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Great read. I think the shift in internet culture towards everyone being an “expert” in their domain as opposed to sharing their experience (or sharing “vibes”

Great read. I think the shift in internet culture towards everyone being an “expert” in their domain as opposed to sharing their experience (or sharing “vibes” if you will) has been very toxic. One example: was talking to my cousin the other day, there was a YouTube feature she misses called video replies. Around the 2010s, that feature was used in hair and makeup communities to share videos purely about an experience or journey. So you wouldn’t necessarily be reviewing a product for general purpose, just saying “this is how I used this thing and how it worked for me.” Now? It is so (potentially) lucrative to be an influencer making normative statements that not doing so seems pointless, even looked down upon as possibly spreading misinformation. Something critical has been lost.

theshrike79 3y ago
And now we have "reaction videos" where a more famous internet celebrity with millions of followers watches random funny videos and gets paid for it - while the actual creators don't get anything.
- femiagbabiaka 3y ago
  Yes, this feels like an obvious gap -- although of course the incentive will be to create videos that are easily reacted to -- in fact it already is.
- DiabloD3 3y ago
  But it is well known that these "reaction videos" are largely fake, and the creators are operating an advanced ad revenue scam, and somehow producing fake views on YouTube and not getting caught (or at least, YouTube is not publicly speaking about this, and most likely knows internally). Either YouTube is going to ban them and try to claw back literally years of money from them, or this is going to explode in the news in the next 2-3 years and Google is going to have to explain to their largest advertisers where their money went.
  - theshrike79 3y ago
    We'll see how that goes. There's some really interesting Youtube drama going on where a literal multimillionaire Twitch streamer/Youtuber doxxed another Youtuber by streaming their actual home while standing on their front yard. Something that's extremely illegal by Californian law. But the offending internet-celebrity has a habit of not being affected by any kind of lawsuits because they bring in millions of viewers (34M viewers on Youtube) and are too good for business to actually kick off the platform.

theshrike79 3y ago

And now we have "reaction videos" where a more famous internet celebrity with millions of followers watches random funny videos and gets paid for it - while the actual creators don't get anything.

femiagbabiaka 3y ago
Yes, this feels like an obvious gap -- although of course the incentive will be to create videos that are easily reacted to -- in fact it already is.
DiabloD3 3y ago
But it is well known that these "reaction videos" are largely fake, and the creators are operating an advanced ad revenue scam, and somehow producing fake views on YouTube and not getting caught (or at least, YouTube is not publicly speaking about this, and most likely knows internally). Either YouTube is going to ban them and try to claw back literally years of money from them, or this is going to explode in the news in the next 2-3 years and Google is going to have to explain to their largest advertisers where their money went.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  We'll see how that goes. There's some really interesting Youtube drama going on where a literal multimillionaire Twitch streamer/Youtuber doxxed another Youtuber by streaming their actual home while standing on their front yard. Something that's extremely illegal by Californian law. But the offending internet-celebrity has a habit of not being affected by any kind of lawsuits because they bring in millions of viewers (34M viewers on Youtube) and are too good for business to actually kick off the platform.