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Joseph Scarbrough launched what he called "The Scarblog" as a way of cataloging his work over the years, as well as going into greater detail of things on his mind (known as "Unfinished Thoughts").

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Oh, the Rage of the Upper Class. . . . **UPDATE**

This is something of a follow up to my previous post, because something similar is happening again, and as a result, much of the internet is all abuzz . . . again.

So, again, these huge YouTube channels whine and belly-ache about how YouTube keeps screwing them over and how they're losing subscribers . . . even though they have millions and millions of subscribers (which, for them, is hardly a dent), and it sets off a wave of reaction across the internet. So how come whenever I try to speak out about the real struggles of smaller channels, like mine, who have been screwed over by YouTube for years (at least since 2013 for some of us), I get attacked for it? It's bad enough that YouTube has been screwing over the smaller channels, but why must we also be shunned by much of the rest of the internet for it? For these idiots, their response is always the same: if your channel is small, it's automatically because "you suck," but what they don't realize is that our channels are small because YouTube isn't doing anything to help the smaller channels grow, because they keep posturing and pandering to the huge channels with millions of subscribers, like Casey Neistat, or PewDiePie. YouTube has restricted a number of basic features (namely tags) from small channels, and will only unlock these features unless you reach a certain number of subscribers (in some cases, the minimum requirement is 100,000). Case in point: now that I've recently passed 100 subscribers (wow, that only took five years), I'm now able to add watermarks to my content without having to add my own when editing prior to upload.

But again, it's so pathetic and cringeworthy that huge channels with millions of subscribers whine about losing views, losing subscribers, and losing traffic, when their losses are insignificant compared to smaller channels: from my own experiences, I went from getting about or over a hundred views and up to ten or so comments within the first twenty-four hours of uploading a new video, to barely up to twenty views and maybe a couple of generic comments within the first week of a new upload since about 2013 or so. Much like if the wealthy lose a little money, they still have a considerable amount to certainly keep them afloat, but when working class loses a little money, that puts a real cramp on their very livelihoods. So really, there's no reason for big channels to make such a spectable about their losses when there's smaller channels out there that are truly struggling.

I was recently rewatching James Rolfe's CINEMASSACRE 200 documentary, in which although he's been filmmaking since he was a kid, he had very little options of having his work be seen until he started sharing on the internet; in his own words, he says, "I proved that the internet is the best place to get stuff seen, and is the ultimate form of exposure." Well, that may have been true during the infancy of CineMassacre, and other similar channels and companies like Channel Awesome (both of which actually put work and effort into their content, and therefore, rightly deserve their millions of subscribers), but this isn't the case anymore for much of the internet. The internet seems to be very picky-choosy about what can be accepted and successful, and in the current state of YouTube, it's become clear that the only kinds of videos that are considered worthy of attention are trend videos - this is what YouTube has pretty much been reduced to: various challenges, vlogs, reviews, top 10s, trivia, etc. There's virtually no more room for originality on YouTube, or the internet in general  . . . I can certainly remember VAMPIRE GIRL going ignored during its initial run on SmackJeeves, because readers of SmackJeeves webcomics are apparently only interested in Westernized Manga, stolen video game sprites, and LGBT comics. If James wasn't already a major internet celebrity by way of Angry Video Game Nerd, do you think any of his horror-comedy films and shorts would merit any kind of reaction on the internet today if he were entirely an unknown newcomer? I don't think so.
(Watch CINEMASSACRE 200 - much of what James did to make his earliest films is basically what I had to do in my own early days.)

I know I'm paraphasing much of what I'm saying in my previous post, but this issue really needs more addressing, and more eyes should be open to the smaller channels out there, and all of this should be able to be addressed without being attacked for it. Let's see some sympathy and some support for the smaller channels who are really struggling for a change.

UPDATE December 19, 2016
So, here it is a week and a half after the fact, and PewDiePie has pretty much admitted that deleting his channel (or, evidently, one of his channels, which I'll get to in a bit) was all just a big publicity stunt, but he adds that, "that was the whole joke." I'm sorry, but, how, exactly, is this even a joke? I honestly can't comprehend this . . . it does not compute. He went on record saying, "if your channel is dying, just pull a P.R. stunt."

First of all, how is a channel with millions and millions of subscribers a dying channel? How? As someone with a struggling small channel, I honestly cannot comprehend, compute, nor fathom how a channel that already had roughly 40,000,000+ subscribers - with millions and millions of views and likes per video, is a dying channel. It makes absolutely no sense or logic whatsoever.

Secondly, it turns out that he did not delete his main channel, but apparently a second channel that he had (and evidently, a "less popular" one at that), which begs the question why does he need more than one channel? Come to think of it, why do any of these YouTube celebrities even need more than one channel anyway? Shane Dawson has like three different channels . . . why? I don't even really see why Adam the Woo (who I did, actually, used to be a fan of) needs two different channels, either - can't he post his daily vlogs on the same channel as he posts his other videos? I don't need another channel to upload non-puppetry related videos, nor do I need a separate channel just for Steve D'Monster . . . so, what do these people need multiple channels for anyway?

Thirdly . . . I'm sorry, you're calling this a "P.R. stunt"? Uh-huh. Well, here's the thing. Smaller channels are dying, they really are, you know why? Because we can't get millions and millions of subscribers like these people have . . . I really don't have to go into details again like I have already, do I? About how YouTube has been screwing over smaller channels for years, and just continues to do so more and more with each passing year? Yeah, I already covered that; no need to go over it again. But here's the thing: if smaller channels try something like this, the reaction is accusations of shamelessly and desperately crying for attention, and that just makes matters worse.

With all that being said, I can see that reaction from people regarding PewDiePie's so-called publicity stunt is mostly negative, and most people are annoyed and ticked off by it, so I guess that says something. But still, when you have millions and millions of subscribers, views, and likes, you are not a "dying" channel. If your viewcount goes from a hundred or so views within the first twenty-four hours of a new upload to up to twenty views within the first week of a new upload, then you're a dying channel.

1 comment:

  1. At least you have something going for you, Mike, that a lot of these larger channels don't: your channel actually contains interesting content. A lot of these big channels are simply people who sit around and talk about what's going on in their daily lives . . . not even sure why people would find something like that interesting - I guarantee you, if I sat around and talked about myself everyday, not only would my channel be shut down, but people would be dead from boredom in no time (heck, I'd even bore myself).

    That aside, I found your channel completely by accident earlier this year when the video you shared of the initial encounter with Typhon popped up in my recommended, and I've been closely following this investigation ever since. So like I say, the videos and content you post are actually engaging and you certainly keep me wanting more.

    Thanks for the comment!

    ReplyDelete