typical viewer of the channel. Also, speaking personally as someone who has a family member who suffers from addiction, I have found it valuable to listen to people speak candidly about their struggles to someone uninvested in their lives, in a way that my family member could never speak to me.
- busterarm 4y agoSeparate how viewing the content makes you feel from understanding the subject's ability to completely understand and consent to a contractual arrangement to have their story recorded, broadcast and sold. When an addict-relative sells all of your valuables, are they in a proper state of mind or is their addiction ruling their life? Do they fully comprehend the outcome of their actions? Most of these people are not in any proper state of mind to be able to sign on to appear on a show like this.
- concinds 4y agoEveryone on Earth is being paid less than they generate for their business. That is true for utterly everyone except equityholders. And your reasoning is completely self-defeating, unless you suggest that this YouTube channel should kidnap their interviewees and force them to get sober under duress. Soft White Underbelly is not the government. BTW, YouTube still makes money off demonetized videos, since they increase overall viewer engagement; which nullifies your core point.
- busterarm 4y agoNo, they're just not outright banning him. Demonitized content has _zero_ reach on YouTube. It's them telling you that they do not want you. There's no point to uploading new content when you're demonitized.
- concinds 4y agoThis is not true; demonetized videos still get recommended on all of YouTube's surfaces (homepage, recommendations sidebar, end-of-video suggestions).
- switch007 4y agoIs that lying while telling the truth? How often? How many people will see it? How many views vs monetized?
- diydsp 4y agoFrom the alg's perspective, each video is a mutant offspring. It has hypothetical values in several contexts. On publication, those values get tested for a bit until the value converges. So new vids get a chance... but they're competing with known, larger quantities. Advertiser-edgy content has a signal attached to it saying "don't let this get tested much," in case it gets popular.
- nverno 4y agoYou're treating it as if their life story is a zero-sum game, where it was worth 3050$ and he only gave them 50$. I've always given away my life story for free and don't feel gypped whatsoever.
- busterarm 4y agoIt's a fortunate position in life to not have to choose between getting your next fix and admitting to a pattern of criminality on camera. Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEUh4FZIf8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEUh4FZIf8E
- nverno 4y agoThat's just your point of view. From mine, life is a long tumble down the stairs
- HardlyCurious 4y agoI haven't watch many of his videos, but I didn't get any sense of a predatory relationship. For what I saw, I was impressed with the content. He shows us a side of humanity normally left in the shadows. There is merit in that.
- honkdaddy 4y agoIf someone paid me $50 to admit on camera I've broken laws in the past, I think I'd probably be more than happy to. Are you under the impression the police are going to start arresting people on Soft White Underbelly because they admit to doing drugs? That's not really how the American justice system works, from what I understand.
- peterangular 4y agoYea - I wouldn't. I'd rather not have such direct representation of myself out there - invariably people would recognize you, and invariably they would pass the video around social groups. Just the way things work in the social media era. Also, this could really hurt you if a video with this sorta subject matter/content would be passed around your place of work. This is about to get bitter so please take with a grain of salt: I've learned that most people are gossipy and will often not give people the benefit of the doubt. People judge others to bolster their ego and elevate their own social standing. Even if it was something out of your control like childhood trauma, people will still extrapolate their own opinions. Then there's the "nothing's ever deleted from the internet" trope - even if I needed it taken down and the original uploader agreed, the content could easily exist elsewhere. I guarantee there's people doing reaction content to this. All-in-all I functionally can't see the benefit of doing one of these outside of $... and I agree with other posters that it's problematic. It reminds me of photography class in college where all of these kids would photograph the homeless. Everyone thought they were brilliant by shining a light on poverty or something.... Really, they were just privileged asshole kids with savior complexes waving money in front of people who didn't have the option to turn it down; only to put these people on display in school galleries where the subject of the photo would never be allowed.
- Fricken 4y agoIn documentary we don't typically pay people anything to tell us their life stories.
- busterarm 4y agoBut Mark does pay his subjects.
- stackola 4y agoWould it be better if he didn't?
- concinds 4y agoWould it be more ethical not to pay? I don't get it. Interview them for free, you're making money without compensating them. Interview them and give them part, you're exploiting them by underpaying them. Interview them and give them all profits, you're enabling their addiction. Give away the non-ad revenue, you're just abusing a tax writeoff. Don't give it away, you're enriching yourself. Your economic ideology seems quite fluid, and seems to lack internal consistency.
- treis 4y agoGets murky when we're talking about prostitutes that funnel their money to/get it stolen by pimps. Also gets murky when we're talking about drug addicts who are going to use that money to buy drugs. Also gets murky when we're talking about people that are under the influence of drugs. They probably don't want a video out there of them blasted to the moon if they ever get clean.
- brokenmachine 4y agoYou would be shocked to learn how many of your coworkers use their paycheck to buy drugs.
- zarzavat 4y agoIt’s not exploitative to pay people for their time. It’s basic decency. There’s three options for remuneration. 1. Pay nothing 2. Pay them for their time 3. Give them a large cut If the contention is that they may be junkies then 3 is probably not a great idea, better to give the money to charity. If the contention is that it’s exploitation then surely 2 is less exploitative than 1. In the end, giving people a voice who don’t have one currently is the complete opposite of exploitation.
- graderjs 4y agoSo these people shouldn't have a voice (be able to participate in any way in the commercial system the rest of us created), because we find their economic engagements to be "morally repugnant"? And yet the only "voice" they should have, should be permitted to have, is relegated to playing their accepted parts in the sex/vice industry their only "moral crime" is to talk about? Basically we want to mediate their economics and not allow them to speak up outside of the roles we want to put them in to. And we're going to pretend to justify we're doing that, in "their best interest", tacitly projecting the lies that: "we know what's best for them", and we get to decide their autonomy, not them. So, on the one hand, we decry the fact that they seem to lack power and agency, while willingly with the other hand we strip them of what agency and power they do have by saying, "shut up, don't spend your money on that, this is for your own good." Sounds fucked up and abusive to me. The people should talk if they want to. We shouldn't pretend that we know how to mediate that for them. If they want to expand the way they engage economically, and narratively, in society, then I'm not going to step in their way. I think it's good for them, if they want to do it. I think it's good to have their story told. Maybe we're just unhappy their voices reveal our hypocrisy? Maybe should you think it through before you find a way to condemn-label something that perhaps you're just a little uncomfortable with. Examine yourself first, rather than projecting onto them, trying to further limit their access, is my unsolicited advice. Thanks
- socialismisok 4y agoI think the parent is suggesting they should be paid more.
- graderjs 4y agoHmm, maybe. But I'm sure there's current of attitude, that some people have, where people think, any payment in exchange for narrative from the classes of the "downtrodden" is simply exploitation but I think that is both a disempowering perpetuation of an incorrect stereotype that tries to rob people of agency, plus a tactic of the upper classes to keep people down. But then again even giving voice to class itself may be an incorrect stereotype that's disempowering. Uuhh...It's difficult to find the right language but I think we should just see people as people. And that's what I'm really speaking to here even if I'm not replying to the intention of the parent comment, it doesn't matter: what I'm saying is still valuable and important.
- snshn 4y ago
- busterarm 4y agoYou claim I don't do anything to help people with addiction without evidence, Does the dark side of the moon not exist because we can't see it? First of all, you don't know shit. Second of all, I don't have to do anything to justify myself to you. Third of all, I've lost more friends to addiction and have helped more addicts recover than you have had birthdays. Shut the fuck up when grown folks is talking.
- snshn 4y ago
- dang 4y agoPosting like this will get you banned here, regardless of how bad or wrong someone else's comments are or you feel they are. Please review the site guidelines and don't do this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 4y agoPosting like this will get you banned here, regardless of how bad or wrong someone else's comments are or you feel they are. Please review the site guidelines and don't do this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jayski 4y agoHe's also saying on the video linked by OP, that he donates 100% of all revenue back into these troubled communities. I get a feeling a lot of the people criticizing him haven't watched the channel. I've seen about 50 videos, and honestly cried with a lot of them. They've made me reevaluate my own life and reconsider how hard life is for others. It has also nudged me to donate time and money to particular communities that struck a chord with me. I think it's great content.
- SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago> He's also saying on the video linked by OP, that he donates 100% of all revenue back into these troubled communities. Sounds like the kind of thing someone would be transparent about. As far as I know, there is no evidence that any of his claims are true. They could be, but he has a huge monetary incentive to lie. Also, his vague language is a bit of a red flag. I put money back into my community when I spend it. But I call that shopping, not altruism.
- Hallucinaut 4y agoIf you're saying there's no evidence in terms of accounting audit for money going to addicts on Skid Row then, well, good luck with that bar of evidence. I have seen him let the Whittaker family buy trolleys full of stuff from Walmart for their house. I have seen that prostitute (Angel maybe?) interviewed a second time after he paid for her rent and gave her money multiple times after the first video and it turned out she was just giving it to her pimp (and she doesn't refute any of this on camera). So does he deserve total faith based trust, no, but it's easy to see enough of his videos where they are clearly benefiting from the funds and that's probably enough for many of us to say it's net positive.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago>As far as I know, there is no evidence that any of his claims are true. Perhaps you should spend 5 minutes researching what you know nothing about before you opine about it. In particular, there is a poor, inbred family in Appalachia that he has visited (and befriended) several times over the years and that the funds he raised have helped them move from their dilapidated trailer into an actual house, among other things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRY41kF_0Oc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRY41kF_0Oc
- dopidopHN 4y agoI don’t known that channel so I listen to the intro. He mention give back 100% back the « community » Is that person having troubled relationship with percentage ? ( real question , I think I heard about that channel once before )